On an afternoon in the solemn quiet of deep winter, we walk two miles through Glencruitten into highland, and then along a path passing by a few farms out to Loch Nell – Loch of the Swans. Loch Lubnaig, near Callander Robbie LawrenceĪlthough the progress in Oban is always, inevitably, towards the sea, it’s what lies behind the town that I love the most. Leading a volatile grey pony called Cromer up to the stable with a look on his young face like he’s hoping for the best. Paul, aged 17, waving from the window of the ice-cream van he bought after leaving school, motoring to the public beach at Ganavan and playing the Colonel Bogey March through the loudspeaker. Freckled cousin ‘Johnny Glasgow’ in a sporran hugging a cat. Uncle Johnny slung with bagpipes, heading up the hill to practise. Stern women in black aprons carrying sheaves of heather. My favourite thing is going through old photo albums – most pictures could have been taken on the set of Brigadoon. Paul’s family have lived in Oban going back as far as anybody can remember. Everybody on board taking their leave of the town – and Scotland – standing on the deck watching Dunollie Castle gradually disappear.

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all.’ And about The Highland Chieftain, a boat that all through that century hauled emigrés off to Sydney. I think about John Keats toiling across the graveyard on Iona when he visited on a walking tour in 1818, over the buried bones of Macbeth and 47 other kings, bone-cold himself, his lungs ominously heavy. Foam dots the shingle of Oban Bay far beneath me and our neighbour, old Ian, drives slowly along George Street in his pick-up full of rottweilers. Up on my perch, a bee buzzes confusedly past like it’s June.

Grey mother the long dark