ADA       The MacDonald's trying to get their own back      (Aug 2005)

A year ago Beryl and I had a coach holiday on Skye.  Nice hotel but on one occasion Beryl was going to take a bath.  She ran the water and in her horror called me.  The water looked rather like it had been pumped out of the local cess pit.  Besides the markedly brown hue, there were a myriad of tiny speck in the water.  Having visited the Scottish Highlands before I knew that there was no danger in the water despite its evil appearance.  Peat (or the Irish like to call it "turf") pervades all the mains water.  I couldn't persuade Beryl to use the water, so she had a wash in the handbasin.  The smaller quantity of brown water didn't look quote so daunting.

On the journey home we crossed what I think is the Great Glen.  The main road, although fairly straight, is very narrow.  Two coaches can pass with great care.  We had just passed a side road to our left signed "Glencoe".  Nowadays it is a village renowned for a pub named the Clachaig Inn, that has the sign outside "No Dogs. No Campbells""   For the uninitiated, this was the site of a very nasty event in the 17th century.  In February the 13th 1692 "The Massacre of Glencoe" took place.  The BBC history site has the story told in a little less derogatory manner than the usual tale.

We had been following a continental lorry that was travelling very slowly.  Our driver was getting quite frustrated on this very straight but narrow piece of road.  He decided to overtake..  I was about three seats back from the front at the time.  The driver claimed afterwards that the lorry had pulled out a bit as we were level with it.  I think this could well have been true as many left-hand-drive vehicles from the Continent do not have a rear-view mirror on their right side.  Whatever the lead-up to the event was, the offside wheels of the coach ended up in the mud of the opposite verge a few feet from a ditch.  The driver hurt his shoulder holding the coach from going into the ditch, where we would certainly have turned over.

All the passengers got out and stood by the roadside while the driver made further attempts at getting the coach out of the mire.  When it finally became obvious that the coach was digging its own grave, the driver gave up.  There'd been a lot of traffic pass in both directions.  The driver flagged down a number of cars travelling in our direction and asked their drivers to take us passengers a couple at a time to a pub half a mile further down the road.  We got our lift to the pub.  We had lunch at the hostelry, and the police arrived to question us.  I told one copper that it was a MacDonald spirit that had put a fluence on the driver.  He laughed and said it was OK now, as he too was a Campbell.

Apparently the police had been called, perhaps by the company who were called by the driver to haul the coach of of the mud.  The police also refused to let our driver proceed until the coach had been inspected by a mechanic for possible damage to its suspension.  We were very late back home after an eventful day.