The Isle of Bute
Thu Sep 9, 2010 5:43:29 pm

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Strong hands that once threw hot rivets, collect the trolleys in Morrisons’ car park.

‘Clyde Built’ they proclaimed . Now the yards are not derelict or abandoned, just empty. Port Glasgow left things as they were after ship building died, like a bereaved mother, years after her loss, unwilling to change anything in his room in case he comes home and finds it unfamiliar.

And like mother, Port Glasgow has tidied her hair and put a smear of lipstick on for the neighbours. Realising the world goes on around her, she opened bright supermarkets, renamed schools ‘Something Academy’ and wrote ‘Community Performance Centre’ on conjoined Portakabins in the town hall car park.

Signs for ‘office, canteen and deliveries’ remain. If ship building returns in the night, he will know exactly where to go.

And so ‘doon the watter’ across the Clyde to Bute, foot passengers one abreast on the oversized gang way at Wemyss Bay, that used to carry as many as sixty thousand Glaswegians a day.

Merchant Vessel Argyle says her placard ‘launched sideways in Poland 2003 and named by the wife of the Lord Lieutenant.’

No mausoleum though Bute, no heritage village, no exit through gift shop. Real people these in an unreal beauty; all changing light and mountains that come down to the sea. No regret or apology. Cheese and tomato sandwiches are just that. Coffee not three and a half pounds a cup.

The Struan bar fills up for Scotland versus Liechtenstein and my first self doubt on Bute appears at the bottom of a dirty beer glass. Liechtenstein’s national anthem shares the tune to ‘God save the Queen’ and I am rumbled. The gay English boy pretending to watch Sky Sports at too narrow tables.

‘It’s an environmental thing’ I explain.

‘Reuse and recycle. They ran out of tunes’

Kyle puffs his cheeks and laughs.

Thankyou. Thankyou Kyle for laughing at my lame joke. Thankyou for not staring when I order wine in a pub that doesn’t sell it. Thankyou for not killing me because I’m English.

‘Will you have the football on later?’ I asked the barmaid and she winks a pantomime Glaswegian wink. ‘Do Aah look like Aah like the fitball son? See ma shurt? U of M. University of Minnesota. It’s American football aah like.’

I tell her I’ll see her later and she thinks I mean it. When I come back, she has found a box of wine upstairs.

The next morning a road sign in the countryside points to Calum’s Cabin and I remember Port Glasgow, bereaved mother.

Calum chose the tunes for his own funeral and wanted other children with cancer to go ‘doon the watter’ and know what Bute is.

Near The Struan Bar a little yellow shop sells things that are ‘nearly new’ to pay for Calum’s Cabin.

I don’t want any VHS videos or tea towels so I walk in, brave for me, and tell a woman. ‘I want to give some money. I saw it on Songs of Praise.’

She smiles and calls another woman from the back, busy sorting VHS videos.

‘This gentleman wanted to make a donation.’

She writes £10 in an exercise book and I look at the video-sorting woman. I think it is Calum’s bereaved mother and I don’t know what to say.

‘… I saw it on Songs of Praise.’