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Bankhead Balerno Midlothian

31 Oct. 1936

My dear John,

I am long owing you a letter and I have not bee unmindful but just procrastinating in the hopes of having something interesting to say. Now I realise that if I go on like that I'll never write and so our Hallow e'en here goes.

It was anxious work hearing of your little "turn". I can't remember from whom I first heard about it. However seeing Walter one day in Princes Street I was relieved about you only to be alarmed about Billy. However there again a meeting with Brian eased my mind. And so I hope things are getting back to normal. My last news was getting a hurried read of a letter from you to Johnnie Jameson, with whom I foregather most Fridays and all seemed to be well. Only you must miss Susie badly. I hope the Hudson Bay

climate & work will suit Mr John better than equatorial Africa.

You must have had a splendid trip to the West. What tales you will tell when we got you back again.

My only expedition of any moment since I last saw you was spending 4 weeks at Orbost House(now a Gasthaus) Hotel with my family. The fact that I didn't mind at the time (what I can't look back on without - well with a shudder - but reluctance to repeat -) the minor discomforts of sharing a not too wide room and bed, while the children bickered and differed in similar cramped surroundings, shows how much the rest [underlined] made up for the sense of overcrowding. The food fortunately was good & plain and Tallisker supplied by John Campbell of Sligachan comforted the evening hours. The panorama is superb especially when the sun is in the west

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Canna and Rum to the south (I can't abide Seton Gordon's Ungaelic [underlined], Greek "Rhum", the Highlander calling it Roma) & about 2/3 of the Cuillin to the E.S.E. from the "Pinnacles" to Sgurr Dearg, between which and Banachdraich a little thumb shows up - Sgurr Mhic Coinnich [sic]. The sight was of course too much for Isabella & we climbed Bruach na Frithe from the Glenbrittle road - Oh those roads! rutted, pock-marked, narrow, twisty. We were 'definitely' (the [underlined] word with the young nowadays) too far away & that & a subsequent ascent of Sgurr nan Gillean by the tourist route and a scamper up Glamaig was all we were able to do in that line.

The other things that stand out in my memory are the wonderful promotories and headlands from which we had at least 5 fine views. Rubha Hunish in Trotternish from which something near Cape Wrath was visible

Rudha Valiornish [sic] marred by a minute gun of the Northern Lighter which gulls and gannets may ignore but which no human being could ever get used to & the gigantic cliffs of Duirinish. Also I fell in love not so much with the Quiraing as with the Storr Rock & surroundings. Isabella & I had the luck to see the Brocken at 2 P.M, looking down from the very top into a precipitous gully, & the mystification of only being able to see our own reflection in the mist was tested again & again & we waved & wagged our heads but never saw one another.

A little bit of the Portree Games was quite fun especially as I ran up against our old friend McWhisky M.P. for Argyllshire, who is a rale divairt at a' times & was there fulminating against the Milk Board in spicy language. The site was more than picturesque & the affair is less pompous than those fearful Oban exhibitons where Welshmen & distillers & Creoles strut about saying it in tartan. But some will say 'what's it'? Ans. "We're IT". There seemed to be less of the "chinstrappy" "Eileanstaffnage" prominence

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BANKHEAD BALERNO MIDLOTHIAN

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& not so much ostentatious stage management. When the end came it very nearly did come for the only Gillons with much chance of continuance. The old one is now 82 & Andy seems unlikely to found a family. We left Orbost in a dense cloud of midges for Ardvasar opposite Mallaig. We were nearing Armadale Castle when there was a tinkle. I stopped & sent Isabella back. She returned with a bit of iron like a paper cutter. It was suspiciously like the leaf of a spring. I walked round the car but being a b.f. about machinery, as about many other things, could not see anything wrong & suggested we should go very quietly on & get across to the mainland. So we did for 1/2 a mile. Then crash! bump, bump, over we go - into a soft, dry, not too wide, accommodating providential ditch! It was an escape & I kept saying my prayers at