'Tis a braw, moonlicht nicht tonicht, och aye the noo
'Sarf & West mate, Sarf & West'
Pete Bernfeld
Tue 17 Nov 2009 00:53
Sometime last century (indeed, sometime during the last millennium) I was
taken to visit some relatives in Glasgow. Now, I (we) had severial
relatives in that fair city (fair city??? The last time I was there was
when i was flying for BACitiExpress. Sitting in the hotel bar, just off
Sauchihall St, you could just about make out the sounds of small-arms
fire drifting across the car park, any way, I digress).
These particular relatives employed a house-keeper (this was some time
ago, people used to do that sort of thing). This lady actually ran the
house ( as opposed, I suppose, to the 'house keeper' employed ~if that's
the right word~ by an elderly bachelor uncle in his flat). I was too
young to question the set up, but I have a memory (actually, I have
sharper memories of the last century than I do of this present one,
slightly worrying eh?) that one (if perhaps not the only one) of her
duties was to ensure that visitors had very small glasses of whiskey and
the elderly uncle (great uncle, I suppose he must have been) had
exceedingly large glasses of whiskey.
Anyway, the housekeeper (whose name my rum-inspired memory tells my was
Barty ~but I could well be wrong, I usually am) of the first relatives I
mentioned took it upon herself to teach this young sassenach something of
the local 'lingo' (this was long before the days of 'see you Jimmy, which
is relatively easy~albeit care must be taken with the 'Glasgow kiss' at
the end).
Standing in what I like to recall as the impressively middle-class
wall-encompassed courtyard of the house (but which, in reality, may well
have actually been a bomb-site fenced off with razor wire), the stars
glittering in the dark, endless frozen sky. Barty (yes I'm almost certain
that was her name) putting her hand on my shoulder (possibly to steady
herself) and breathing an impressive mixture of what must surely have been
freshly (relatively speaking) prepared Haggis and well-matured (at least
five minutes still-to-bottle) Glen Bollocks, gesticulated in the general
direction of Ursula Minor and uttered the immortal words:
"Tis a braw moonlicht nicht tonight, och aye the noo"
To this day, I don't have the faintest bloody idea what the woman was
trying to say.