| At the Loch Of The Green Corrie - Andrew Greig. |
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It was the last time they would take a dram together, the poet and the writer. For just months later, early in 1996, the fiddle of Aly McBain broke from a slow air into a celebratory reel to mark the end of Norman MacCaig’s funeral service in Edinburgh.
However, before their glasses were drained, MacCaig, that grand old man of Scottish poetry and also a fisherman of considerable skill, had this request to make of Andrew Greig: “I should like you to fish for me at the Loch of the Green Corrie. Only it’s not called that. But if you go to Lochinver and ask for a man called Norman MacAskill, if he likes you he may tell you where it is . . .”
The chance came some five years later — Andrew Greig’s fishing trip to that remote hill loch in the north-west of Scotland to honour a dying man’s wish. With him he had two great friends, the brothers Peter and Andrew Dorward, both better fishermen than he, but just as keen to find that stretch of water tucked away in the hills of Assynt.
Norman MacAskill did mark Greig’s map for him — a pencil circle around Lochan a Choire Ghuirm. And the trio did find it and they fished its clear water. The whole story and a great deal more besides floods into our consciousness through the pages of this resulting paperback, At The Loch Of The Green Corrie.
For this book is about much more than just a fishing trip. To begin with, it is a tribute to a great poet and friend — Norman MacCaig’s verse is interspersed throughout. But the pages also form a partial autobiography, chapters of reminiscence and, amidst much, much more, thoughts of friendship and the loss of those friends. Greig describes MacCaig’s story telling as “polished as a newel post by many passing hands.”
You could apply the same description to his own superbly crafted writing style. As always with such a book, readers will have favourite chapters and I have two. First came the geological lesson. The rocks of Assynt, I now know, are not just lumps of hard stuff. They are Lewisian gneiss, molten and reformed, which once formed the earliest part of the Earth’s crust. Perhaps they’re not the oldest rocks on the planet, but they come pretty close. It’s all part of “deep time”.
As well as primordial history, we readers can learn something about casting for trout. Happily for us, Greig whiles away some lochside time by going through the technique of casting with the line running across the water followed by retrieve, whether smoothly or in little jerks. Apparently the arm action has everything to do with success or failure. And, of course, it takes years of practice.
Final word. Take this beautifully crafted volume on your next long flight. I guarantee you’ll be sorry to arrive . . . |
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