To supplement my pension, I had taken a summer job: crewman and ticket-collector on the Small Isles (Rousay, Wyre and Egilsay) ferry in Orkney – I was the full extent of the extra staff required to meet the demands of the enhanced summer timetable. It’s a fact that when you collect tickets you look at hands, not faces. So I didn’t notice him when he boarded. No car, no luggage, no band, no guitar.
Most of the summer visitors are heading for Rousay and the (moderately famous) neolithic tombs – a half hour voyage. So, after we leave Rousay behind and head into Wyre Sound for the second leg of the trip, the M.V. Eynhallow is rarely busy, a chance for me to relax: there’s just a couple of dozen people on Wyre – six farms, a ruined Viking fortress, and dozens of dozing seals. It was one of those rare summer days that we cherish on Orkney: a day of luminous calm; Wyre Sound itself a porcelain plate; the surrounding islands – sheltering silhouettes in the haze.
I’m loitering at the gunwhale, at peace with my own thoughts. Faintly, I can hear the lilting ‘Farewell to Stromness,’ playing in Duncan’s wheelhouse. Unseen at my elbow, a guy utters a warm growl: ‘There’s somethin’ about small islands, huh? Refuges, safe havens from the wide world, where… kindliness can flourish. Know what I mean?’
I’m too shocked to answer: the voice is instantly familiar. The famously enigmatic icon has chosen me from among the adoring multitudes. You’ve maybe seen one of those interview clips where he stonewalls all the interviewer’s intrusive questions? Asked if there was a hidden message in his ‘Storm Clouds’ single for all those fans who grew up with his music, he answered, ‘Sure, my hidden message was: “Please buy the next album”.’ He’s got a ranch in the Rockies, sixteen miles off the highway. This is a guy who really values his privacy. And now he’s speaking to me.
There’s a smile in his voice. ‘Just the names of all these islands: Rousay, Sanday, Wyre, Egilsay, Eynhallow… it’s a litany.’ He pauses and asks, ‘D’ya know Wyre at all?’
My heart’s banging like a gong, but I find my tongue, ‘Mmm, yes. My mother’s family had one of the farms on Wyre. I used to spend my summer holidays there when I was small.’
‘Did you stay at “The Bu”? Was that their farm?’
I think I’m beginning to understand. The Bu was the farm where, at the end of the nineteenth century, the poet Edwin Muir was raised. The Bu was the fond, safe place to which Muir returned to in his thoughts and dreams for the rest of his life. And Wyre, with its gentle, towering, Clydesdale horses, its cattle and its seals, was the sea-washed Arcadia that he had lost.
So my passenger is on a literary pilgrimage. I shake my head, ‘No, my grandparents’ farm wasn’t The Bu. But The Bu is still there: an old farmhouse beside the rubble of Cubby Roo’s castle and the ruined chapel.’
‘Easy to find?
‘Yeah, there’s only one road on the island, so you can’t miss it.’
I’m beginning to feel uneasy about how to address him. He’s staring back at the ferry’s wake – a perfect, expanding ‘V.’ ‘It’s okay, every place I go, every bar or café, every store or office, every plane or ferry, people are aware of me, aware of who I am. When I walk into a room, people change how they behave, how they talk. I don’t much like it, though now I’m used to it, I guess. But it’s a shame I aint ever goin’ to get a job workin’ the Small Isles Ferry.’
We continue to stare at the wake while I take in this information, eventually I form a sentence that I hope isn’t too crass: ‘You must’ve read Muir’s autobiography…?’
‘Sure. Read the poems when I was just starting out in Chicago. They stay with you – you know? The strange return of those farm-horses after the nuclear Apocalypse – I’ll never forget that one. Someone lent me – gave me (he laughs) – the autobiography when we were filming one time down in Mexico. That must’ve been back in the Seventies. Ever since then, for forty years, I’ve been waiting to visit Wyre and The Bu.’
I carry on looking at the wake and keep my voice steady. ‘You know, there’s no holiday accommodation on Wyre. I’m Andy, by the way.’
‘Pleased to meet ya, Andy. Don’t worry about me. It’s going to be a dry night, I guess.’ He smiles. ‘And I don’t sleep much these days anyways.’
I look directly at him for the first time: the broad-brimmed hat, the deeply lined face, the famous heterochromial eyes – one green, one brown. I make my stumbling excuses – we’re nearing Wyre pier, I’m needed elsewhere on the ferry.
‘Sure, Andy. Good talkin’ to ya. Anythin’ I cun do for ya, ‘fore I go? An autograph? A selfie?’
My turn to smile. ‘No sir, you’ve already given me a gift today.’
