WHEN the Olympic flame arrives from Greece in just over a year’s time it could start its journey to London from the top of the Clisham, that big lump of rock that not only physically separates Lewis from Harris but marks the difference between two radically different ways of life.
About 8,000 runners in all will take the flaming torch from Olympia to London via the Hebrides so as many of the population as possible will be within an hour’s drive of it. So, if the residents of Rodel in South Harris aren’t to be left out at the very start, and that would never do, then it all has to kick off on An Cliseam, to give the hill its proper Gaelic name.
Unless Lord Coe decides to start it in Barra, in which case Castlebay is in for a busy time. Or unless the man formerly known as Sebastian completely disregards the bid by the Western Isles to kick off the UK end, in which case you can disregard everything I have written so far.
However, I have a sneaking feeling the chairman of the London organising committee for the Olympic Games won’t do that. After all, he came up to visit us here in the Western Isles last May to have a good look round. Why was that, do you think?
Some scurrilous observers reckoned it was just a charm offensive so those in far-flung places wouldn’t feel left out and that it didn’t mean anything. However, they didn’t know about the ample charms of the islanders who met him and toiled to make his stay memorable.
Is the life peer likely to forget how he was fabulously entertained by Councillor Annie Macdonald? Annie told me recently she was hopeful she made a big impression on him. They were together at sunrise, she revealed. No, no, no; I didn’t want to know any more, cousin Annie.
Co?
It was a working breakfast, she added. Oh, that’s all right then. Phew. It’s in the bag.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear they’re going to build another Olympic village here on Lewis. Now, where would be most suitable? How about . . . Laxay? Isn’t that where Annie stays? Gosh, I hadn’t thought of that.
After all, the man in ermine will need some excuse to come and lap up more of Annie’s full Scottish with extra black puddings.
It is these same black puddings, or marags, as we call them here, which now threaten the peaceful co-existence of the two races that are separated by the Clisham. For some unearthly reason, our council bigwigs thought it would be a mega idea to get all island producers of black puddings marketed under the label of Stornoway Black Pudding. The officials were so smug for having come up with the idea. They all went around patting themselves on the back. Clever ploy, they thought, which follows the famous KISS maxim. Keep It Simple, Stupid.
And it was precisely that – stupid.
Why would pudding-makers in Harris and Ness fall over themselves to have their own areas’ names expunged and their efforts flogged as that of their bitter rivals, the lah-di-dah townies? Yeah, right.
A.D. Munro, in Tarbert, proudly claims to use a secret family recipe for his tasty, big, black ones. Of course, we Leodhasachs suspect it was vastly improved by an additional set of instructions smuggled over the Clisham by his son-in-law, Hecco.
Everyone knows it takes a Lewisman who has grown up in the land of the doosh, that bundle of pungent offal necessary for turning out genuine homemade marags of which all shop-bought ones are mere imitations, to get the mix just right.
My mother used to say you needed big sheep blood, good guts and a combination of herbs and spices that she would reveal only to someone she was about to kill. Don’t think Mammy Maciver did get done for murder, as far as I can remember.
When Hearachs go on about the wonderful taste and consistency of A.D.’s, we nod sagely. We know what’s what. We’ll just let them think that it’s all their own work. Say no more, Hecco. My lips are sealed.
In any case, Mr Munro blew a gasket – as any vaguely-sane person knew he would.
He’s a Hearach, for goodness sake. And we all know how bolshie they can be. I should know; I somehow ended up married to a half-Hearach – always wanting to get her own way. Buy me this, buy me that. She’s been demanding a new chest freezer for a year now. No way.
Meanwhile, up in Ness, marag merchant Rona Morrison, of Cross Stores, was, well, cross.
“We would rather retain the Ness black pudding than have it lumped in with the Stornoway label,” she raged. So there.
Rona, “lumped in” is a very descriptive phrase. Are you somehow suggesting that the famous product of Church Street, Westview Terrace, Francis Street and Ropework Park has less of a smooth consistency than that to be found in the land that brought us the guga mousse? I think we should be told.
Poor Murdo Mackay, the council’s marag dubh development officer, has been forced to abandon the plan. Methinks a fierce war could be about to break out.
The townie snobs in Stornoway tried to trample over the feelings of these honest, hard-working maw marag makers and things could be about to get very, very bloody.
As I said, my own wife has Harris blood in her. Someone of Harris extraction can be very hard to keep. All she can talk about is the chest freezer. Have you seen the price of these things?
But I surprised her the other night when I rolled in from the pub and announced I’d got her a chest freezer at last.
Aw, it was lovely to see the look of sheer astonishment on her wee face – just after I popped the ice-cube down the top of her jumper.
