Prince Charles and Camilla came over to see us on Thursday. Marking 100 years of Harris Tweed production, their ceilidh was also a chance to meet some real Hearachs. Some of them are actually very friendly and nothing like the ones who work for the council.
Off to the Bays Centre at Leacklee I went. No sooner there than a buzz went round about another refined lady said to be on the way. What? Why? Who? When?
A woman from Geocrab had overheard a man from the TV saying Cheryl was arriving soon. She asked him if it was that Cheryl, the bonnie lass from the north-east. Who else? he’d replied. Recounting what the lensman told her, Mrs Geocrab grabbed her mobile to call her husband Norman who, she whispered, had a big thing for the lass from Newcastle. When Cheryl did arrive, she looked different somehow. Mrs Geocrab was perplexed.
“Cheryl didn’t look like that on the last X Factor. Her legs have got longer, her hair has got redder and her accent has gone. She’s easier to understand.
“I said, you’re easier to understand, Cheryl, since you got rid of your husband. I’d do the same but the sheep are in Norman’s name. Makes it more difficult with the Crofters Commission.” Cheryl just smiled. Hearachs aren’t easy to understand either.
However, Ms Cole had not had leg extensions after all. This Cheryl was not the Cole one but the longer-limbed correspondent on business and other important things from STV who can be seen most evenings reporting from the windiest places she can find. Her flame-red locks can be seen flying about atop oilrigs, Trump Towers, and now the Bays centre car-park at Leacklee.
Her name’s Cheryl Paul, not Cheryl Cole. She’s not from the north-east of England but she was brought up in Invergordon. That’s north-east-ish.
The dozy cameraman fellow must have got it wrong, I tried to explain to the ladies of the Bays. Cameramen aren’t good with names. They think in pictures. And that one’s from Ranish. “That explains it,” nodded Mrs Geocrab.
Charles and Camilla were delightful. They are always delightful. Delightful is what they do. He was a bit like Cheryl Paul in the Bays breeze, constantly smoothing down his comb-over which rose and fell like the mast of a schooner coming round by Scarp. Not that Ms Paul has a comb-over. No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just that when she’s on an oilrig, for instance, she always … I’ll just stop there, shall I?
We had a bit of a security scare. Bet you never heard about that. I shouldn’t really tell you either but, ach, the royals won’t be back for a while and I think I’m already on the do-not-approach list. It was a certain lady who made the security people fidgety. Not me.
When I say security people, I think most of them were just cops from Northern Constabulary who were told to leave their uniforms at home and come to work in their own plain clothes cars. I’ve been ordered out of some of the finest pubs in the Highlands and islands at closing time by some of these guys. Hi Davie. Nice threads, mate.
Now splogged up in buttoned-up dark two-piece suits like you used to see in J D Williams catalogue, they became jittery when a wee lad from somewhere down Leverburgh way clambered onto the fence and began drawing attention in typical schoolboy fashion.
“Hey mister, do you work for the FBI?” When that was brushed off with a weak smile, he started: “Are all you guys secret agents or what. Wow. I think you’ve a gun in your pocket. Look, I can see it. Go on, show me now. Show me, show me, show me.” Then the brat announced: “I know how to make a bomb, you know”. Well, the spooks’ smiles vanished quicker than pints at closing time when cops come calling.
Give them their due, the security team spotted the real troublemaker long before the royals arrived. She was at the gate and just happened to be talking to me. I thought I recognised her so I was polite, as always. Then she began telling me off about some of the things I write here. Proper ear-bashing I got. They must have realised I’d been set upon. The spooks ordered the potential troublemaker with the yellow jacket inside the gate where they could keep an eye on her for a while. Then she was ordered out onto the road again when the VIPs were due. Good one.
As Charles and Camilla were in the centre, I was accosted again by the yellow peril. She peered at me before she said eerily: “I have come over from the other side.” No. Can’t be. I don’t even believe in ghosts and spooky things – except ones in dark suits with bulges in their pockets – yet here I was in the Bays Centre car-park having a conversation with a real live one. Or is that a real dead one?
The dazzling apparition asked if I knew Stockinish. No, I quivered. I thought to myself the only thing I remember about that place was Mrs X telling me how her Harris granny used to warn the family to keep clear of people from there.
“Promise me faithfully you’ll never marry anyone from Stockinish,” she used to say. “They would steal the milk out of your tea. Terrible, terrible people.” She’d obviously had a bad experience with a lad from there a long time ago. By now I was feeling very strange. I told my ghostly companion straight.
“Here I am talking to someone dressed in bright yellow, who has a Hearach accent and who says she is from the other side. This is really weird.” “Isd, a chlown,” she said. “I’m Rachel Macdonald. I’m from Stockinish but now I live in Ullapool.”
