Monday, December 21, 2020

Tom's Christmas story and song...the top ten 2020 Lockdown Laments and a link to all 33


This is a wee story from my childhood...and a daft new song called The Bernard Matthews Turkey Breast Roast for Two Blues. Remember - Santa WILL make it through.

In April this year I began writing and recording on video songs which were inspired by, or squibs against Covid, lockdown, some of the crazy politics we were being forced to undergo, and life in my adopted home of Shetland. All kinds of incidents, some now forgotten, crept in: the Belgian llama whose blood was going to heal us. Neil Gaiman's flight to Skye. The obsessive buying up of camper vans. People making ventilators at home. And of course, the Trump saga.

There are - and the one above is the last for 2020 - 33 in total. A double album! They vary in quality but on the whole, I think they've been and remain useful. Occasionally tuneful and funny. And angry.

Feel free to dip in and out, select the ones you're most interested in, or ignore. The link to my YouTube channel is...

If you want to start with the top ten most popular (on YouTube, not counting Twitter, IGTV and Facebook views) , here are the YouTube links and some explanations, with dates...

10: Tell it to the Taxman, 30 April. Inspired by the spectacle of multimillionaire tax exiles offering advice and guidance to the NHS. And by the whole "raise charitable funds for the NHS" thing: the NHS is NOT a charity. As the song says, and as the poster of Aneurin Bevan proclaims, "It's a publicly funded entity, free at the point of delivery." Charitable funds are for extras, like toys in playrooms. The Government needs to fund the NHS centrally and properly. Recorded on an iPad Pro using Studio Mini XL (full technical details at the end).
9: Good Omens (Neil's a Runrig Guy) 19 May. The story broke of author Neil Gaiman's bizarre flight from New Zealand to Skye, where he planned to self-isolate, in the wake of various domestic problems and with Covid raging. Sensitivites were, to say the least, aroused. His collaboration with Skye-raised director Douglas McKinnon on the enormously successful TV series Good Omens remains much celebrated. I was going through a lock-down imposed beret period at the time. Blame Richard Thompson.
8: Russia Today 27 July. One of several songs about The Man Who Would Be President Again But Isn't Going To Be. With the precedent set by our own dear Alex, would a slot open up for The Donald on Putin's propaganda TV channel, Russia Today? And other nebulous insults.
7: Six Metres Away 28 June. As we all got used to lockdown, the phenomenon of quarantined love/lust/romance raised its, ah, head. Suddenly we were all Zooming, but using it for social or romantic purposes had its problems. And how did you kiss somebody in real life if they had to be six metres away? Random shagging was not just out of the question. It was downright illegal.
6: Stuck Inside Murano Street With the Lockdown Blues Again 29 September. Students back at colleges and universities for the start of term or fresher's week. A breeding ground for infection and mental health issues, furious and worried parents, and all kinds of shenanigans in students flats. Murano Street is one of the biggest University of Glasgow halls.
5: And God Created Midges 14 August. Not strictly a Lockdown Lament, more a perennial question: why did God create midges? Proud that this was aired on the Fylde Guitars electronic newsletter. It's played on a 1979 Fylde Orsino.
4: I Have Cut My Own Hair 16 June speaks for itself, really. With barbers out of bounds - I've always hated having my hair cut anyway, but want it short - I bought a Remington Quick Cut HC4250 set of clippers (the curved ones) in March and have used them ever since. Best £40 I ever spent. Varying results, but mostly acceptable I think. Though not in this case perhaps.
3: There for You (The Corona Christmas Song) 20 November. Intended as an extremely sinister song indeed. Spoiler alert - it's written from the virus's point of view. My wife much prefers There Will Be Other Christmases and of course there is is the story and song that kicks off this particular and very long post. Always felt that the "Christmas amnesty" was a mistake.
2: Four Seasons Landscaping (Rudi's Anthem) 8 November. The US election had the whole world in anguish and expectation. This was like something out of Morecambe and Wise, and really finished any credible Trump claim that he in any way "won". I have another song about Rudi, but I'm waiting for the legal proceedings to start properly. Against him.
1: Person, Woman, Man, Camera TV 23 July. Runaway winner. Concerning a loser. This was the famous Trump interview when he was accused of having memory loss issues. For what it's worth, medical opinion in our house diagnoses severe learning difficulties.

