In December 1978, in the dark of the afternoon, I strode the deck of the container vessel about to leave Trshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands, and drew on my recently purchased Cuban cigar.
The other three had muttered about not looking forward to our return journey to Scotland and were bedding down.
The Faroese fish-gutting winter of my life had drawn to a close with warm feather beds in the Sjomansheim (Seamen's Home; "accommodation and Christian hospitality") overlooking the fine harbour, and litres of Froya Bjr, the local lager, which at 0.5% strength was not in any danger of rendering us in a condition unsuitable for Christian hospitality.
Indeed one day, in the only café in Fuglafjord (the fjord of the birds) where we had worked, we calculated that you have to drink at least 15 pints to get mildly squiffy.) Without a doubt that Faroese winter was the one period of my adult life that troubled my liver the least.
Before we boarded our ship we had admired a large naval gun mounted at the entrance of the harbour - and we were astonished to be told back in the Sjomansheim that it had been removed from the British battlecruiser HMS Hood, and installed at Trshavn for harbour defence, shortly before she was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941.
"Ya - you will join us for dinner at six? We will be opening the Aalborg Akvavit and Carlsberg Elephant when we get two miles out of Faroe; there we will not be breaking the law!"
I gazed at the Hood's gun (only three of her crew survived) and beyond it the lights of Trshavn; I finished my cigar, threw the stub overboard, and with something of a nautical swagger went below to prepare for the evening. I was looking forward to it.
"Skaal!" "Slainte!" As I tucked into the pickled herring and hard boiled eggs with the vessel's jovial Danish crew ("Faroe alcohol laws rubbish, are they not, Scotchman?!"), I pitied the others already groaning in their bunks.
Two from Northern Ireland, one from (surprise surprise) the Central Belt, they had no sea legs at all. Why, the forecast storm was hardly rocking our ship. I drank happily and deeply. Tomorrow we would be in Leith; and the day after was Christmas Eve.
But you know, when I eventually rose and took my leave, I found myself curiously unsteady on my feet. The Aalborg had possibly been a little stronger than I had realized, so I took care and used what available support there was.
This was just as well, because on the steep steps leading down to the sleeping quarters, the ship suddenly took a downward plunge and a lunge to the side. Momentarily I was suspended in midair, next second the steel deck was rushing up to meet me. Suddenly sober, I gripped the handrails for dear life. Once I had opened my cabin door, which seemed to be above me, when the ship rolled the other way I literally dropped into my bunk.
Seasick? Oh gosh
The following morning, as we slid into the calm waters of Leith, we learned that we had indeed come through a terrible storm, one that had very nearly claimed lives. Pale and dishevelled, one of us with a thumping head, we leant on the rails and talked of the last stages of our various journeys home.
We could see a cutter approaching our ship; there was a man standing in its stern looking official.
"But this is a cargo vessel that shouldn't carry passengers" (amazing what a couple of bottles of Glenmorangie could achieve with the Danish merchant marine back in 1970s) "I'll have to take your papers back to the shore and call head office. In the meantime you cannot disembark!"
Aware of our wallets bulging with fish factory Faroese krone, and not being at all sure of the rules governing taking this currency into the UK, we meekly complied.
Six hours we waited. But then immigration decided that we were British after all, and on dry land we found a telephone box where my friend Ian Anderson rang his parents who lived in Bathgate. Yes they would happily provide beds for the other three of us. Mr Anderson was setting off for Leith now and there would be mince and tatties for supper.
Oh my, the Andersons were kindness itself. Lovely people; but just one strange thing about them - they were fresh air fanatics. As we ate, the windows were open and the freezing December air swirled around us.
Some years later I was let into the secret. Despite the fact that we were wearing our best clean clothes for our return home, the fact was that three months of fish-gutting had had its effect. It had sunk into our skins and we stank to high heaven. "Good grief" said my own father as he poured me my Christmas Eve dram "There's a hellish smell in here!"
A Merry Christmas to all my readers.
