Boswell's Bus Pass Read online

  After a voyage made difficult by the unwanted attentions of Pirates from the Caribbean Inchkeith hove into sight. As our vessel dashed itself against the rock face David, displaying an extraordinary dexterity for a man of his age, clawed his way up the sheer cliff, ignoring the regurgitating puffins protecting their young. Finally he found himself staring at the boots of Tom Farmer the ostensible owner of the island. ‘Farmer you’re a dead man!’ he roared, sending him hurtling headfirst into the sea below.

  David was keen to make contact with the descendants of the young babies abandoned on Inchkeith some 300 years previously in the company of a mute, dumb nurse as part of an experiment to determine the natural language of mankind. This was not one of James IV’s better ideas. He soon found them cowering in a small cave talking what he quickly identified as a hybrid of ancient Latin and Gaelic.

  Ever quick to master new languages David interrogated them about their stay on the island. They informed him that the time had passed easily until the Middle Ages when the plague victims from Edinburgh were dispatched to the island.

  Life had then proceeded smoothly for the next 200 years or so until the military had decided to establish a barracks on the island. As a self-confessed expert on all aspects of military history with a specialist interest in fort construction, David took copious notes and threatened to produce a small monograph on his return …

  The movie faded and the images blurred back into the rain as the 38 bus entered the outskirts of Edinburgh.

  Kirkcaldy – Kinghorn –St Andrews – Leuchars

  The driver of the Kirkcaldy bound X58 seemed relieved to have at least two passengers as he left the still-bleak bus station to the knot of beggars for whom Fife probably seemed as distant as Nirvana or the Seven Mansions of Paradise (newly incorporated into the bus timetable but with a restricted service).

  The road out of the city did yield a few surprises as the vantage point from the single decker was at least a metre higher than that provided by the average family saloon. It was possible to gaze fleetingly into the more obscure parts of Edinburgh Zoo and in particular its border with the posh hinterland of Cramond. David insisted that in living memory a family woke to find that a wallaby was already sitting upright in their home, paws on the table, waiting for its breakfast. More speculation followed: marmosets in the tea caddy; orangutans in the Wendy House; a toad eating macaw in the bread bin.

  The road to the Forth Bridge provided a brief glimpse into a caravan site normally hidden from view. Caravans to a vanishing point were tightly packed into a grey-white shanty town. Seeking to woo the popular vote the Scottish government had moved quickly to remove all caravans and mobile homes from the face of Northern Britain. The cull happened overnight. There had been little resistance. Never again would their owners move in infuriating convoy through the Highlands at a snail’s pace inducing apoplexy in all motorists condemned to follow in their wake.

  The X58 was largely free from the tumble-weed detritus that habitually roams bus aisles wrapping itself round feet and insinuating itself into shopping bags and conversations. The Metro represents a publishing masterpiece that appeals equally to football obsessives, celebrity gossip junkies and a few strange people with a genuine but residual interest in affairs of the day. Each samizdat paper will pass through many hands before disintegrating into crumpled illegibility.

  Lonely travellers take a copy with them when they leave the bus, having chosen to savour the best bits later, during an unofficial toilet break or over the lunchtime Prêt a Manger cured Wiltshire ham-filled half baguette. What will they treat themselves to today from the single copy tucked neatly into the arm support? The extraordinary article on page 7 won hands down.

  71 YEAR OLD AVOIDS JAIL OVER HORSE SEX

  A pensioner who performed a sex act on a horse has avoided being sent to prison. The man was spotted with the horse’s head in his groin by the animal’s owner. ‘The witness was shaken and disgusted by what he saw’ prosecutor Noelle Brockbank told Teesside Magistrates’ Court. ‘He picked up a stick and struck the defendant. That startled the horse, causing it to run off, dragging the defendant with it … The Chairman of the bench said the defendant ‘caused stress to the owner and the animal itself.’