Technical details: Guitars - Fylde Orsino, Vintage V660, Harmony Monterey, Selmer 222 (my first guitar, got for my 11th birthday!) Breedlove Passport, Pignose electric. Keyboard: Casio SA-75. Amp: Marshal AS50D.

Mostly recorded on an iPhone 6s with a Røde M1 microphone through an iRig Pro interface. Last couple of videos were done with a Zoom Q2N video camera on wide setting (I'm not quite that fat). Edited on iMovie. Multitracks were Studio Mini XL on an iPad Pro, edited using Audio Hijack and Fission.

And if you've enjoyed any of this stuff, maybe you could think about a small donation to homeless charity The Simon Community's #GiveHopeAtChristmas campaign. Thanks. Make of Christmas the best you can, and let's hope for a much better 2021. 




Friday, December 18, 2020

It Tolls for Thee: The Mysterious Death of Donald Robertson

It Tolls for Thee: A Guide to Celebrating and Reclaiming the End of Life

By Tom Morton. Published by Watkins in the UK and USA, 9 February 2021. Available to pre-order



"This is Cross Kirk cemetery in Eshaness, Shetland, a pre-reformation chapel once thought to be a source of miraculous healing, until around 1660 the local church of Scotland minister, one Hercules Sinclair, burned the kirk down in a fury at such pagan notions. The cemetery however, is used  to this day. There's a grave here bearing what  may be Shetland's most famous epitaph:


"Donald Robertson, born 14th January 1785. Died 14th June 1848 aged 63 years. He was a peaceable, quiet man, and to all appearances a sincere Christian. His death was much regretted which was caused by the stupidity of Laurence Tulloch of Clothister (Sullom) who sold him nitre instead of Epsom Salts by which he was killed in the space of five hours after taking a dose of it."


But was there more to it? In my book, I ask if this might have been a case of murder most foul. Laurence Tulloch went on trial for culpable homicide and, though found guilty, he only served 8 days in jail. But… was Donald Robertson murdered due to the close friendship he had with a male housemate. Or with his young servant?


It Tolls for Thee is out on the 9th of February, published by Watkins. You can preorder it now in the usual places."

Wednesday, December 09, 2020

It Tolls for Thee: what my new book is about

A video introduction ( 2 minutes) to my new book, which  contains a lot of the practical material found on the Telling the Story With Love site, but also tells my own story: how a close brush with my own death led to work conducting funerals, how the aftermath of death is dealt with in different cultures and countries,  some amazing stories from and about undertakers. The ultimate rock'n'roll funeral service. And more.

But most of all, this is a book about love.

Thursday, December 03, 2020

There Will Be Other Christmases

We won’t see you this Christmas 

We’re going to spend it on our own 

And I know you’re going to miss us

But I know you’re not alone


And we could get the ferry to the mainland 

We could even take the plane

We’ve been lucky on the island 

What if we brought it home again?


There will be other Christmases

There will be other years

Don’t dry your eyes, love

This Christmas is a time for tears 


We’ll call and not be sure what we should say

Watch you all on video

You’ll seem so close, and be so far away 

Would it have been OK for us to go?

I think we know


With love from Northmavine, Shetland

Sunday, November 29, 2020

Lament for Diaper Don



He mutters to himself

He’s so unhappy

And then he soils himself

They change his nappy 

And that’s a job which is

Really crappy

Get a clean one on!

Diaper Don


Disposable thank God, 

Not Terry towelling

Sometimes there is a need 

For careful trowelling

Don’t find yourself downwind

Or you’ll be howling

In the environs

Of Diaper Don


For him golf is the sport

Passion arouses

He shouldn’t wear those creamy 

Golfing trousers

They have to keep spares at

The halfway houses

He’s a phenomenon 

That Diaper Don


He can’t put a pair

Of big boy pants on

Better avoid the chair

He’s been sat on

Thing is he doesn’t care

Who he has shat on

He’ll soon be gone

He’s Diaper Don


Friday, November 20, 2020

There for You (The Corona Christmas Song)


There for You (The Corona Christmas song)


