BARBARA HENDERSON: Surreal day on trip to Arran the WeeMacArran book festival beset by train delays and flooding issues as well as a lift with former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy
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What a surreal day! As I write, I am sitting on my bed in a guesthouse on the Isle of Arran. It is almost midnight. Here is what happened:
9.15am. I amble to the station carrying a backpack full of costumes and props. I am off to the WeeMacArran book festival, via Glasgow, another train and a ferry.
9.45am. We are on our way. I have been lucky enough to find a table and am furiously working on my current manuscript, an adventure set at the court of Mary Queen of Scots. My latest hack is this: when you’re halfway into a manuscript and you’re struggling to see the big picture, write a synopsis. Do it fast, don’t overthink. It soon sorts the story out. There will be things in the synopsis that need to go in the book. There will be things in the book which don’t feature in the synopsis.
10.45am. After an hour of furious scribbling, I have a synopsis, and therefore a decent version of my story. I feel the buzz – I’ve achieved something.
11.00am. My bubble is immediately burst by a tannoy announcement: the train to Glasgow will now terminate at Pitlochry. The carriage disgorges its passengers and we go in search of replacement buses.
11.50am. A bus arrives but can only take us to Perth. The town is gridlocked by flooding. No onward buses will come – we’re on our own. Thankfully I have met three staff from the wonderful Moniack Mhor, Scotland’s Creative Writing Centre. Rachel, Jon and Charlotte are hatching a plan to take a taxi, search out a hire car and drive to Glasgow for their meetings. Incredibly kindly, they offer me a place.
1.00pm. The first hire car is not available anymore. The team make more frantic phone calls from the taxi.
1.40pm. We enter the car hire showroom. I have definitely missed my intended ferry, but I may just make the last one of the day. I am deeply impressed with the can-do attitude of the Moniack team. We’re off. Despite almost non-existent progress along the A9 initially, we eventually clear the flooded Broxden and head west.
3.40pm. My Moniack knights in shining armour drop me off near the city centre. Now, to Glasgow Central Station.
4.00pm. I decide to drop into Waterstones beside the station because I need a coffee. To my astonishment, I bump into Moira and Ceris from the Sandstone Press team in the café. Minutes later I board a train to Ardrossan Harbour.
6.00pm. Elated, I board the ferry. Arran may be no more than a misty outline, but for the first time today I dare to believe I may actually get there. Halfway into the journey I hear news that Queen Elizabeth has died.
7.00pm. A volunteer picks me up. “Just jump into the car, Barbara. I need to pick one more author up,” she smiles before whizzing away. I was about to share a lift with Carol Ann Duffy – the former Poet Laureate. Buzzing, frazzled, elated, shocked – and now starstruck. What a day.
