Reflections - Willie, Myself and Cyril Nosecone - Part Two

Now where did I leave off with our reminiscences, Willie? Oh yes, I was talking about Daft Uisdean’s tadger. Now I’m so sorry if I offend any of you young ladies out there with the tale of Daft Uisdean’s tadger. His tadger causes such a problem at the ferry terminal on the Island. Daft Uisdean keeps flashing. It scares the tourists away and we need the tourist income on the island.

Do you remember Willie when you lost your wooden leg? Oh and Jean at the Wool Shop thought she would be able to help. Our Jean wrote an Email to the local radio station, broadcasting from the island of Skye, appealing for a pair of crutches for you. Then do you remember when the two very camp and effeminate gentlemen, clad in tight black leather, knocked on your door? That was when Jean realised her mistake in the email. She’d spelt ‘crutches’ with an ‘o’. She was very apologetic for her mistake.

And then we got the ransom note. “We have your leg and if you ever want to see it walk again you must pull out of the election. Also we want a case of whisky left by the sheddie at the ferry terminal tonight by 11.30 pm.” That was during the election, when you were running for chairperson for the annual Hogmanay party committee.

We contacted Magnus, the police constable from the mainland, and once he had pumped up the back tyre on his bicycle he caught the next ferry over. Murdo the butcher helped us coordinate a steak-out and you came up with a good idea of adding laxative to the bottles of whisky so that Magnus would have a trail to follow.

Well we enjoyed Murdo’s steak but clean forgot about the laxative in the whisky. We drank the lot. We were all suffering from dehydration and we are taking it in turns to use Jean’s bathroom there at the knitting shop.

Then the other ransom note arrived, threatening biological warfare. The note said that they will give your leg a dose of Dutch Elm disease unless we canceled the Hogmanay Party altogether. They also demanded a helicopter to be at Sammy’s pad with enough fuel to get to Ullapool.

We were so perplexed and Magnus couldn’t think of any suspects. He tried the tarot cards, we had a game of “eeie meenie minie moe, catch the ransomer by the toe”, and then we set up an identification parade down at the ferry terminal. You, Magnus and my good self stood in a row for 30 minutes but no one recognised us because some bright spark had shaved off our hair and eyebrows during the night while we were ‘under the influence’.

Finally the leg was found, hidden in a box disguised as a Christmas parcel, “To Dad, Love Daft Uisdean.” Aye your poor leg had Dutch Elm Disease, so it had. We called in Farquar Bogg of the Agriculture, Rumba-dancing and Sanitation Department. Farquar began enforcing a community wide sanitation program to spray and inoculate against the Elm Bark Beetle. He showed a public information video in Jean’s wool shop, called “Nightmare on Elm Trees” narrated by Freddie MacKrueger.

Aye we had to keep all children, pets and village idiots indoors until Farquar had finished with the poisonous treatment. I was issuing gas masks for the elderly. You, Willie, began to make sure that all illegal whisky stills were covered during the chemical treatment process and Jean had to ask Daft Uisdean to take a bath, incase his fumes cause a chemical reaction. When he refused we all had to jump on him while Rev. Hellman Brimstone hosed him down.

Aye, Willie, those were the days.

Well the timer on the oven is bleeping so another batch of Christmas clapdarnachs is ready to take out.

Goodnight Willie.