I’m working all through Christmas 

It’s just another day to me

Take off your masks have a little hug

Decorate your Norwegian tree

Kissing underneath the mistletoe

Sharing out the Christmas cake

I’ll be right there with you

In every single breath you take


The reindeer are OK Santa’s on his way

Don’t worry it’ll be all right

Chestnuts on the fire, carols from the choir

There’s something in the air tonight

Together as a family

I’m so glad you welcomed me 

To gather with you too

I’m here for you


There’s a service in the church

You really need to sing

I wouldn’t worry all that much

About social distancing

After all it’s just a day or two

It’s been a tough old year

Breathe easy, hold each other close

There’s nothing to fear


Merry Christmas, do not despair 

I’ll be with you in intensive care


Copyright Tom Morton 2020

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Vaccine Hesitation Zombie Lizard Implantation Blues


Vaccine Hesitation Zombie Lizard Blues
Don’t want to be infected
Don’t want to be injected
Don’t want these little robots inside my head
They’re trying to change my DNA
So I’ll do whatever they say
It’s just like the Night of the Living Dead
Zombies
Read it in a magazine
Zombies
If they make us take the vaccine
We’ll be flesh eating heroes
In a film by George Romero
Zombies, with exploding heads
Like in Shaun of the Dead
Zombies
Don’t let them jag you in the arm
They’re trying to do us harm
Evil lizards will grow eggs inside our brains
And soon we’ll all sprout and scales and tails
Claws instead of fingernails
They’ll turn us into shoes and handbags we’ll live in sewers and drains
Lizards
Saw it on the internet
Lizards
Worse things can happen yet
Condemned to be skinned to make some cowboy’s boots
Or kept in a tank like Ken Livingstone’s newts
Lizards, with nothing to do
But watch Eastenders, maybe River City too
Lizards
Don’t want no MMR or BCG
I believe in homeopathic remedies
I’m organic and vegan and gluten free
No dairy since 1973
Getting healthier every single day
Since the social workers took the kids away
But then they’re all Zombies
Or Lizards
Copyright Tom Morton 2020
(And for the record, I have taken and will take all vaccines offered, as and when...)

Sunday, November 08, 2020

Four Seasons (Total) Landscaping

 Four Seasons Landscaping


(Play the song on Soundcloud here)


We gather here today my friends

In this glorious location

To proclaim the battle will not end

For the soul of our proud nation


Four Seasons Landscaping


Listen to these three words of grace

True Victory contemplated!

Donald would join us in this place

If he hadn’t been sedated


Four Seasons Landscaping


Autumn, winter, spring and summer

For the USA we’ll fight

Join us! Dumb and getting Dumber

We’ll landscape every day and night!


The future’s bright


At Four Seasons Landscaping 




Sunday, November 01, 2020

The Beatcroft Social, Halloween, 2020

 

Lucia and the Best Boys            Perfectly Untrue

Lord Stornoway and David Shrigley             Don’t Worry

Richard Hawley         Ballad of a Thin Man

Chantal Chamberlain         Don’t Explain

Wedding Present             Brassneck

David Bowie              Scary Monsters and Super Creeps

Dave Davies            Death of a Clown

Stephen Stills          Old Times, Good Times

Traffic              Empty Pages

Cat Stevens      Father and Son

Diesel Park West      While the World Cries Decency

Beatles                I’m Looking through you

Crosby Stills Nash and Young                 Ohio

Joe Cocker            Feelin’ Alright

Rotifer            Canvey island

Ryan Adams       Oh My Sweet Carolina

Frankie Miller      Little Angel

Van Morrison      Bright Side of the road

Mudcrutch              Orphan of the Storm

Sinead O’connor        Take me to church

Tom Waits                   Downtown Train

Stranglers                    96 Tears

Steve Earle                I Feel Alright

Jerry Jeff Walker               Mr Bojangles

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Punchlines, twists and teasers: Jeff Zycinski, Easterhouse, cancer and camper vans

 




The best advice Jeff Zycinski ever gave me was to look for punchlines. He is a connoisseur of comedy, a theoretician of stand up as well as sometime practitioner, in the sticky guise of Johnny Sellotape.


