IT WOULD often take a last-minute panic just before a court appearance for island men to dash into Murdo Maclean’s, the menswear shop of distinction in downtown Stornoway.
Being the nearest menswear outlet to the sheriff court it was rather handy back then. If, just for example, you had been summoned before His Lordship to answer difficult questions.
Maybe, just maybe, you were due to account for several salmon found on the back seat of your car during a routine stop by the highway patrol somewhere between Garynahine and Achmore.
Skiving off work for an hour, you turned up at the court on Lewis Street and would invariably find other unfortunates who had been in the dock already.
They would be hanging around by Bain Morrison, the builders’ merchants across the road, to see if their partners in crime had also escaped a stretch at Her Majesty’s pleasure.
If those well-informed coves said the old codger on the bench was in a foul mood, it was often thought a good ploy to scrub up and somehow acquire a suit, but hastily. That, according to the wisdom of the time, would help impress the sheriff that you were taking the entire process terribly seriously.
So there was nothing else for it but a rapid sprint down Francis Street and into Murdo Maclean’s. It even had a handy back entrance on Kenneth Street for just such emergencies.
It was all over in a flash: a quick tickle of the inside leg, hand over 20 nicker – which you might just happen to have on you from the sale of other fresh fish – and Bob’s your uncle.
Within minutes you were fixed up with a very Presbyterian-looking worsted wool two-piece, the cheapest tie in the shop and a shirt which stabbed you as you galloped back to court. New shirts were always full of sharp pins, but you were in such a hurry you had left them all in.
It happened to me only once. I was admonished because it wasn’t actually my car and there was no reason for me to check on what was lying on the back seat before I took it for a spin, your honour.
So perhaps the frantic dash for clobber did work.
It all happened a long time ago, of course, but another emergency had me running into the same shop the other day. Blind panic had set in after I happened to try on my trusty old suit and found that, for some strange reason, it had inexplicably shrunk. I could hardly turn up at Joanne and Angus’s wedding at the weekend in a whistle and flute so tight that it was stopping the blood from reaching my vitals.
Just like then, there’s still a fine selection of suits in the shop; some reasonably priced and others that would need a mortgage.
Trying on the various rig-outs, I was back and fore to the fitting-room. Mrs X was helping me choose. Then I came out of the fitting-room to find her rabbiting away 10 to the dozen saying that this should have been sorted out weeks ago; how I was so disorganised; how it always was left for her to do, and so on. But there was no one else near her.
“Er, I’m over here, honey. Who are you talking to?”
It turned out there was a mannequin up at the top end of the shop, just past the suits, and, seeing it only out of the corner of her eye, she thought it was me. So she nagged it.
It is an easy mistake to make; I don’t talk back, either.
Mortified, she was only concerned that someone might have overheard her telling the mannequin that he still had to cut the grass when she got him home.
Ever sympathetic, I was merciless, asking my red-faced spouse if she had been on the cooking sherry and wondering if she was cracking up.
Recovering from the embarrassment, she pointed out that it was not the first time that day she had got no sense out of a dummy. I shut up at that point.
I did think at one stage that I would wind up the shop staff like a mate of mine did in London. He went into a fitting-room and soon afterwards shouted: “Hullo. There’s no toilet roll in here. Can you get me some, please?”
The sight of the snooty manager gingerly approaching the fitting-room with a toilet roll, a mop and bucket and a giant bottle of disinfectant kept us amused for months.
No, no. I wouldn’t do that to the staff in Murdo Maclean’s. Although, as I was leaving, I did announce loudly that I had inadvertently left my underpants in the fitting-room.
Appalled, Mrs X urged me to go and get them quickly before anyone else went in. I replied that as the staff had been so kind and helpful to us they could just have them as a present.
We all had a great time at the wedding. Joanne looked radiant and Angus looked, well, sober. The whole shebang was, of course, planned in the way that all good weddings should be – by making the guests suffer.
The service was in Tarbert with the reception about as far away as it is possible to go – Great Bernera. By making them travel so much, they will be tired and also have an almighty distance to go at the end of the night. They will be too tired to fight. There is always that risk when you mix people from Bernera and Harris – and, worst of all, Breasclete.
It brought it all back for me and Mrs X. Just 13 years ago to the day, we, too, got hitched in the same church and danced the night away in the very same hall.
Forgive me, I am getting moist just thinking of all those years of happiness. And then I went and did something like that.
