I mentioned a grand lady last week - and so in the first column of 2012, I start with another one.
I cannot remember who in Caithness told me the story, but it is about the 1966 general election in Caithness and Sutherland, the one in which Bob Maclennan beat George Mackie for the first time (by just 64 votes).
Apparently George Mackie (now the ancient and venerable Lord Mackie of Benshie) had an extremely grand lady up from England to help him garner votes in the constituency, and it was her encounter with "an auld wifie smokin' 'e pipe" somewhere near Camster that was described to me.
"Oh, you must vote for Mr Mackie!" said the grand lady "He's a wonderful man - you simply must vote for him - he's a wonderful wonderful man!!"
Standing at the door of her house the "auld wifie" regarded the grand lady impassively, and then pulled the pipe out of her face and said: "How do ye know? Did ye try him?"
The grand lady's response is not recorded.
The word "grand" carries other meanings other than the sense in which I use it above. Let me illustrate a typically Highland usage by a second tale, one dating from when my brother was a presenter on Moray Firth Radio.
One morning he was live on air busily running the "Moray Barter" - when a gentleman rang in from the Black Isle selling a piano.
"You'll need to tell listeners a wee bit more about your piano, is it an upright or a grand?"
"Eh?"
"Is it a grand piano?"
"Oh aye - she's grand, right enough - she's a ******* topper!"
The late Jessie Mackay, who taught me to swim in Brora in the 1960s, was a grand lady in the Highland sense.
When I was in the Ardgay cubs, Tain Academy did not have a swimming pool. Only Invergordon had one and it was outdoors and freezing cold. So it was an enlightened decision to take car loads of youngsters up to Brora so that we could be taught to swim in the small training pool there.
In those days far less people knew how to swim - and speaking for myself, I was full of apprehension as I climbed down into the surprisingly warm pool where Mrs Mackay was waiting for us.
"Come on - you'll be fine - lean forward" and a big arm went under my tummy. "Stretch out the float in front of you and lift those toes off the bottom!"
Goodness, I didn't want that water up my nose, but gingerly I did what she said - and quietly, without me noticing, she slipped her arm away and I was floating. It was amazing.
What a nice lady she was, always so positive and encouraging. Within a week or two we had got the hang of the breaststroke and were embarking on the crawl and backstroke.
"Mrs Mackay's like a battleship!" I said cheekily to Edderton's Tommy Mackay.
"No, she's a battlecruiser!" said Tommy - both of us being at the high tide of our Airfix model warships phase.
She was a stout party, true enough - she was "grand" in the size sense too - but so too was her personality and kindness.
We maybe got cheeky as our confidence in the water grew, but I guess that all of the ex-Ardgay cubs will remember her very fondly indeed.