“Punchlines, Tom. You tell stories. But they don’t have punchlines.” And afterwards, I began to tighten up my meandering on-air waffle. Slightly. Stories need a beginning, a middle and an end. With possibly a tease-ahead and a twist.


Jeff’s own narrative couldn't model more how to construct a certain kind of dark comedy routine: Did you hear about the Head of BBC Radio Scotland who took generous redundancy in his 50s? Wrote a successful and witty memoir, set up a training, public speaking and educational consultancy, then got squamous cell carcinoma...of the tongue? No? Well, he had an operation, right in the middle of the Corona crisis. It went brilliantly well. He sat down and wrote another very funny and moving book about the experience of recovery. Learned to speak again. (Tease ahead: this is actually a review).


But here’s the twist: before publication, it turned out they hadn’t removed all the cancer. He had to have another operation. 


You want punchlines, we got punchlines. He’s alive, well, and has a book to promote. 

Some people will do anything for publicity.


I’ve known Jeff a long time. He was head hunted to lead the team which launched the first Tom Morton Show on BBC Radio Scotland nigh on 30 years ago, and it’s fair to say we had a few adventures during the tumultuous period before (spoiler alert) I got cancer and left the BBC. Much later, my melanoma having been excised, I came back, just before Jeff ascended to the headship vacated by my and his old pal Maggie Cunningham. Then I had a heart attack and left again. Illness, it would appear, stalks us both like a vengeful researcher sacked for taking too long a lunch three days running at the Gellions in Inverness (although this has never happened).


I could tell you stories about the things Jeff and I got up to in the days when money was no object at Radio Scotland, and we would find ourselves chasing Jay Leno down California’s Pacific Coast Highway in a Chevrolet Corvette Stingray; fondling Gregory Peck’s Oscar statuette; battling to save our careers after the late Ivor Cutler and a Russian circus troupe nearly destroyed them live on air. The kazoo orchestras, the fancy dress Christmas staff parties, that business with the bucket and the rotten fish…the live caviar and vodka tasting...


But clearly, that would break all kinds of BBC rules. Besides, many of those tales are in his first book.


This new hardback (also available in the usual digital formats) is called Travels from my Twilight Zone: Morphine, Memories and Make-believe. Its conceit is that during his drug-laden, pain-killing recovery from cancer surgery, all kinds of memories and old stories became mixed up in Jeff’s mind and later became this book. It’s actually a powerfully bittersweet tribute to a unique upbringing in Easterhouse, and a collection of some of Jeff’s punchline-adorned routines from his days writing for the Tom Morton Show and as a performer.


The story of his cancer diagnosis, surgery and recovery is told without self-pity, with great grace and, as you’d expect, humour. Puns work in odd ways - as punctuation, the puncturing of tragedy, and as a sideways acknowledgement of both the deep sadness and ridiculous nature of a situation. He deploys them wisely. But there are moments of piercing, sometimes overwhelming emotion. The image of Jeff’s scientist wife Anne taking careful notes as the Dundee  surgeon discusses what he’s going to do will live with me forever. That scene makes her for me the real heroine of this book.


There is nothing, really,  in Scottish literature like the story of Jeff’s upbringing in Glasgow’s Easterhouse, the youngest of eight children. It’s like Andrew O’Hagan’s The Missing rewritten by Chic Murray and Cliff Hanley. Jeff’s father, a Polish seaman during World War Two who settled in Scotland, emerges as an extraordinary character, and Jeff’s sometimes stormy relationship with him is drawn with great humour and tenderness.  Family holidays in a Carnoustie hut (a useful corrective to the current fashionable notion of “hutting”) are beautifully drawn, reminiscent at times of Tim Winton’s descriptions of a similar holiday shed his family had on the West coast of Australia. Though with fewer rats. As for the camper van...I always wondered why Jeff put up with my motorhome obsession during the Dolphinsludge years.


Easterhouse during its new-built halcyon days is initially a glorious childhood paradise which gradually decays into a threatening dystopia. The breakdown of Jeff’s education and his battle out of that to media executivedom is a triumph of will and storytelling. That tale about the swastikas...and Germany... but that would be to reveal a twist. And a punchline. 


