When the rope swing reached its arc, giving virtually a bird’s eye view of the Kyles of Bute and the Burnt Islands below, with the calm waters of Loch Ruel snaking into the Highlands ahead, I was reminded what a special place the Isle of Bute is. I didn’t think that as a teenager growing up there, especially after the last cinema closed leaving the island even more of a cultural desert. Now, with each return visit, I realise what an inspirational island it is, especially for a writer.
The swing over the Kyles.
As the ferry from the mainland glides into Rothesay Bay, the imposing Victorian façade of the Glenburn Hotel dominates the scene. It’s an elegant first impression for new visitors, for me a building full of ghosts, both of the past and the spirit kind. Working for a short period as a young night porter, there were sufficient strange occurrences, especially when the hotel closed in the winter, to have me taking the supernatural seriously. This opinion earned me a slap around the head from the manager Big Bob when I requested to be moved off nights and onto days because of the ‘ghosts.’ The old hotel alone holds enough stories for any number of books.
The steamship The Waverley with the Victorian Glenburn Hotel behind – probably much the same as if taken half a century ago.
Swinging above the wonderfully named Buttock Hill was inspirational in a different way. It was the first time I’d been on that spot, and what a beauty spot it is. As someone whose job has been to write about scenic areas around Europe, I’ve experienced plenty of stunners over the years. The view from that swing could easily slot in beside them.
A dream of a view.
What was particularly interesting for me is that in the first of two books I’ve written based on a fictional Scottish island (both completed but still being tinkered with), four teenage friends head out on an expedition across the more remote part of the island they live on. Their quest is to take a tiny pontoon ferry to the mainland to visit a faerie circle which is home to a mythical monster, the one-eyed, one-legged, club-bearing fachan. Swinging out above the hillside had me imagining my characters yomping across the countryside below.
Andy descending into the fake bunker.
Near the swing is a concrete bunker, part of a decoy village built in WWII to try to lure German bombers away from Clydebank and Greenock. I knew about the fake village but had never seen it. Because it’s such an intriguing feature, I included a reference to a decoy village in the second book, also adding a smattering of abandoned crofters’ cottages. Oddly enough, shortly after we left the bunker to drop through the forest, we encountered the crumbling remains of some cottages I didn’t know existed.
That second novel involves a conflict between locals and incomers. I’m interested in the way ‘incomers’ are treated anywhere because for much of my adult life, I’ve been the incomer. It gives a different perspective. Plus, identifying who is an ‘incomer’ isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. Take a pin and stick in various points in the past and the answer changes. The USA is a topical example of this. Looking at it this way gives licence to mess around with people’s perceptions.
It is a pretty cool way to return to the place where I grew up.
Then there’s also the angle of going back somewhere after a long time away. In the book, the main character returns to the island he fled from twenty years earlier. Does he see it through the same eyes or ones influenced by experiences elsewhere?
The answer is a mix of both.
While we were on Bute, there was an experience which had me questioning whether decades living elsewhere had knocked me out of step with the island’s personality. Andy and I met up with two of my oldest friends in a recently renovated bar. From the moment we ordered drinks from a surly barmaid, the feeling was one of not fitting in. My pals were already settled at a table for four, yet shortly after our arrival, a woman with an expression which would have Medusa glancing away, muscled in, physically bumping one of my mates out of the way, before scowling as though it were the other way around.
‘Maybe we were in her usual seat,’ he offered as way of explanation.
The bar only opened two weeks earlier.
On the other side, an inebriated young man was getting quite narky with the two girls he was with. All in all, it wasn’t the most welcoming environment. We had one drink and left, moving on to a different, yet also relatively new establishment, one populated by people whose easy smiles and relaxed manner created an atmosphere of the sort I’m more accustomed to.
Where we relocated to after a drink in Bar Grump.
My first thought was time away had maybe spoiled me, making me feel uneasy in a bog-standard Scottish pub. But then, because of the company I was in, I was transported back to the days when we were known as The Freak Show. As twenty-year-olds, we’d have done exactly the same. We’d have skedaddled out of that bar pronto. There were always pubs on the island we’d never frequent because we didn’t like the vibe. Anywhere with a hint of aggro, we were out of there. It was a useful reminder that one local’s approach to island living doesn’t always match another’s. And ours, The Freak Show, was not the same as plenty of others, hence the name attached to us. In the end, we enjoyed a night out which evoked more memories of the past. Maybe not so wild, but with similar levels of nonsense.
Bute’s Gothic masterpiece.
And all of it, from exploring a remote and stunningly beautiful part of the island to going on a bar crawl around Rothesay, the main town, gets the creative cogs whirring away. And I haven’t even mentioned visiting the Gothic mansion which is a perfect lair for a vampirical count, or encountering a silver alien portal in the forest.
