One bank of information was from the First Church of
Scotland and the other was composed of all the
information gathered from the public records. We
searched for quite a while and came up with a few
possibilities but nothing definite. It was most
disappointing, but, really, I hadn't had much hope of
finding anything solid anyway. The couple may have
married in one of the surrounding churches, but let me
tell you there are many, many churches in Scotland.
With what little I had to go on I could be searching
for several lifetimes. I was quite satisfied to have
found what little I did in the US and it was another
beautiful day.
I walked across the street to the lovely Church of St.
Andrews and took a peek at the little graveyard right
in front of the Church. I heard loud voices emanating
from across the street. I turned and saw two men, one
pushing a stroller and two women. The two men were
angrily shouting at each other and continued to shout
at each other for about the longest of all of five
minutes. The women were standing aside patiently
waiting and glancing about and otherwise quite
nonplused while the men argued and argued at the top of
their lungs. Passers by never took any notice either. I
couldn't understand a word they said, but I certainly
understood what they meant. Quite suddenly they stopped
and strolled away. I couldn't help myself, I just
burst out laughing. Was this a regular thing for these
fellows? Seemed to me it was.
That evening Mrs. Hammil, the dear, was at the ready to
give us a nudge towards the downtown nightclub,
MacTavishes. Dutifully, we dressed for dinner and made
our way towards the club at the appointed hour of 7
o'clock.
Now MacTavishes is at the far end of High Street above
the street so we walked up a l-o-n-g flight of stairs
to get into the restaurant cum nightclub. There we
found a cute little lobby dressed with mirrors and all
sorts of fake flowers and a case full of momentos with
rest rooms to the left. To the right was the entrance
to the main dining room.
A very grumpy headwaiter led us to the tiniest table I
ever and slapped the menus down in front of us. He flew
off with a shot sending back another waiter who
insisted we order drinks right then and there. We
ordered our usual tonic and water. He shook his finger
in the air and with one word "ice" ( we were Americans
he seemed to think though I don't know why) ran off in
another direction. He was back for the order lickity
split, with drinks, ice and all. Whew!
It always amused me to watch the Scots in various
places struggle with "our" ice. Seems like we are the
only folks in the world who are intent on spoiling a
perrrrfectly good drink with ice. The ice buckets they
have are usually about 12x12x6 and most of the ice
melts right after the drink hits the glass. They are
very serious about "our" ice and I had to smile in
spite of myself. They really aim to please us even if
they don't understand it.... I wonder myself sometimes.
While we waited I glanced around this huge room and
noticed a raised stage and lots of lights. We were to
be entertained with a show. We were so pleased!
Our dinners arrived almost immediately. Jaimie wisely
ordered the salmon. He is an inveterate fish eater. I
had never had Highland beef so I opted for that. As
ever Jaimie remarked the fish was excellent while the
beef...well... that was another matter. I'm ill
accustomed to eating aged beef anyway..those who are
praise it highly and are no doubt right to do so...but
mine seemed to have aged so much it arrived with a
long, white beard attached. Dutifully, I ate it
anyway while I longingly and lovingly gazed upon
Jaimie's succulent salmon. He paid not the slightest
attention to me as I shifted and shoved my plate midst
glasses, salt and pepper shakers, a vase of fake
flowers and all manner of tiny extra promotional menus
hither and thither trying to find a way to cut through
my beef without pitching the whole plate into my lap
whilst maneuvering around the teeny weeny table. Jaimie
happily devoured his salmon with a look of heavenly
delight and a sigh. I definitely wasn't happy, but I
had the show to look forward to and that was
something. Out of the dim past I remembered that
nightclubs were not famous for their extraordinary food
anyway. And since I didn't drink alcohol....well...I
noticed.
The show began at last. It consisted of an accordion
player who doubled as Master of Ceremonies, a lady
fiddle player, a lady piper and a young female dancer.
The MC/ accordionist was an very perky older gentleman
who stomped his feet and gradually got everyone going
in what had become a very crowded room. He asked for
countries of origin and as it happened we were the only
Americans in the room! The fiddle player, piper and
dancer were excellent, excellent. But then came the
Lady Singer. And she was BIG, blond, blue eyed with a
most raspy voice. As it turned out she quite
straightforwardly told us she had caught a bit of
laryngitis that afternoon swimming with her children in
the sea and was not "in voice." I thought that odd as
here in America an entertainer would never admit to
such a thing publicly, but instead would keep fingers
and toes crossed in hopes that the audience would think
we had an added interestingly, maybe even sexy, quality
to the voice. Not this lady. She stood right up there
in her VERY bright Caledonian tartan and said it plain.
I had to admire her chutzpah.
Well, she sang a few pleasant tunes then asked us to
join in with her for the usual familiar ones. Loch
Lomond was one, of course. I admit I got a bit carried
away to make up for the lost salmon, I suppose, and
held the final note out a bit longer than the others.
My voice does carry long distances after all the
training and my many years as a performer in B'way
theaters and I just forgot. Well, it didn't get by
fair lady singer and she stopped and cried out, "Who's
THAT!", looking my way. I tried to pull one of the
little menus up over my chin and mouth and nose as I
slowly sank into my chair, but she pointed her finger
at me and shouted, "It was YOU!!" Oh God, oh God, oh
GOD! She got me and I couldn't get away, the room was
tooo crowded. She shouted and waved at me to join her
on the stage and what else could I do.....?
She asked my name (my kilted skirt always gave me
away), where I was from (Brooklyn, always gets a
titter), that sort of thing then invited me to sing
with her. I smiled demurely and said, of course, and
off we took with accordion and fiddle.
We sang two verses and two choruses of Loch Lomond (she
the verses and I the choruses while I harmonized with
her at the end.) Of course, we got a big, big hand
mostly for being good sports, I think. We took our
bows. She inquired as I was leaving the stage if I was
leaving town soon??? I shouted back, yes, tomorrow!!
She sighed with relief and said that was good; she
really needed to hang onto her job. Neat lady!
More later.
Marlene Cameron
The place ws nearly empty, but not for long.