Meanwhile, a story of my own:  Jeff’s fascination with his Polish roots is explored in TFMTZ, but I would suggest the moment that really kicked off was one night in the foyer of the Copthorne Hotel in Aberdeen in the early noughties. I met Jeff there as he was checking in, and the receptionist was asking his name.


“Zycinski,” he replied. And, with the weariness born of many, many requests for the spelling, he said “That’s Z-Y-C…” he got no further. 


“It is NOT ‘Zycinski’ the receptionist exploded, in what was clearly an Eastern European, undoubtedly Polish accent. “It is ZHYZHINSKEE!” SAY IT PROPERLY!”


Since then, I always have.


Travels from my Twilight Zone: Morphine, Memories and Make-believe. 

By Jeff Zycinski. Published by The Lunicorn Press.




Friday, October 30, 2020

Maybe, Definitely (Things Donald John Really Said)

Maybe Definitely: Things Donald John really said


Why would Kim Jong call me old  like that?

I would never say he was short and fat

I try so hard to be his friend

Maybe someday that will happen again


If you want a reason why I should have your vote 

We got bigger houses and nicer boats

They say they’re special they say they’re elite

But we got bigger brains and we do longer tweets 


I’m a very stable genius

I’m a TV star

Smarter than  Obama or  Lincoln by far

I grab woman by the pussy because I’m so adored 

Gotta not fall over like Gerald Ford

 Probably

I declared a national emergency. Possibly.

Maybe definitely 


I’m more than clever and my hands are huge

The least racist person you ever interviewed

I like African Americans they like  me back

Got a caddy in Miami and I’m sure he’s black


I love you Stormy

I love you Vladimir

Spite: First of the Quaich Chronicles. All Hallows Eve

 A Scottish story for Halloween.



Listen to Tom reading the story here: https://anchor.fm/tom-morton4/episodes/Strange-Tales-from-Thin-Places-Spite--All-Hallows-Eve-ek6tgv

As published in the October 2020 edition of Discover Scotland Magazine.

A man alights from the train at Culrain on the Far North Line, in the shadow of Carbisdale Castle, known locally as Castle Spite. Where is he going? What is in his rucksack? And who is the strange figure pursuing him across the hills as he heads west?


So, great attempts, heroic ventures shall

Advance my fortune, or renown my fall.

James Graham, Earl of Montrose


Rock opened his eyes, briefly uncertain where he was, sleep fading as the electronic voice announced that the train had halted at Culrain, next stop Invershin. He’d warned the conductor that he might fall asleep, and that he wanted to get off at Culrain, a request stop on the Far North Line, like Invershin. They were close together, he knew, these tiny stations, Culrain in Ross-shire, Invershin in Sutherland, only the Kyle of Sutherland at its narrowest separating them.

It was quarter past noon on the 31 October. Halloween. All Hallow’s Eve, when the dead are remembered, when their spirits and those of the fairies and trows and devils and small Scottish gods come out to play. He laughed at the thought. All that childhood guising for sweeties, nuts, fruit and cake, performing poems and skits, dooking for apples, dressing up as everything from ghosts and witches to television personalities. Demons. Sometimes the same thing. He remembered his schoolmate who would year on year dress up as Rolf Harris doing his three-legged ‘Jake the Peg’ skit. Evil lurked. The too-welcoming single-man households. The money offered. The past. 

Now he was alone and dressed only as himself. Just Rock, or Rock as hiker, hillwalker, climber, solitary autumn camper. He hauled his rucksack from the luggage rack, and stepped onto the platform. Above him, Castle Spite soared, a gothic monstrosity, vast and baleful, black and forbidding in the dull, still Highland autumn. Deserted, despite the stories of its sale as a private residence, the planning applications for a swimming pool, holiday lodges in the grounds. Carbisdale Castle, to give it its proper name. Most recently the pride and joy of the Scottish Youth Hostels Association, until it became too much of a financial drain. The price had kept falling until finally, somebody was unable to resist one of the grandest and most publicly visible castles in the Highlands.

