Pt3 - 16:
THE MAWD ON MULL
When the road to Oban wasn’t tracing the rim of a loch it hugged the low coastline. So many islands of all shapes and sizes dotted the sparkling sea it may as well have been a lake anyway. I haven’t gazed upon an empty ocean since Durness. And I think I’ve become so blase about the breathtaking scenery it’s almost failing to register. In fact, it occurred to me as the kilometers clicked over that after more than two hundred days on the road the act of travelling has entered another phase. The first month or so it was an exciting novelty then, without us realising, it became a lifestyle. At some point, probably when we chunneled across to England, it evolved into a way of life. It’s a fine distinction tied to the culture you’re embedded in. In non-English speaking societies, and in Muslim countries where the language, customs and daily rituals are so radically different from your native experience, every waking moment is a challenge, every action requires translation, research and careful planning. You’re in a perpetual state of hyper-awareness, your mind fully engaged whether you’re ordering a coffee in Egypt, shopping for groceries in Israel, negotiating accommodation in Turkey, hiring a car in Greece, scanning a bus timetable in Czech. Gaasperplatz was an object lesson in what happens when you drop your guard even for a moment. Now, in the bosom of a familiar culture, you’re liberated from the intense minute-by-minute concentration required just to fulfil basic needs, to navigate your very survival. The routines rise to the surface; if you’re not mindful there’s a real risk of just going through the motions, of looking but not seeing, of hearing but not listening, of losing that sense of wonder and taking it all for granted. Worse still, you can lose your sense of humour.
Another trap I’ve fallen into, easy here, is losing myself in the landscape at the expense of the people. Yes Scotland’s scenery inspires awe, but rocks is rocks and lochs is lochs; it’s the people who create a culture, who cast the stories and ultimately define your experience of a country.
I arrived in Oban resolved to retune.
Oban’s a pretty little port town, its small harbour busy with the comings and goings of CalMac ferries servicing the islands of the Inner Hebrides. I’m destined for Mull tomorrow, for two main reasons:
as compensation for missing the opportunity the visit the Orkneys because of the fearsome weather and, even more importantly,
I won’t have to drive anywhere!
*
There was time before the ferry sailed to climb the hill behind town for uninterrupted views of Oban from the delightfully nutty McCaig’s Tower. It’s not actually a tower, in fact it’s never been completed so it’s little more than an endearing folly ludicrously out of scale with the wee town huddling beneath it and aesthetically out of sync with its lush surroundings. Originally conceived as a grand art gallery, McCaig got as far as the external walls and that’s it. Stone bordered paths meander through lawns and gardens both without and within the three-tiered grey stone walls, which form a Colosseum-style circular footprint. It must be 50 meters in diameter, with a crenellated main entrance gate and glassless Gothic windows; medieval meets ancient Roman like chocolate meets sausages.
The sun smiled on the one hundred and ten minute cruise across to the terminal at Craignure on Mull. As I boarded the bus to the capital Tobermory the driver asked, “You’re no wi’ a choir are ye?”
“No,” I said, “Just visiting.” We stopped outside a hotel in Salen and twenty Scots got on. A big moustachioed man in a pleated tartan, a sporran with furry bits dangling off it and the sculpted handle of a dagger poking conspicuously out the top of his right sock sat down next to me and immediately began to lilt along with the Highlands tape playing on the bus sound system. He had a scar running down his right cheek and looked like he’d stepped out of a time warp from the battlefield of Culloden. He asked the driver for the cassette cover, read it thoughtfully and handed it back, then began to scan the sheet music he unrolled from his hairy fist, all the while humming along melodiously with the tape. I thought it best not to distract him with conversation.
Just by the by: it’s one of the many things I love about Scotland that a grown man with hairy legs can front a bar dressed in a pleated skirt with matching accessories and not draw the slightest attention. On the flip side, I've never understood how a species capable of producing a Vivaldi and an Einstein and landing a man on the moon can also produce a Stalin and a Hitler...and invent golf.
