Trip to Scotland 1983: Four and half months in the Highlands and Islands

**DCampbell16B** · 6th December 22, 08:21 AM

Background: My interest has been the culture of the Highlands and Islands. I don't know when or why it started other than my family name. A genealogist did trace our ancestors back to Massachusetts prior to the American Revolution, and he either came from Argyll, Edinburgh, Northern Ireland or Connecticut. Dead end. His grandson's wife, however, was descended from the Knox gentry, from around Renfrew.

I did take up the pipes at 16, but was more interested in the culture and music than competition or band. There were at that time no competent teachers within 70 miles, which might have been the moon for me. So I was self-taught from the Green Book. I had been playing woodwinds for 8 years by then, and could read music and understood the importance of no crossing notes. I was told a a few years later by a competent piper I could go right into Grade 3, so not terrible...

While in graduate school at what was then SUNY Binghamton I joined the Scottish Society of the Twin Tiers. There I made a couple important friends. One was a MacLeod whose father emigrated from Lewis, and who still had an uncle there. The other was Bill Nicolaisen (spelling?). He was a Professor of Rhetoric at SUNY. He was previously at the School of Scottish Studies, and had emigrated with his family. Some of you may remember the Place Name articles he wrote for the Scots Magazine back in the '70s. He gave me my first tuition in Gaelic.

Departure: I handed in my thesis and scrambled out of town before my professor could find more changes to make. I had a backpack, suitcase and two pipe cases. I hitchhiked from Binghamton to I90, then wisely took a bus to Boston. I had a one-way ticket stand-by ticket from Boston to London. I had chosen Boston as I did my undergraduate work there and had friends I could stay with, as well my sister was a freshman there at the time. I ditched as much as I dared, including one pipe case then waited to see when I could get a flight. I happened to run into the pastor of the college church before the flight, who had just returned from pastoring in Paisley. He gave me the name of the pastor of our denomination in Edinburgh, telling me to contact him when I got there.

First time flying! The flight was on a 747 at 8:00 pm. I had a window seat and saw a lovely sunset once we were up in the air. Things went downhill from there. We hit tremendous turbulence for several hours and were requires to be seatbelted. As I had never flown before I had nothing to compare it with. Meals were served, however, part way through that the flight attendants (stewardess's then) stopped serving and meals and strapped in. At that point I knew it was bad...

Eventually we got past that, and I ate. As it got brighter outside we were in a cloud. That continued until we were 200 feet above the runway in London. With one exception. I blessed my window seat because for about 10 seconds we looked down a hole in the clouds to see a brilliant green with shining silver threads. It was the Shannon River. It was lovely. All up and down the plane you could hear gasps as people saw it.

We landed in London. I got through customs. I had $1500 in my pocket. I needed a train north.

**Jock Scot** · 6th December 22, 11:12 AM

Post deleted, I misunderstood the text.

**DCampbell16B** · 6th December 22, 12:10 PM

It was the Shannon. That few seconds of opening in the clouds was all we saw out of the plane except gray cloud until we were literally just over the runway at Heathrow an hour and a half later. I never saw anything of London while on the plane.

**Jock Scot** · 6th December 22, 12:31 PM

Originally Posted by DCampbell16B

It was the Shannon. That few seconds of opening in the clouds was all we saw out of the plane except gray cloud until we were literally just over the runway at Heathrow an hour and a half later. I never saw anything of London while on the plane.

Ah ! I am sorry I did not read it correctly. Please accept my apologies.