It was, he thought as he walked out of the station, settling the loaded backpack onto both shoulders, truly gargantuan and impressively horrible. Awful, as in inducing awe. He dredged his memory. The Walking Guide to the North East Highlands had taken a certain glee in its description: Built in 1907 for Mary Caroline, Dowager Duchess of Sutherland after a dispute over the will of her late husband. She was mistress turned second wife, paid off with a fortune by the Duke’s eldest son to get out of the family, out of their lives. She went a few hundred metres across the Kyle of Sutherland, into Ross-shire, where she decided to build a castle which would put the extravagant spires of Dunrobin, seat of the Sutherlands, in the shade. That mammoth clocktower had faces on only three sides. The Countess had determined that only blank whinstone would be shown to anyone looking at the Carbisdale clock from the east. She would not even give Sutherland the time of day. And so Carbisdale was given its local name: Castle Spite. And spiteful to the last, it was. Mary Caroline died before she could move in.

It was a strange part of the world. He’d been here before, staying at Carbisdale on his way north by bike, during a leisurely version of the end-to-end, Land’s End to John O’Groats. He remembered the flimsy chipboard partitions cluttering the castle’s oak-panelled interior. The statues reputedly stolen from Dunrobin and never returned. The peculiar atmosphere which changed from room to public room, reputedly designed originally so that each reflected a period of Scottish history. The crowds of youth hostellers drinking in the Invershin Hotel, owned by an American  couple who had formerly worked in Hollywood, and had cases of vintage costumes they encouraged visitors to dress up in. There had been, he recalled, bacchanalian singing and dancing on the footbridge between Invershin and Carbisdale, young tourists dressed as Guinivere, Merlin the Magician, Wyatt Earp, Pocahontas. When he left early next morning he passed an abandoned fez lying on the road outside the hotel.

Dressing up. If there was a day for it, then surely it was Halloween. But there was no-one around as he checked the Ordnance Survey app on his phone and began walking east, first through the smattering of houses comprising Culrain village, and then onto the forestry track which led east through a plantation of trees, Castle Spite looming high above him to the right.

He was eating a supermarket sandwich lunch just past Lochcoire, where the trees gave way to open moor and the ruggedness of this least visited of Scotland’s landscapes became apparent. There was only about 40 miles here between Scotland’s eastern and western coasts, but it was some of the most unforgiving, loneliest landscape in Europe. The fertile straths had been infamously cleared of crofters for the sake of sheep in the 19th Century. The Sutherlands again. The moorland and hills were bleak and barren above the regimented forestry plantations, but isolated hunting lodges had been built in the most unexpected corners. There was trout, grouse, snipe, salmon and deer in season, and money to be made from people who wanted to kill them. Some of them even ate what they caught or shot.

That was over for the season. There was no risk of stumbling on a bunch of hooray Henrys in full, armed, drunken panoply. He wanted the loneliness, the isolation. Needed it. There was a task to perform. Rock had no mission to conquer summits, and anyway none in the vicinity were sufficiently elevated to claim the title even of Grahams (more than 600 metres or so). Still, it was best to stay off the peaks such as Meal Dheirgidh, 506 metres, or Sidhean an Radhairc 396, as his intention was distance, at least at first. Distance from other people.

And as luck would have it, having seen not a soul since leaving the train, it was as he munched his coronation chicken, bought in the Inverness Marks and Spencers, that a voice behind him said. “And a very good day it is. I wonder if I may join you for a moment?”

Rock was sitting on a small pile of stones, one of two on the edge of the forest, gazing up at the grey sky and the browns, reds, golds and fading-to-grey mauve of the heather. Found on the top of a mountain these would have been obvious summit cairns, but their presence here - evidently very old, covered in lichen - was strange. He turned to see an elderly man in worn but serviceable tweeds, wearing ghillie brogues, plus fours and a fishing-fly badged cap. He was carrying a gnarled walking stick but looked sprightly enough not to require it. The voice was high, lilting and local, not posh, but as is often the case in the Highlands, utterly classless. “Of course.” Rock made a gesture, opening his hand, the crust of the sandwich between two fingers. The man perched on the second cairn, clearly unaffected by the stiffness of old age. He would be about 70, Rock thought. But there was a youthfulness about his movements.

“From one coast to another, is it?. There’s a perhaps better route further south. The road from Ardgay to Croick, and then the stalkers’s track along Strath Cuileanach. If that more gentle landscape lies to your taste.”

