Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
To which the only reasonable, calmly considered reply any sane Brit can offer is, I
think, 'Oh no it fucking isn't, you self-righteous warmongering git.'
To Aberfeldy with my dad and Uncle Bob. We whisk northwards in my dad's automatic
528i. This is our old car and similar-in-some-ways to the M5 so I feel that I don't do too
badly making just the one grab for the selector in a vain attempt to change down. The
guys don't make any sarcastic remarks.
My dad is 85 and Uncle Bob is his young brother - a sprightly 70 and a bit. He lives
down the hill in our village and is still a bit dazed looking sometimes after losing his wife,
the wonderful, vivacious Isabel, last year. Aunt Isabel - Glammy Aunt Isabel as she was
accurately christened by one of Ann's nieces - always looked about fifteen years younger
than she was, and was just full of life and love. She died very suddenly last summer, with
no warning at all, leaving Bob and her children, Vicky, Donna and Bobby, bereft. You
always wish a quick, unlingering end for those you love, but you forget that an unexpec-
tedly sudden death leaves people unprepared, just stunned.
My dad is the man I've admired most in my life. I suppose objectively Nelson Man-
dela is more admirable, but of all the people I've ever met, could ever claim properly to
have known, my father is the one I've looked up to the most. Like I said earlier, both my
parents made me feel loved and special, and I feel that I owe them both enormously.
Uncle Bob is arguably the really artistic one in our family; he's been an accomplished
watercolour painter for 30 years or so and he's had dozens of stories and poems published
over the last few years in a variety of magazines (it occurred to me a couple of years back
that actually my mum's a fellow professional too, now, as she had a poem published, for
dosh, in a magazine). Bob used to be a rigger on the Forth Road Bridge, and it's thanks to
him I got to the top of the bridge, twice. The view from up there, 512 feet up - the Forth
Bridge is a mere 365 five feet - is simply breathtaking. The first time I went up there was
on a beautiful clear day in the early seventies, when I came through to the Ferry on a day
trip from Stirling; I thought I'd taken a whole spool of photos, but my camera didn't. The
second time, with Les, was on another calm, bright day not long before Bob retired. I took
two cameras this time, just to be certain. Loads of photos.
We head straight up the M90/A9 with just the one wee detour at Logierait to take
in an old disused railway bridge Ann and I discovered last year that's been turned into
a privately owned but open to the public route across the Tay. The 528 clatters over the
bridge's slatted wooden deck and briefly grounds its sump on a seriously vicious hard-
rubber speed-bump, even at walking pace (there's another one like it at the far end of
the bridge; the trick - apart from taking it dead slow, obviously - is to brake as you go
over and then release as the front wheels start to drop, letting the rebound on the springs
provide the necessary clearance).