Image by Alan Jamieson from Aberdeen, Scotland, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Northlink Ferry boat. White and Blue livery with a huge image of a Norseman on the side.
literally stories 
Michael
I live by the Puget Sound in the American northwest. Ferries galore, islands too. Saw one of the members of Soundgarden on the Seattle run once, Catrell I think his name is. He was very nice and patient with the people who recognized him. Your description of the slightly uncomfortable give and take is excellent. It was obviously the Ghost of Ian Kilmister. He usually haunts Jack Daniels distilleries, but, hey, he’s on the road as much as Willie Nelson.
You have your own touch that makes your work definitely YOU. That’s always the main goal as I see it.
Happy 2024
Leila
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Leila – I’ve only been on the Washington ferries a few times, but I want to spend some time in the San Juans. The elderly Kitzhaber is keeping us home too much. Just saw Willie Nelson on Rock Hall of Fame. Never “Crazy” about him, but like “Night Life”. Ain’t no good life, but it’s my life.
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Thanks Leila. Puget Sound could be my kind of place. Commuting to work on a Monday morning would be almost bearable if it was on a ferry.
Afraid it’s not Lemmy Kilmister (see reply to Hugh, below).
Happy 2024,
MIck
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Hi Mick
I commuted twenty years to the month by ferry and was told that I came within an hour of being born on the Bainbridge to Seattle run.
Used to be anyone could open a ferry business as long as the craft and crew passed Coast Guard appraisal. Then the damn State government got involved. Been a sinking feeling ever since.
Leila
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Mick – Not me, but editor / wife commuted to work on a ferry from Marin County California USA to San Francisco for several years. Quite pleasant. She was on a boat, I was at home during the Lo Prieta (Maybe, can’t be sure) during the last century.
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To be born on a ferry would have been quite something. Every time you heard a foghorn you’d be packing a hammock and heading off to the harbour.
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Another well written interesting look at a snippet of life. It’s a pleasure to read something so well put together and with human traits easy to recognise. The mutual mild embarrassment is what struck me about this piece. It must be an odd existence when you are so visible everywhere you go. A thought provoking piece I thought.
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Thanks Diane. Yep, mild embarrassment is interesting. Given that we’re social animals, it’s odd that we spend so much time blushing and mumbling.
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Only in Scotland once, now I regret not visiting any of the islands. Archaeologists learned that they were inhabited thousands of years ago. Mysterious. Thanks Mick.
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Thanks Doug. You’re right about the archaeology. Loads of neolithic sites. They are excavating a large temple complex at Stenness which is 500 years older than Stonehenge – suggesting cultural diffusion from north to south (always the other way in Europe).
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Doug: re wife/editor’s commute. I’ve been on that Sausalito Ferry a couple of times. That’s got to be the perfect commute: I’d arrive at work itching to turn right round again.
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Life was fairly good in Corte Madera. Walk to shopping, restaurants, and library. She could walk to the Larkspur Ferry. Larkspur and Corte Madera are twin towns north of famous Mill Valley and Sausalito, south of San Rafael. Traffic was murder. Accident on the Golden Gate Bridge shut everything down.
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An excellent portrayal of someone having a brush with fame. I looked up the poem about the horses. It’s excellent, too. Many thanks to Mick for educating me.
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Thanks David. I’m impressed that you googled the poem – you’re right, it’s a cracker. I reckon you’d enjoy the autobiography too (though it just fizzles out at the end).
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A lovely little piece, perfectly balanced in tone. Nice one!
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Thanks Steven. I very much appreciate your comments on this and my previous pieces.
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Hi Mick,
As always you write superbly well.
I think it will be fun to see who guessed who.
For me, I think on a couple of traits of a few singers and came up with these. For whatever reasons, I thought of Paul Simon, Keith Richards, Bowie and Dylan.
This has a charm to it, which is brilliantly enhanced by the inclusion of the description around those Islands.
All the very best my fine friend.
Hugh
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Thanks Hugh. I confess that I started off with Dylan, but on revision I thought it made more sense to make him a sort of representative elderly rock god. So I mixed it up quite a lot, but there’s still more Dylan than anyone else.
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Good 1. I remember spending a few afternoons in Guatemala in the mid seventies, chatting with British actress Julie Christie… didn’t know who she was til a few days later, then I pretended I didn’t know…. neither of us gave ourselves away. The ferryman is kind of the personification of how the star describes the islands, where “kindliness can flourish.” The ferryman’s taking the star across the channel, into his world.
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Thanks Harrison. You’re quite right, of course, that the character of the ferryman has a long history in literature and myth. But I’m sure I’m not alone in being stunned (nay, gobsmacked) by your reveal that you’ve spent several afternoons in Guatemala chatting to the ethereal Julie Christie!
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This is indeed well crafted writing – right from the start when you describe how the job is more about seeing hands than faces, through to the description of the famous rock star’s face. I also love the last line to this story that shows memories are way more important than scribbled autographs or phone selfies.
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Thanks for commenting, Paul, it’s appreciated. And you’re quite right: we shouldn’t prize the memento above the memory.
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