THE INCIDENTAL

I was sitting at a picnic table at the south-eastern end of the caravan site, looking over the magnificent sweep of Belhaven Bay. The sun had appeared, as if by magic, a rarity these days, and the scene was one of utter peace and tranquility. From the corner of my eye, I saw an old man drifting towards me, walking an irascible-looking West Highland Terrier. The man was wearing a 'Dad's Army' tee-shirt with the faded faces of Captain Mainwairing, Sergeant Wilson, Private Walker et al peering from its front. He sported a bilious green baseball hat, a pair of crumpled blue jeans, and grimy espadrilles on his feet. I pretended to look for inscriptions on the timber rails of the tabl,e but it was no use.
'D'you think I'll get a game in?' he said.
'I beg your pardon?'
'Golf', he replied. 'I've brought half a set with me.'
His accent suggested he was Glaswegian. He was old and spry and sprightly, with mischievous clear blue eyes that twinkled behind gold-rimmed spectacles.
'I really don't know,' I said. 'There are two courses - you could try both.'
'It's a long way to town on foot?' he enquired.
'At least a mile and a half,' I replied.
'I'll drive. I'm in my camper van.'
'Oh, where is it?' I asked.
'It's just along from your caravan,' he replied, waving a bony arm in the general direction of the old ruined tower.
'It's the Bedford Rascal?' I asked him, with incredulity. He nodded proudly. This was a machine about the size of a shopping trolley upon which was fitted a caravan back end that might have been suitable for one of the shortest of the seven dwarves, say Stumpy or Dumpy, if indeed any of the dwarves were named as such. The van was 25 years old, and most of the ones that had ever been built had long been returned to the blast furnaces of Korea.
'My wife died two years back,' he said. 'Twelve weeks ago, I'd had enough of sitting around. I gave my car to my son and bought the van. I've been right round the United Kingdom. I've had a whale of a time. I've been to Kent, Sussex, Somerset, Warwickshire, the Lakes.'  He reeled the names off on his fingers.
'I told my neighbour in Dufftown, that's where I live, just to put all my mail on the kitchen table. I don't care if there's a break-in - perhaps the thief will leave the place tidier than I did.' He laughed merrily. Apropos of nothing, he told me that he had been brought up in Maryhill, not far from where I had just taken on a fresh assignment.
'My, but there was religious tension in those days,' he said. 'My aunt was to marry a proddie and the priest came round and gave her hell. My mother turned him out of the house. I was just a nipper, but I remember throwing stones at him as he walked out the tenement door. He said "Stop that, you wee nyaff, or I'll box your lugs for you". He never caught me. I was fast as the wind in those days. I'm going back there next week.  I haven't seen Glasgow for 50 years. I suppose it's changed.'
He sounded full of regrets. And so we parted, this sprightly little man, his dog and I, never to meet again. I reflected that, during twenty minutes of conversation, I had spoken about thirty words. It's a good job I'm a patient listener. But then again, I don't really have a story to tell.