The bus passed through the seasons three times between Salen and Tobermory. My design of taking a leisurely stroll around town and maybe some of the hinterland began to look ambitious so I resigned myself to hanging out in the pub with my book, Paul Theroux’s The Pillars of Hercules. The first threshold I crossed in Tobermory, then, was the doorway of the Macdonald Arms. I ordered a coffee and retired to the farthest corner with Theroux. Within minutes I was surrounded by Scots. I scanned the place and realised every man, woman and child but me was formally dressed and weren’t just here for a couple of single malts. Something was definitely afoot in Tobermory.
The coffee arrived in a large cup with a small espresso pot on top, something I hadn’t seen since Israel and a strangely cosmopolitan touch in this small provincial town. Suddenly I sneezed and an older lady sitting along from me said, “Bless you!” - as Scots often do. I seized the moment and asked her what the occasion was.
“There’s a mawd,” she answered with a broad smile.
“Sorry, what’s that word?” I guessed it must be some kind of competition.
“A mawd. M…O…D. It’s a Gaelic word,” she beamed, and went on to explain it’s the Scottish equivalent of the Welsh eisteddfod. This was a provincial mod, with nine choirs and a host of solo performers. She was very friendly and I promised to listen to her choir perform in the town hall at 1.30.
The pub emptied as quickly as it had filled. I followed the crowd, stepping out into a cool but sunny day. The perpetual low cloud of Scottish skies hovered above a calm sea. I liked the feel of the waterfront; strongly coloured facades gave the little port a faintly Mediterranean feel. I even liked the fake keyed brickwork painted around the windows. By the time I’d wandered the length of the promenade it was almost time for the choir so I doubled back to the town hall, brought a program for two quid and took a seat. The hall was cold and dark, but the locals had gone to a great deal of trouble to brighten the place up with summery flower arrangements.
One night during that first trip to Israel in 1977 the Israeli National Choir paid the kibbutz a cultural visit. I’d never heard a professional choir before and the experience blew me away. At one point they divided themselves, with half moving to the rear of the room, then again with singers on every wall. The power and dynamics of the performance gave me goosebumps. They might have been singing Mary Had a Little Lamb in Hebrew for all it mattered; for the first time I understood the human voice as a musical instrument. This was an especially arresting discovery for one whose singing can peel paint.
That performance was exactly what I wasn’t hearing now. I know it’s an unfair comparison, amateur versus professional, and pretty rich coming from someone whose singing voice is a public nuisance, but it was downright painful. The conductors did their best to compensate for the nervous wavering, though it was clear even to me that those with the most tremulous voices were concentrating least on the director's animated gestures. On the upside, I enjoyed watching the various personalities, from the fidgeters and shufflers to the tone deaf singing too loudly to hear how out of key they were. The adjudication was another level of excruciating.
“Didye like it?” the lovely lady from the Macdonald Arms asked as she passed along the wall beside me. “Very much,” I lied. I waited until she’d left the hall and made my way out.
Determined to give it a fair go, I bought a roll and ate it as I climbed the hill to the Parish Hall where the fiddle comp was about to start. Present were the entrants, the judge, the chairperson, three parents and me. The players were all primary school kids and all girls bar one. They were very brave. I wasn’t, and left after two numbers. Again an odious comparison, but I couldn’t help thinking about those virtuoso kids playing Mozart in Salzburg. Light rain began to fall as I wandered back down the hill. I had a whiskey in a bar near the bus station where a guy played the accordion far too loud.
Back in Oban I dined lavishly at the Step Inn and washed it down with the customary Guinness or three. I sat in the corner writing until I looked up and realised everyone in the bar was watching me suspiciously. What they thought I was doing I have no idea, but I packed up, drained the last Guinness and withdrew.
*
On the way to Stranraer I took a ninety minute detour to Glasgow. It was cold, wet and grey. Many of the commercial spaces in the CBD were vacant, with For Sale or To Rent signs prominently displayed outside. Two weeks after she was laid to rest preparations were underway for a memorial service for Diana in front of the town hall. The period of national mourning is almost exhausted if today's patchy attendance is any guide.
I closed the circle of my time in Scotland as I passed through Girvan en route to Stranraer and the Stena ferry to Belfast.
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