Of Wooly Cows, Sheep and Pigs

This is my first blog in three weeks because we were out of the country for a fiftieth anniversary trip to England, Scotland and Ireland. After flying into Heathrow and spending a couple days in London, we boarded the M/V Star Breeze in Edinburgh for a cruise around several ports of northern Scotland and the Isle of Man finally winding up in Dublin. There were lots of sights to see.

Left: The M/V Star Breeze in Douglas, Isle of Man. First of all; in my humble opinion, a smaller cruise ship is the way to go The Star Breese carries up to 212 passengers and a crew of around 150, so you get royal attention the whole time you are on board. The cabins were spacious and comfortable and finding one’s way around the ship was easy, at least for those of us who are not directionally challenged. I must mention the food! Oh MY, THE FOOD! There was 24 /7 food service with at least one of the restaurants, clubs or the casino open late into the night. Room service was available overnight if you woke up hungry in the middle of the night. I must admit that the latter thing never happened. In case you are wondering, I did have the fish and chips with a choice of peas, regular or mushy. I also had a breakfast that included bangers and beans, (sausage and baked beans) scrambled eggs and potatoes. And No! I was not brave enough to try haggis! The evening meal in the main restaurant was 4 or 5 courses, depending on how much you could eat. It’s amazing I didn’t put on weight; thank goodness for all the walking on the onshore excursions.

Secondly, I’m so glad we chose a cool weather destination. A break from the South Carolina heat was definitely called for. Our personal record for the coldest place we have ever been in the summer used to be a late July afternoon on Mt. Cadillac, Acadia National park on the coast of Maine. That record was smashed to pieces at the Sky Life Museum on the Isle of Skye where the temperature was in the upper 40s to the lower 50s with gale force winds and horizontal rain. A piece of advice, to use the rest rooms there it will cost you 40 pence. Oh yeah, if you ask where the rest rooms are, you will get a blank stare, they call them toilets. Other than that and Loch Ness, the weather was enjoyable. It never got above 70 until we arrived in Dublin.

Speaking of Loch Ness, despite spending a couple of chilly wet hours on the south end of the lake, there was no sign of Nessie. Although I could have sworn I saw the Lizard Man from Bishopville, SC down near the lake beating the brush looking for her. The locals seemed very interested in our South Carolina Legend!

At Kirkwall the largest settlement and capital of Orkney, an archipelago in the north of Scotland, I had my strongest connection to my Navy days. About two miles south of the city lays the town of Scapa at the head of a large body of water bounded on all sides by islands and narrow passage ways. If you remember your history Scapa Flow was a large Naval Base during WWI and WWII. I studied this area in my Naval Science days, especially the submarine attack by U-47 on October 14, 1939 that sank The Battleship HMS Royal Oak and caused the construction of the Churchill Barriers. One thing that I didn’t expect was the Italian Chapel on A961 on the island of Burray just south of Glins Holm. It was built by Italian prisoners of war who were sent to Scapa Flow to construct the Churchill Barriers. The facade of the chapel looks like any small Italian church until you walk through the doors and realize that it was constructed from a Quonset hut. Exactly the same size Quonset hut that my uncle Harlo had on his lake property on Silver Lake in Florida. The interior walls were made of paper mache and painstakingly hand painted to simulate granite and wood. If you are ever there, it is worth a visit.

The Star Breese would travel at night, leaving one port around 5 in the afternoon and arriving at the next around 7 the next morning. Most of the ports we visited had space at their docks large enough to accommodate the ship but there were three where we had to anchor a mile of two from the docks and use the ships small craft, called tenders, to make our way ashore. We missed our scheduled stop at Portrush, Northern Ireland because there was no breakwater and the North Atlantic was running 5 foot swells, much too rough for safe transfer to and from the tenders. Speaking of boarding tenders, I proved that I’m not as agile as I was when I climbed down a rope net from a LST into a landing craft off of the coast of Virginia in the summer of 1965.

So, I’ve been asked of all the places we visited, which was my favorite. I am surprised by my answer; the Isle of Man. The cities we visited, Douglas and Castletown where we visited Castle Rushen and the village of Cregnaesh with its thatched roofs and chickens that challenged the Manx cats for a place at the hearth of the farmhouse. It was a perfect day; not a single cloud in the deep blue skies, a light wind from the southwest and rolling hills covered with green farmlands and pastures as far as the eye could see. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Governor. Manx is not part of the UK, it is a self-governing British Crown dependency with defense is the primary responsibility of the United Kingdom. They have their own money which despite being in Pounds Sterling cannot be spent anywhere but on the island.

OK Rick, what about any radio? Of course, there would be radio involved. Radio Manx the one commercial station on the island began broadcasting on June 29, 1964, almost ten years before commercial radio was licensed in the United Kingdom. There is a 20 KW directional AM station at 1368 kHz AM and several 50 watt stations 89.0 MHz (from Snaefell) for the north of the island; 97.2 MHz FM (from Douglas/Carnane) for the south of the island; and 103.7 MHz (from Jurby) for the island's hills. Additional low-power transmitters cover Ramsey and Peel on a frequency of 89.5 MHz. Despite being a “commercial” Station Manx Radio is heavily dependent on the taxpayers of the Isle of Man. Manx Radio receives a Government subsidy of nearly 1 million Manx Pounds per year. The low power FM stations have limited coverage but the AM station covers most of the Irish Sea including the coasts of Scotland, Wales, Ireland and western England including Liverpool.

We were in Dublin the night of the All Ireland Football (Soccer to us) Championship and the social life was wild. The restaurant and bar crowd spilled over into the alleyways outside and a city wide party was in effect, especially after the home team won. The restaurant where we had supper that night was just a few blocks from Trinity College and was filled with college students out on the town on a Saturday night. Most of the young women hung out in small groups that commandeered a table or two. They were dressed to the nines with lots of bare midriffs and high fashion cut jeans. There were far more cut jeans than you see around here and the quality of the material was much higher than I’m used to seeing. The guys would come in smaller groups dressed in more casual garb and orbit around the tables and the young women. The only kilt I saw in Dublin was on a young lady. Well maybe it was a very short skirt in a tartan pattern.

On the ride out to the airport from Dublin on Monday, our taxi driver turned out to be a huge music fan. Of course, his favorite band was U2. He told me that he was in Berlin for the U2 concert the Saturday before. Yes, he was standing in front of the stage about 20 feet from Bono when Bono lost his voice and the concert had to be cancelled. He said that audience was disappointed but understood and there was no trouble that he could see. When asked, he said that while he was disappointed too, he had seen them over two dozen times and now he had a story he could share with his grandchildren.

Left: Proof!!! A wooly pig in the pasture Wait, you say, What about the wooly cows, sheep and pigs! Well, in Scotland, especially the northern parts, the herds in the pastures are all Scottish Highland Wooly Cattle. They all have a shaggy coat of 4 to 6 inch long hair and horns are sported by both the males and females of the species. So a closer inspection than I was willing to make was required to determine the gender. Sheep were everywhere the most predominant farm animal around. They even had the right away on the streets. That is a hazard in the winter, because they liked to sleep on the paved roadways which were warmer than the surrounding grassland. The biggest animal surprise was rounding the corner on a tour bus in Orkney and tour guide pointing out the wooly pigs in the pasture out there with the sheep. Sure enough there they were in all their hairy glory!! This world still has surprises for this aging boomer. Oh MY!