314 The Ramsey Dunbarton Story: Part VII – Bridge at Blair Atholl
“It makes you proud, doesn’t it, Bertie?” said Stuart. “Look at the wonderful scene. The flags. The Castle. The statues.
Doesn’t it make you proud to be Scottish, to be part of all this?”
“Aye, it does that, Faither,” said Bertie.
They crossed the road and made their way into the Gardens.
Then, crossing the railway line on the narrow pedestrian bridge, they headed for the steep path that led up the lower slopes of the Castle Rock. After a short climb, they found a place to sit, half on rock, half on grass, and from there they watched the trains run through the cutting down below. As they passed, some of the trains sounded their whistles, and the sound drifted up to them, and the sound, to Bertie at least, meant the freedom of the wider world, the freedom of which he was now, at last, being offered a glimpse. And he was happy, even when the wind swallowed up the sound of the whistles and made the train sounds seem faint and far away.
“I had a very strange dream last night, Daddy,” said Bertie suddenly.
“Oh yes, Bertie. And what was that?”
“I dreamed that Mummy had a new baby,” said Bertie. “And the baby was dressed in blue linen, which is what Dr Fairbairn wears. It was very funny. A little blue linen baby suit.”
Stuart looked at his son. Down below a train went past and sounded a warning whistle, audible for a moment, but then caught by the wind and carried away.
96. The Ramsey Dunbarton Story:
Part VII – Bridge at Blair Atholl
Ramsey Dunbarton looked at Betty with all the fondness that comes of over forty years of marriage. “I don’t think that you’re finding my memoirs interesting, Betty,” he said. “But don’t worry, I’m not going to read much more.”
“But they are interesting,” protested Betty. “They’re very interesting, Ramsey. It’s just that it gets so warm here in the The Ramsey Dunbarton Story: Part VII – Bridge at Blair Atholl 315
conservatory and I find myself drifting off from the heat. It’s not you, Ramsey, my dear. You read on.”
“I’m only going to read two more excerpts,” said Ramsey, shuffling the papers of his manuscript. “And then I’m going to stop.”
“Read on, Macduff,” said Betty.
“Why do you call me Macduff ?” asked Ramsey, sounding puzzled. “We have no Macduffs in the family as far as I know.
No, hold on! I think we might, I think we just might! My mother’s cousin, the one who came from Forres, married a man whom we used to call Uncle Lou, and I think that he had a brother-in-law who was a Macduff. Yes, I think he was! Well, there you are, Betty! Isn’t Scotland a village!”
“Do carry on,” said Betty, closing her eyes. “I love the sound of your voice, Ramsey.”
“Now then,” said Ramsey, referring to his manuscript. “This happened about twenty years ago. I had a client, not Johnny Auchtermuchty, but somebody quite different, who had a large hotel in Perthshire. We acted for them in some Court of Session business that they had and I went up there one Saturday to have lunch with my client and to discuss the progress of the legal action down in Edinburgh. It was a very complicated case and I was not at all sure that the counsel we had instructed understood some of the finer points involved. I had suggested this to him – very politely, of course – and he had become quite shirty, implying that advocates generally knew more about the law than solicitors did, which is why they were advocates in the first place. I replied that I very much doubted this and to prove the point I asked him whether he could name, from the top of his head, a certain section of a statute to do with the sale of goods. He looked at me in a very rude way, I thought, and then he had the gall to tell me that the legislation to which I was referring had been repealed the previous year, and did I know that? It was not an amicable exchange.
“The client, though, was a very agreeable man, and it was a mark of his status in that part of Perthshire that just as we were finishing lunch at his house the telephone went and it was none other than the Duke of Atholl! Now deceased, sadly.
“The Duke was a very strong bridge player – international 316 The Ramsey Dunbarton Story: Part VII – Bridge at Blair Atholl standard, in fact – and they were just about to have a game of bridge up at Blair Atholl and they needed a fourth player. The Duke wondered whether my host would care to play. Unfortunately he could not, as he had a further engagement that afternoon, but then he turned to me and asked me whether I would like to go up in his stead. Now, my bridge is not very strong, but I had played a bit with the Braids Bridge Club and of course it was a great honour to be invited to play with the Duke, and so I readily agreed.
“I went up to Blair Atholl more or less straightaway. A servant let me into the house and showed me up to the drawing room, where I met the Duke and two others, a man and a woman who were staying with him as his guests – people from London whose names I did not catch, but who seemed quite civil, for Londoners.
Then we all sat down at the bridge table, with me partnering the Duke. He opened the bidding on that first hand with one heart, and I rapidly took him up to four hearts on the strength of my single ace. Unfortunately, we did not make it, the Duke very quietly saying that he thought it was perhaps a slightly bad split.
“The game continued, and I must say that I enjoyed it immensely, even if the Duke and I were three rubbers down at the end. He did not seem to mind this very much, and was a very considerate host. We had a cup of tea after the bridge and we talked for about half an hour before the Duke had to attend to some other matter and I took my leave.
“ ‘Do have a wander round, Dunbarton,’ ” the Duke said very kindly. “ ‘Take a walk up the brae if you wish.’ ”
“I decided to take him up on this invitation since it was such a pleasant late afternoon. There was a path which led up a small hill and I followed this, admiring the views of the Perthshire countryside. Then the most remarkable thing happened. I turned a corner and there before me, charging through the heather, was a group of armed men, all wearing kilts and carrying infantry rifles. I stopped in my tracks – the men had clearly not seen me
– and then I rapidly turned round and ran back to the castle.
Beating on the door, I demanded of the servant who came to answer that I had to see His Grace immediately, on a matter of the utmost urgency.
The Ramsey Dunbarton Story: Part VIII – I Play the Duke . . .
317
“I was taken to the drawing room again, where I found the Duke sitting with his two other guests, engaged in conversation.
“‘Your Grace!’ I shouted. ‘Call the police immediately! There’s a group of armed men making their way down the hillside!’
“The Duke did not seem at all surprised. In fact, he smiled.
“ ‘Oh them,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry about them. That’s my private army.’
“And then I remembered. Of course! The Duke of Atholl has the only private army allowed in the country. I should have thought about that before I panicked and raised the alarm, and so I left feeling somewhat sheepish. But the bridge had been enjoyable, and I reflected on the fact that it would probably be a long time before I would be invited to play bridge again with a duke. In fact, I never received a subsequent invitation, but I have in no sense resented that. Not in the slightest.”
97. The Ramsey Dunbarton Story:
Part VIII – I Play the Duke of Plaza-Toro
“From real dukes,” read Ramsey Dunbarton, “to stage dukes.