  Arguably it wasn’t the act itself that caused the horse distress, rather its new friend being hit with a stick by its owner. What if he had been jailed? Barlinnie’s corridors would have echoed with endless neighing and whinnying. There would have been a waiting list for Black Beauty in the prison library, and the conversations in the lunch queue would have been punctuated with cries of ‘Ye did whit?’

  Some ten million or so separate human beings would have read that article. Many would have at least mulled over the moral and logistical aspects of the case. We can only guess at the impact on the collective psyche.

  Johnson was not a stranger to this type of journalism. Despite his subsequent cerebral contributions to The Spectator and The Rambler he had an early grounding in the popular press. One of his first jobs was with Warren’s Birmingham Journal. An edition from his time with the paper includes the following highlights:

  ‘In Kent a grampus landed on the flats at Sandwich, proved very troublesome and made a hideous roaring … while a workman from Mr Tomkins’ glass-house, being cheerful and seemingly in good health, suddenly trembled and died … in Stephen’s Street in Dublin the five year old son of Jones the plasterer fell down a well of a very great depth … in Hammond Lane a shoemaker named Terryl poisoned himself being jealous of his wife …’

  Boswell could have saved much time, effort and printer’s ink if he had, instead of publishing his vast and swollen biography, taken a leaf out of the Metro and confined himself to the column space used in the daily 60 Second Interview.

  B Well, Doctor, why did you choose to compile a dictionary when there were some perfectly good ones about?

  J The intricate machinations of the epistemological concept intimated strongly …

  B Thank you Doctor? Do you believe in God?

  J The nature and manner of your inquiry prompts me to conclude that the subject of theological speculation is one that has been reduced ad absurdum to popular conceit and a degree of ignorance that …

  B Good answer, Doctor. What is your next project?

  J After the foul and unjustified reception afforded to my dramatic tragic comedy at Drury lane, and given the lingering affection for Irene, and the welcome encouragement from David Garrick, I am inclined once more to engage with the muse of Dionysius. My subject will be …

  B Excellent news!

  After a brief sojourn in Kirkcaldy we travelled the few miles to Kinghorn where Boswell and Johnson landed after visiting Inchkeith. The Sassenach Mohr was unimpressed. He declared in a letter to Mrs Thrale, ‘A mean town … consisting of horse hirers and boatmen noted all over Scotland for their impudence and meanness.’ In the pages of his more measured Journal he confines himself to a description of the meal they had at Munros, probably at Pettycur harbour, of ‘fish with onion sauce, roast mutton, and potatoes’. Johnson eating was not a pretty sight. Boswell noted how he would make an interesting range of sounds with his mouth including ‘chewing the cud and clucking like a hen’. Sadly we had no opportunity to practise our repertoire of hen impersonations. There was not a greasy spoon in sight, let alone a restaurant.

  We did though pass Alexander Drive en route to the harbour. David explained that in 1286 King Alexander III, aged 44, was returning on horseback to be with his young second wife at Kinghorn Castle after meeting his council in Edinburgh. It is alleged that in the dark and in foul weather his horse stumbled and pitched him to his death over the cliffs. The consequences were huge as the crisis of succession led directly to the Wars of Independence with England. Growing into the role of a medieval Rebus David became increasingly animated propounding all manner of conspiracy and assassination theories. Judging by the unsavoury state of the Kinghorn pavements it was surely more likely that the poor man’s horse
skited on the abundant dog mess and tumbled into the harbour. Either way it seems slightly strange that the event is not referred to by either Johnson or Boswell.

  The jetty is now an extension of someone’s scrap yard. The defensive wall of bicycles, bedsteads and old sheds would deter all but the most hardy and recently inoculated from attempting to land.

  Out to sea was the odd spectacle of a fire tug preening itself, an aquatic peacock, shooting plumes of water in spectacular but pointless arcs. On the horizon was the newly reinstated Rosyth ferry. It seemed unlikely that the lorry drivers on board would be misled by the one-ship nautical cavalcade into mistaking the Forth for the River Hudson.

