Some chronology for John Joseph Ray

1977


A most scenic drive near where I grew up -- the road from Cairns to Port Douglas





Scotland

While I was in Britain in 1977 I went up to Scotland a couple of times. The first time Henningham, Helen, Joy and I hired a car and went sightseeing. We drove all the way from London via Edinburgh, the Western Highlands and Skye to the Outer Hebrides.

The most beautiful scenery I have ”ever• seen was Scotland's Western Highlands. I have never been much of a one for scenery but this even got to me. The only thing in Australia that I know of which comes close is the road from Cairns to Port Douglas.

We made a detour to visit the Isle of Skye. I was glad we did. It too was really beautiful. One morning I looked out the window of the bed and breakfast in which we were staying and literally saw "a bright golden haze on the meadow" there.

After Skye, we drove further up the coast and eventually took a Caledonian McBrayne ferry across to Harris and then drove straight up the island to Lewis.

When Joy and I got to the main centre on Lewis it was 11pm but still broad daylight and we had no trouble getting accommodation at a bed and breakfast place (i.e. a private home).

At the Northern tip of Lewis was a nice white sandy beach and I decided the next morning that a swim in Sub-Arctic waters would be worth a try.

By the time I got in up to my knees I could not feel my toes so thought the better of it. Nobody else tried. I later did the same thing off a beach at Herm in the Channel Islands -- with similar results.

I felt rather at home on Lewis. Everyone seemed to have skin that was as fair as mine.

We broke a windscreen on Lewis so next had to get back to the mainland and drive all the way across Scotland to Inverness (on Loch Ness) to get it replaced. We did of course look for the monster on the way but what really stays in mind was what an attractive place the Loch was in summer.

The Granite City (Aberdeen) was impressive too. Joy had family there whom we visited -- complete with the old family watermill.

I learned a bit about Aberdeen dialect from them. It was a fairly emotional occasion for Joy and her relatives as we were not expected and many years had passed since they had last seen one-another: The universal Scottish lament.

On the way back South, we also stopped in Dundee and we saw St Andrew's golf-course ("The home of golf").

Joy also had relatives in Glasgow whom we visited: Quite a nice occasion. I got to know a fair bit about Glaswegians and really got to like them.

They are incredibly status©conscious, however. My being a Doctor went down exceedingly well! Education is, of course, the thing Scots most respect.

The most notable thing about Glasgow was that it looked as if it had just been heavily bombed. Whole suburbs were in rubble. But it wasn't the Luftwaffe that did it. It was smart-arse town-planners and Leftist social engineers. They bulldozed the "slums" such as the Gorbals. Beautiful old stone terrace houses which would have been snapped up for renovation in Australia were witlessly destroyed.

They moved the slum-dwellers out to new estates such as Easterhouse which then also became pretty slum-like. I know. I did a social survey there.

I did the social survey on my second trip to Glasgow after Joy had gone home to Sydney. I took MTB with me.

The Scots are great lovers of ritual and "the done thing". They seem to love rules. They have a custom for every occasion. I went to a party in Glasgow with MTB and it was some occasion (Halloween?) on which "Apple Dooking" was practiced. You have to grab an apple with your teeth only while it is bobbing in a pail of water.

Being a rather dour sort, I did not think much of the idea so said "No thanks". To an English person that would have been it. They would have been embarrassed to press me further. Not the Scots. In the most friendly way they simply insisted. They just did not understand the idea of not doing something that was customary.

That aside I felt very much at ease among the Scots. Australians are popular there. Scots see Australians as being "enemies" or "victims" of the English -- which is also how they see themselves. As Joy and I moved aroundÜr Scotland it was interesting to see how our reception changed when Scots discovered that we were not English. It was a transformation: From correct formality to warmth.

I think I slightly prefer the Scots to the English. I like their greater spontaneity. Though I appreciate English reserve too. I am pretty reserved most of the time.

The only thing I dislike about the Scots is their ingrained Socialism. When Mrs Thatcher came to power in a landslide, Scotland actually at the same time swung ”away• from the Tories. Still, Edinburgh is a lot more conservative than Glasgow (where 50% of the Scots live), so maybe I would enjoy living in Edinburgh if I could hack the climate. Glasgow has a reputation for ugliness which is undeserved. There are quite a lot of nice places in Glasgow.

When I was doing my survey in Glasgow (mainly concerned with Scottish nationalism) I tried to look up various books on Scottish nationalism in the various libraries there. One I could not find anywhere. No library had bought it, I gathered. Because of funding limits, a lot of books are hard to find in British libraries, even University libraries.

When I got back to Australia the book I had been seeking was just sitting there on the shelf at the University of N.S.W. library! They could afford a book on Scottish nationalism that the Scots themselves could not. Wealth and poverty do make a difference and socialist Scotland certainly was poor when I was there.



Glasgow

Glasgow is a strange place. It has one of the world's highest rates of violent crime. The crime mostly consists of the "Jimmies" (usually young working class Glaswegian males) sticking shivs (an improvised stabbing knife) into the gizzard of one of their friends on Friday or Saturday night. Sinking lots of whiskies with beer chasers does that to you.

So it's not really serious -- and even the Jimmies don't seem to think it is.

I have a memory of standing outside a pub in Sauchiehall St that reminded me strongly of a traditional Australian pub. I guess we got our pub culture from the Scots. Scots certainly like a "wee dram" -- but only the males of course. The women drink tea to set the men a good example. But that is how it was. I imagine that younger Glasweginan women have now given up that futile effort.

Anyway, I even rembember seeing outside the Sauchiehall St pub a woman sending in her children to extract her husband from the pub and get him to come home for his dinner.

Does that seem strange? Not to me. That was part of my life too. Men are very consistent about where they drink. So their friends and wives generally know where to find them after hours. And my mother did too. It was generally my sister who was sent in to get my father out of the pub (usually the "Crown" in Innisfail) but I guess I would have had that job if my sister had not been a cuter kid than I was.

So I rather like Glasgow. I feel that I understand it. The fact that my second wife was a very fine Glaswegian woman may have some influence on that conclusion, however.

Glaswegians are generally very good-humoured people (as long they are not talking to the English) and Joy certainly has a full measure of Glaswegian good cheer. She even gets on well with the English! So that is extremely good-natured by Scottish standards.



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