RE: MACKEREL17 Feb 2019 19:40
Post WW2 and sugar was still rationed.....the single men who worked alongside my father would give me their sugar ration stamps which allowed me to wander along to Inverary and buy sweets. Was a well known figure, and the bull nose lorries heading for Glen Shira would stop...pick me up...and drop me off where I lived.....there was an old whitewashed cottage sat at the bottom of the mountain, an old Mr McKenzie and his missus lived there....he taught me the Gaelic and apparently I was as fluent in Gaelic as I was in english....but the old story...if you dont use it, you lose it. Father did work on the side for the Duke of Argyle estate and had permission to fish the rivers, no charge....again, some memories of some fine salmon getting pulled out of the river Shira. We went back up there many years later...camped out...caught the usual salmon....wrapped in doakin leaf, sealed with wet clay all around, laid in a pit and a wood fire started atop the fish....baked salmon....deelish !