  By now the pursuit of mutton and onions or the equivalent was becoming something of a priority. A café on the High Street promised us an unforgettable breakfast which, in the circumstances, seemed an acceptable compromise. It certainly lived up to the hype. The fact that it was served by a waitress wearing latex gloves should have warned us. The gloves were necessary to prevent her from being contaminated by the sausages that had the unwelcome, if novel, consistency of pâté. To avoid staring at our congealing and rancid plates we looked with interest at the building opposite whose roof was shimmering ominously, as if at any moment it would be lifted off by sheets of flame. Every square inch was covered in pigeons.

  By now David’s diatribe on the forgotten pleasures of mutton was becoming repetitive. To prove his point he ventured into the neighbouring Quality Butchers where he confronted a refugee from the eastern European state of Monosyllabia;

  Did he sell mutton? Na.

  Did anyone ever ask for mutton? Na.

  Can you buy mutton anywhere? Na.

  On the way up the hill we passed one of the least inviting churches on the planet. Declaring itself the RHEMA Christian Mission it had gone to considerable lengths to take inclusivity to new heights by wrapping every wall in barbed wire. The Truth must be kept safely inside and not under any circumstances be allowed to escape into the streets and the lives of ordinary, unchosen people.

  *

  Entering Kirkaldy I looked for the floodlights of Stark’s Park, the football stadium which parodies in miniature the one at the centre of Lowry’s Match Day. Its turnstiles will still only admit one whippet-thin supporter at a time. Soon a gloomy son of the manse will cower anonymously on the terracing sucking warmth but no comfort from a polystyrene cup. Prime Minister no more, a paunchy wraith, condemned to wander the wastelands of Fife for the rest of his days. He will find the perfect reflection of his own fallen glory in the fortunes of Raith Rovers.

  Striking up an innocent conversation about free travel with an elderly woman in the bus station queue was a mistake. Animated with genuine bitterness she embarked on a loud tirade about the grannies down the town who could easily afford to pay for their fares if they didn’t spend all their money on toys for their spoiled grandchildren. Seeking, but not finding, support from others in the queue for her rant against families in general she developed her increasingly self-absorbed monologue. Yes, she had lived in Kirkcaldy for 59 years but no, she couldn’t lose her English accent. She wasn’t to be deflected. No, she and her late husband had not had any children. And why would they, given what it had been like for her being brought up in a family of fourteen? Her parents had no time for any of them, and fought all the time. And what about people who claim it’s great living down the road from their sons and daughters? How often do they actually see them? How many of the kids will even go to visit them unless they want money? With these rhetorical questions hanging in the air we joined the embarrassed line to board the X54 Dundee bus.

  Something must be said about the quiet rituals of courtesy that govern the behaviour of elderly bus travellers. Where old people join the queue is determined not by who got there first but by where they can find a seat in the shelter, where it is most convenient to leave shopping trolleys as big as themselves and by which friends they have spotted. When the bus arrives the original order of arrival is skilfully recreated, polite questions asked to determine priority, followed by a slow motion tea dance before anyone gets on board.

  Once on the road I guessed at the average age of my fellow travellers. This difficult calculation led me to misinterpret a neon sign proclaiming 80’s CLUB NIGHT EVERY WEDNESDAY. I could hear the surly bouncers rejecting desperate clubbers with ‘You’re not a day over 79. Piss off!’ I could just see the rack by the cloakroom for hanging colostomy bags and any prosthetic limbs that might get in the way of dancing.

  A striking feature of Kirkcaldy is the way in which you turn a corner and see an ocean-going tanker neatly framed by the tenements that slope downwards. Equally striking but less dramatic was the plague of inflatable Santas that could be seen abseiling up the walls of semi detached houses, reminiscent of television images from the siege of the Libyan embassy in the 80’s. Many of the gardens even in the poorest schemes boasted huge trampolines that made the equally numerous satellite dishes seem like innocent prototypes. As a consequence of this literal wish to keep up with the neighbours the Victoria Hospital has a specially trained trauma unit that specialises in putting back together small children whose bodies have been impaled on clothes poles and broken on coal bunkers.

