LOCH ETIVE
In that hot summer of 1921,
we returned to Glencoe in Scotland; this time we were missing a brother but he
would always be with us.
In the glorious years
before the Great War, I and my brothers, Grahame and Jack would spend long
summers climbing the mountains around Rannoch and the Black Mount. Each year
our grandfather would take us boys to stay at the King’s House hotel, and each
year he would take us climbing on a new mountain.
Grahame’s favourite climb
had always been the Great Shepherd of Etive (Buachaille Etive Mor) and since he
was lost to us forever in some field of France, and in the same year he would
have been twenty one years old, Jack felt that it was right he should climb the
Buachaille with Grahame’s medal pinned to his chest.
I had only lost my leg at
Ypres (I was one of the lucky ones), so although I wanted to support Jack, I
felt I would spend the time by Loch Etive and think about the great days and
years we had all spent together.
Jack wanted an early start
and so I drove him in the horse and trap as far as the Devil’s Staircase. This
was a road built by the Englishman General Wade to avoid the trouble he might
find in deepest Glencoe. It went straight over the top and into Kinlochleven.
The Buchaille was on the
opposite side to this, and here I left Jack - watching as he made his way up
the valley, he turned and waved and then disappeared into a crevice.
I turned the horse and made
my way around to the back of the Buchaille in to Glen Etive.
LOCH ETIVE
The Glen has always been
the quietest of places with no real road through it. It was a spot where our grandfather would set out a pick-nick after we returned from our latest climb. I
can say with my hand on my heart, those were the happiest of days with all
three of us having our lives waiting on us.
And so, as Jack climbed to
remember Grahame, I felt that a little time spent by the loch would help me pay
remembrance to my middle brother. I will always miss him, as will Jack, but
with me being the youngest it was Grahame that I always felt closest to. I will
carry my brother with me everywhere I go.
I had brought a hamper of
my own and quietly settled down by the loch-side when the heat of the day
overtook me and I quickly fell into a deep sleep.
Judging by the position of
the sun, it must have been sometime later when I was wakened by a figure casting
a shadow over me.
“Hello there,” said the
voice.
I put my hand above my eyes
and could make the outline of a little man.
“Do you mind if I sit a
minute, I’ve come a long way and it’s nice to have a bit of company, to take away
the sharpness of the day.”
I told the little man I was
be pleased to have him join me and asked if he wanted to share a drink, and
perhaps something to eat.
He had come from the south,
and given the lack of roads must have walked the loch shore or over the hills;
not an easy task.
He told me that, once a
month, he walked from his home in Oban to his sister’s house in Kinlochleven.
It took him two days, walking up the side of Loch Etive, through Glencoe and
over the Devil’s Staircase. That last part was a climb over a thousand feet up
and then down again. General Wade’s soldiers had named it because of the pain
it caused them to march over the top.
The wee man’s sister and
her husband had moved to Kinlochleven in 1905 to work on a dam to support the planned
aluminium factory. The workmen couldn’t find a bar in the area and would take
to walking over the mountain to the King’s House. His sister’s husband had disappeared
one winter and never returned. There was talk of him running away with a young
girl of the parish but his sister refused to believe it. It was only in the spring,
when the snows had melted, that the authorities found her husband’s body at the
top of the Devil’s Staircase.
“So once a month I walk the
miles to make sure she is in fine fettle.”
I told him my story about
Grahame and why Jack was climbing the Buachaille.
“My own boy never came back
from the Somme. We all live with sadness,” said the man.
And yet there wasn’t a look
of defeat in his eyes. He had the demeanour of a happy man, a wee happy man.
“Since you’ve shared your
food with me, I’ll share what my grand-daddy told me when I was a young one,”
he told me. Then the wee man looked straight into my eyes as if he was going to
dispense a family secret. He put a hand on my shoulder.
“If you remember one thing,
laddie, remember this. Expect everything from yourself and very little from
others. That way you’ll never be disappointed, and if it’s yourself who is
letting you down, well then, you are in a position to do something about it.
Never put your happiness in the hands of others.”
And with that he winked at
me, got up and whistled his way up the loch. The last I heard from him was a
shout of “Cheerio, now – and remember what I said.”
I looked up at an eagle as
it flew over my head and somehow I knew why I had met the wee man.
“Thank you, Grahame,” I
said, as a tear ran down my cheek.
bobby stevenson 2014
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