“Oh, well, this is fine. I wanted to see Castle Sp...Carbisdale, and then just wander for a couple of nights in the hills. On my own. Just getting away from London for a day or so.”

“From London on the sleeper?” Rock nodded.”Ah, well this time of year things can be deceptive on the hills. The stalking’s over, of course, but mists and cloud can come down and disorientate even those most familiar with the terrain.” The man paused. “I wonder if you might spare me a cup of tea? I see you have a flask with you. Or perhaps...something stronger?”

The duties of Highland hospitality. Rock thought of the small bottle hidden deep in his backpack. Dismissed the idea. Then opened his old Stanley flask and poured a second cup to match his own, which he topped up. “Of course.” He handed it over. “Sugar and only a little milk, I’m afraid. I had it made up in Inverness. A cafe in the market. The way I take it. Strong.”

“Just the way I like it. And may the just blessings of the day fall upon you. My name is Finn. And you?”

“Rock. As in the stone.”

“Indeed. Well, may your strength endure and your rest be eternal and of your own choosing.” Finn sipped thoughtfully. “Castle Spite. You know about the dear lady. What a sadness that was, and is. On this day of all days, it’s as well not to be staying in the castle itself. Deserted as it is. If she was ever to return and try to gain...entry, then I suppose today would be the day. I hope some light and life is brought back to it soon. It was a joy to hear it ringing to the music of young folk. But alas, no longer.” 

“This day,” said Rock. “Halloween.”

“Oiche Shamhna, in the old traditions. When the spirits of the water, land and air come to make small requests of those bound by the flesh. And yes, the dead too.” An impish grin came over the old man’s face. “And here we are in the place of the dead. These stones we sit on so nonchalantly? We recline above the bones of the Great Montrose’s hapless Orcadians. The Battle of Carbisdale.” Rock held himself back from flinching. It suddenly seemed essential not to reveal what he knew about that last flicker of the great romantic Montrose’s greatness. Who was this creature? Finn’s face was the colour of peated whisky, creased with hundreds of fine lines which seemed to indicate several lifetimes of laughter. Cruel laughter, though. The curl in Finn’s lip had an element of the vicious about it.

“Well, thank you for the tea. Walk safely now.” And with an ease which was somehow breathtaking, Finn rose to his feet, waved at Rock in a curious, almost sanctified gesture, a blessing, turned and made his way back into the forest. Padded, Rock thought. In a moment, he had vanished.

Rock walked for the next four or five hours, his old Brasher boots long adjusted to every contour of his feet so that blisters were never a problem. The stalker’s tracks and paths gave way to bare rubble, heather, moss and stone. His knees began to hurt after the third hour, and to his annoyance the Ordnance Survey app on his phone stopped working. The hills. The rocks. No signal. Though the maps were supposed to have been downloaded. He had the Landranger paper version in his rucksack but couldn’t be bothered unpacking to look for it. He could remember some of the names. Gaelic. Pronunciation was another matter. The small  peak to his right looked like An Sidhean and the big one ahead, twice the height, like Bhein Ulbaidh. His watch had a compass built in, but he had never quite managed to master it. Too dependent on the iPhone.

The wind changed. It had been behind him, now it moved to the west, as if someone had thrown a switch. Cloud was coming in. Then the peaks vanished. Just like that. As he walked in what he hoped was a westerly direction, he saw wisps of what looked like smoke gathering around his feet, the heather and sphagnum moss, viewed from head height, seeming like a miniature forest catching fire and drowning at the same time. Quite suddenly he was cold, clammy and could see nothing ahead of him at all. Highland mountain mists were like that, he knew. Dangerous. It would be wise to stop moving, to bivvy until the fog passed, but for whatever reason, perhaps because this trip was not really about being sensible, or moderate, or wise, he blundered on for a half an hour or so, until the ground beneath his feet became dry and stony, and his shins bumped into a large rock. It was flat topped, about the shape and size of a chest, or a coffin, he thought. He sat on it, took the flask of tea from the side pocket of his pack and poured what was left. As he drank the tea, lukewarm now, never hot to start with, he heard something. At first he thought it was a radio, his phone on BBC Sounds. But when he pulled it out to look, it was black and lifeless. Dead.

