My first two trips to our northern neighbour ended abruptly. My dad’s job meant his company regularly paid for the petrol up there and a room in a hotel, so he only had to pay for an extra room. But they figured it was cheaper to buy a 7-berth tent (and all the necessary gear?) than pay for two rooms, and we went to a campsite in Ayr. Unfortunately, swimming in the chilly Easter sea was not the best of ideas and we had to come home early because I caught pneumonia.
The second time we went up in a camper van, I think it was a second attempt at Ayr?), but after a couple of days Dad’s severe stomach pain resulted in a mad dash across to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, where he was diagnosed with a a hiatus hernia.
So we spent several days camped out in the car park (with special access to the hospital loos etc) while he recovered enough to drive us home – Mum couldn’t drive back then.
A third trip en famile, saw us stopping in a campsite in Northumberland before hugging the east coast up to Aberdeen, across to Inverness and then down the side of Loch Ness to Fort William, no doubt marvelling at the sight of Ben Nevis. But my folks weren’t into mountains so we did no more than set foot on the bottom of it, just to say we’d been there.
After Greek Island trips from 1985-7, Bri and I didn’t manage a holiday in ’88, because Chris’s birth in July meant all bets were cancelled as we adjusted to life with a newborn, and the following year we only managed 5 days in Yorkshire, leaving the day after his 1st birthday. So we made up for it the next year with 2 weeks in France in May, then the first of our autumn breaks, which we managed for the next two Octobers before being constrained by school holidays. It took till 2000 to repeat this, then every October half term from 2002 to 2008 saw us in France for at least 4 days – I’d started teaching and desperately needed that break after the gruelling Autumn terms.
So in September 1990, we took 2-year-old Chris and 10-month-old Jo to a lovely log-built chalet in the woods near Dunoon – for three years till the kids started school. We’d discovered the town played host to the U.S. Navy’s Polaris missile program, which aimed to provide a nuclear deterrent against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Created in 1961, it was active until 1992, and I’m sure we would have visited it, although I have no memories of the place.
Edinburgh Fringe
I first visited this in 2007, sharing the driving with Jo (a remarkable feat considering she hadn’t yet passed her test), and we stopped off at the Old Smithy at Gretna Green, which also features in a couple of Treasure Hunts (Lost in Time and Captive). We stayed in the Travel Lodge a short walk from Princes Street, and spent many happy hours watching the street performers execute impossible feats. Because it was so early in August, the Comedy Fringe hadn’t yet started and we caught the back end of the Jazz Fringe, seeing a number of great musical performances.
The following year saw us back again, this time with Chris and Steph, and we stopped the night at a hotel in Carlisle, which Steph found due to her passion for all things supernatural. It was supposed to be haunted, in particular one bedroom, a little exploration brought us to the room. I can’t remember which one of us got up the nerve to open the door, nor who was more surprised, us or the poor guy lying in the bed. Oops. That trip saw us revisiting Gretna and checking out the café where JK supposedly wrote a lot of Harry Potter and we also went on a ghost tour, where I got picked on to demonstrate something dark. An awful lot of scenes in the second Colour of Light book, Chrysalis are based on this trip, including the phenomenal Celtic Drummer Band Clanadonia, who also turn up in a bunch of the Hengist books, and are key to some major plot points in the first book, Archer.
In 2010, Steph’s A-level drama class wrote a short play called Twelve, and their enterprising drama teachers took it to the Edinburgh festival for a short run. So we had to drive up and watch it – another couple of chapters in Chrysalis. Ten years after that first visit, Steph was performing again, and Bri and I flew up to watch the production of HMS Edinburgh: Love Over Gold – a wartime tale that saw her perfecting a very credible Polish accent. Here’s the blurb: Caught in the terrifying crush between the Nazi and Red armies, two Polish lovers are overshadowed by the ambitions of a ruthless Russian officer, who haunts their lives.
We dashed straight to the venue, getting lost because the phone satnav was something I’d not used before, arriving with minutes to spare to find a performance had already started.
Grabbing drinks, we tried to sit unobtrusively and watched what turned out to be virtually a one-man show, waiting for Steph to appear. When it finished, we realised there was a different venue upstairs, and sat at the back for the last 20 minutes. Thankfully, we had time to watch the following day’s show before hustling to the airport.
I just found the souvenir flyer I kept and was mortified to find it clearly states, “upstairs at the Silk Nightclub.” And has a map on the back. I can only imagine we didn’t have this with us on the day!
JRo Author 