MARK GILBERT: ‘It was a massive decision to move to Torrisdale so far away from the life I had down south’
The Postie Notes by Mark Gilbert.
Well, they say that time flies when you’re having fun, so the ten years since I finally arrived on Torrisdale seem to have gone by in the blink of an eye!
The final car journey from Bradley was a tight affair - we had so much in the car that you couldn’t have fitted a fag paper in.
There was Gertie, Josie and Stanley on the passenger seat and Milly the Puss in a tiny crate squashed in the back door.
We left at 3pm and arrived here at 2am the next morning, just with a couple of toilet stops. The only survivors of this journey are myself and Stanley, the others have “special” places outside now.
It was a massive decision to move so far away from the life I had down south, and I can remember asking the dogs in the car on one trip “what the ‘kin hell have we done?”
But it was too late and so we embraced the new chapter with both hands.
I started my new job as Strathnaver Postie a week after arriving (on transfer from RM Slaithwaite), so, very quickly I got to know lots of the locals and characters, phrases and traditions.
As I only knew where my house was and the main road routes that lead here, I was overwhelmed by seeing the vast wilderness in which I’d landed. I am still in awe of the beauty of the Highlands, as the landscape changes daily with the weather.
I arrived with the lambing season, the wild primroses and the cuckoo (don’t even go there), and they all still herald each anniversary.
When I first got the house, my intention was to just give everything a lick of paint, and that would see me out, but that didn’t go as planned.
The house has been transformed inside and out, and thousands of hard earned pounds later, it ain’t getting done again.
The house is very comfortable and big for one man, his dugs and cats. The works were mainly done by Brian Kay, the best joiner I’ve ever known, and Gary Munro, my handyman and friend, plus other local characters.
I do miss my old life, Bradford Curries, real ale pubs that you don’t have to drive 50 miles to, and the instant opportunity to visit friends and facilities, without having to plan a trip as you do up here (and always prepare a shopping list first) - but that aside, with a hard heart and determination, I accepted my lot and embraced it.
I called the house “AnsonMackaysAuldHoose”, because every time someone asked me where I stayed, I would say 309 Torrisdale, and they’d look gone out — so I eventually said that it’s AMAH, and it stuck.
My hero, because he sold me the house, Anson, agreed to the name.
Soon after arriving I brought Susan up from the peaceful Rosehill in Huddersfield, to Skerray Cemetery, which sits beside Torrisdale Bay.
That was a story in itself, but she was transported to her “final, final” resting place pulled by a tractor, on a trailer with Mackay Tartan and with local folk attending, now we’d both arrived.
I’ve adopted a number of local traditions, including moving venison around the area, sharing a peat bank and burning them in my Rayburn, soup and sandwiches at local meetings and very strangely, garden peas with fish and chips. Really?
But I’m going to have to be a very old man before I’m accepted as a local! I had a conversation years ago with someone who asked if I was a local, and before I could answer, a local lady interjected and said, “yes, he is”.
So I puffed out my chest and accepted it.
The next day when relating this to another local, I got the retort, “that lady has only been here around 30 years, she’s hardly local”.
So, I’ve got a long apprenticeship left.
Mark Gilbert is a postman based in Bettyhill.