The voice was somehow both clear and muffled, distant yet close by.

“Not far now. Not far to go and we will gather there, with our cousins and brothers and sisters and prepare for the judgement of the Lord on our evil ways, and receive the just punishment for our sins. Do not tire, children, do not be afraid. Even in the mists of confusion and disappointment we shall be guided by the Lord to our destination. Do not let go of my hand. Never let go

Then it was a low whisper, a panting, an out-o-breath murmuring.

“Children, where are you? I have lost you. Why did you let go? Why did you let go? You will starve. We will all starve.” And then nothing, not even the cry of birds or bleating of sheep. There was a heavy, blanketed quality to the silence. Rock could feel his heart beating in his chest, and listened for its reassuring thump. It was steady, not painful. But he couldn’t hear it beating. I have lost my own heartbeat, he thought, I can feel it but it is making no sound. I am deaf to myself. Fear? There was no fear, as such. A kind of resignation. He shrugged off the rucksack, opened it. The important items were buried far down, wrapped in oilcloth. The whisky and the vessel and the weapon. But this was not the time. Not yet. He unrolled the bivvy bag, noticing that his hands were shaking. He had a three-quarters length Thermarest which he placed on the ground next to the boulder, and then he crawled into the bivvy and lay looking at the grey wash of nothingness. He closed his eyes.

He dreamed. He was guising. Halloween, his last year of primary school, going round the housing scheme in Saltcoats, three of them. Him as Captain Scarlet, Fergus as a ghost (simple sheet over head) and Jamesie as Rolf Harris, again, Jake the Peg. The days of neepy lanterns, no pumpkins. Long before that American import, trick or treat. Not a dream. A memory. They were armed with a list of approved addresses. There was this one house, this house they had been told never to knock on the door of, where Mr Barnet lived. But that night they were full of bravado, and they did. Again and again, no-one coming to the door. Until eventually a dim light went on in the porch and a figure shuffled towards them. The door opened. There was a terrible pain in his throat.

***.     ***.     ***

Finn put the gralloching knife carefully away in its sheath after wiping it carefully on the heather and bracken. He had packed the meat in the meagre pieces of clothing he had found in the rucksack, wrapped the lot in the bivvy bag, now rather stained, and loaded them into Rock’s rucksack, bagging his other possessions for retrieval later. Flask, stove. Some unappetising instant meals. Water in a plastic bottle. A pistol. An old pistol, ancient, even. Flintlock or whatever. But oiled and functional There were containers for powder and flints. Lead balls, shining and newly cast. Not the oddest thing Finn had found on the hill. Another sentimental tourist intent on doing away with himself. No, more than that, even if the man called Rock hadn’t realised it himself. He had saved him from trouble in various forms. And it was appropriate. After all, this was All Hallow’s Eve, this Oiche Shamhna, when the dead walked, and sometimes stopped walking. 

“Did you think a little tea would make you safe? Did you think I could be so easily appeased?” Ignorant, the man had been ignorant of his purpose. For if whisky had been offered, if the uisge beatha, the water of life had been poured. Finn would have had to accept it. If the quaich had been used, even accidentally for its true purpose, in this landscape, and offered to the likes of him...

It was made of polished stone, ancient beyond time, mounted in silver and gold, crusted with stones that seemed malevolent in their dullness: ruby, quartz, emerald. Finn held it, making sure his palm was covered with oilcloth, recognising its power, paying a silent tribute. Then he rewrapped it and placed it carefully in the rucksack, on top of the meat. 

The mist was clearing now. Not that it mattered. He knew the way. He began the walk to his cave, hidden behind old willow bushes on a face of Bheinn Ulbaidh, and as he walked, his gait changed and the tweed seemed to stretch, tear and rot from his back, which humped and lowered as his arms lengthened and grew stronger, darker, hairier. Soon the children would be fed. Their sustenance was everything. Almost everything. Winter was on its way


This is an excerpt from Tom’s multimedia work-in-progress Spite, first part of the Quaich saga. In print, as a podcast and with music, video, artwork and location events. It will go live in 2022.