drunken memories



As a child I spent a lot of time in Scotland. My father’s sister lived there and she happened to be married to my father’s best friend. Therefore, every single break we had we would drive up to Scotland to see them. It was always an adventure. It always seemed to be snowing to the extent that we would never be able to get into the street that my aunt lived in, and if we did happen to venture up during the summer months there was always talk of the Loch Ness Monster and how we may see it as we passed by. I loved those trips and never realised at the time that my aunt was a narrow minded dependent who could not drive and showed no ambition to travel, to learn, to discover, or even to understand how to use a bank machine. I feared her because she was an authoritarian. And still Scotland remained magical and mystical to me. The first time that I visited, in my excitement, I walked my cousin to school – Scottish school holidays were different to ours so she still had a week or so before her holidays  – the Scottish kids saw my mere presence as an act of war and as soon as we were within sight of the school my cousin warned me that I should stop, turn around, and go home. I saw it as some form of adventure... not realising at the time just how much hatred those Scottish boys felt towards me. My cousin was a very pretty girl and was immensely popular at her school, she had many male pursuers, and as a result, a boy arriving from England, a boy who was living with this girl for his holidays and was walking her to school (even though he was the cousin of this girl) was the mortal enemy... he was English and was invading the land and the hearts of these boys... they wanted blood. Stupidly, I smiled and ventured closer believing that I could change their minds. Suddenly, a mob ran towards me. I could see the hatred in their eyes and so I turned and ran. I escaped and did not return. For many years afterwards I dreamt I was in the Scottish hills and that I was engaging in some form of competition representing England against the Scots. Never the less, to this day, I love the Scottish for their outsider ways. They are forever the underdog, the misunderstood, the outsider. They are a people I believe we can learn a lot from.

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