  One of the strangest but most revealing of passages from Boswell’s entire account describes the thoughts he had on the road to St. Andrews. ‘We had a dreary drive in a dusky night to St. Andrews, where we arrived late. I saw, either in a dream or vision, my child, dead, then her face eaten by worms, then a skeleton of her head. Was shocked and dreary. I was sunk. Mr Johnson complained I did not hear in the chaise, and said it was half abstraction. I must try to help this.’

  It is difficult to sustain a view of Boswell as a sycophantic buffoon when he is capable of such disclosure. I wonder if he hasn’t given honest expression to the thought that dare not speak its name in the hearts of most parents. For his part Johnson was no stranger to the terror that can come in the night and was frequently visited by dreams of his brother Nathaniel who died young.

  Boswell and Johnson made the most of their time in St Andrews. They enjoyed a candle-lit walk to St Leonard’s College. They ate well at the houses of the Professors; ‘salmon, mackerel, herrings, ham, chicken, roast beef, apple pie’. There must have been many opportunities for chewing the cud and hen clucking. They inspected the student accommodation which they found to be ‘very commodious’. They make no mention of the stereos, iPods, Pot Noodles, discarded underwear, Snap Faxes, stolen police bollards, posters, pin ups, and condoms bought, as ever, more in hope than expectation. Boswell would certainly have noted the condoms had he seen any. He may even have stolen one or two as they were something of a specialist interest given the frequency of their appearance in his London Journal, but were not always available judging by the existence of his illegitimate children.

  At several points in St Andrews Johnson insisted on doffing his cap whenever he came across ecclesiastical demolition perpetrated in the name of the Reformation. David suggested his reaction was mirrored by most in the West when the news bulletins showed the mutilation by the Taliban of the Buddhas in Bamiyan Valley.

  Writing to Mrs Thrale, Johnson describes meeting an old woman who lived with her cat in a semi-collapsed vault under the cathedral ruins. She claimed to be of royal extraction, thought her sons were probably dead and exalted in her two main possessions, these being a heap of turf for burning and ‘balls of coal dust’. When she told Boswell that her main occupation was wandering though the graveyard at night he asked if she had met any ghosts. She replied that although her evening strolls were largely ghost-free she always had premonitions before hearing that a relative had died. Perhaps her sons had chosen to avoid even this method of contacting their mum.

  I struggle with St Andrews. Yes, it’s attractive and smart but I can’t get beyond my own prejudices. It still feels elitist and unnecessarily exclusive with pretensions beyond its status. Although Glass’s Inn where the two of them enjoyed �
�a good supper of rissered haddocks and mutton chops’ is no longer there we had agreed to buy a pint in the pub nearest the original site. This was easier said than done. The Castle Tavern was bricked up. Most of the adjacent premises bore names such as Psychic World, The Miller’s Tale and Anyone for Tennis. Not a decent boozer within 100 yards. Eventually we settled for the Central Bar and squeezed in alongside troops of yahs happily braying their way through the menu and ordering food that should have been beyond the means of your typical student.

  There was one other customer who looked as if he might join us in a quick burst of class war if push came to shove but even he displayed odd tendencies. He would disappear at intervals but not before carefully placing beer mats on the top of each of his three pints. Was he fearful that passing bats might defecate in his ale? Was it a defence against someone spiking his drink with Ritalin? On reflection, unless he had bladder problems he was sneaking out the back for frequent smokes and was using beer mat semaphore to warn unsuspecting bar staff against pouring his temporarily neglected drinks down the sink.

  Samuel Johnson chose St Andrews to deliver his thoughts on smoking; ‘To be sure, it is a shocking thing-blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people’s mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us. Yet I cannot account why a thing which requires so little exertion and yet preserves the mind from total vacuity should have gone out. Every man has something by which he calms himself: beating with his feet or so.’