Forget Caribbean cruises when we’ve got Skye, Harris and Lewis - Susan Morrison:
Earlier this year, a nice chap emailed me and offered me a gig on a cruise ship. Apparently they wanted me to talk about bits of history. Ok, said I.
Now, loads of my friends in comedy have been doing the cruise ship thing recently. They get to go to Miami or Barcelona or even Perth in Australia. I got Greenock. In Scotland.
Yes, I’m on a ship that sailed from the Clyde, will call into Kirkwall, visit the Forth and then take me to Southampton. Well, I hear the Med’s a bit of a drag at this time of year.
We’ve all seen them sitting in the Forth, these modern Leviathans, a vast mothership sitting serenely by Big Red while her little boats disgorge a jolly army of shop-storming tourists, primed and ready to empty every fudge/tat/tartan emporium within miles.
Even in the shadow of the rail bridge, those ships look massive. They look even more massive up close and personal, especially when you’ve staggered about Greenock lost in the rain. Never let it be said I have a sense of direction.
Fortunately I found a nice wumman (and that is the correct spelling) smoking a fag outside a pub, who pointed me in the right direction.
As she said ‘Ye cannae miss it.’
And she was right. Greenock, bless it, has seen better days. The huge gleaming hull docked up beside the town centre looked like the alien invasion had begun, and I, for one, welcome our shiny overlords.
So do the good folk of the town, who were on hand to extend an incredible welcome to me, and also to assure the tide of Americans leaving the smirr wasn't rain, it was just “whisky waiting to happen.”
Cheerfully the team gave me an envelope with a cabin number on it and I promptly got lost again. This beast is huge. It’s like someone picked up a couple of hotels, Edinburgh Leisure and the Omni Centre then smooshed the lot onto a supertanker’s hull.
There’s a swimming pool on the top deck. That offends my puritanical streak when it comes to ship design. Water inside a ship’s hull is usually not a good thing. Remember the Titanic.
The ship is crammed with cheery Americans. They like their cruises. I think it's in the DNA. After all, so many of their ancestors reached Americans on ships considerably less comfortable than this baby.
They like sailing about and they like to talk. I thought we Scots were blessed with a lively curiosity, until I met American women in lifts. They do like to share.
One woman gave me the low-down on her divorce between decks 5 and 12, and these lifts aren’t slow. She was right to bin him, by the way. Don’t know why she put up with him for so long.
We left Greenock and sailed towards Kirkwall. The sun came out. The views across Skye, Harris and Lewis were stunning.
Betsy from Kansas has just turned to me and said “you’re so danged lucky to have this on your doorstep.” I was about to tell her this was a very long way from my front door, then I looked up and thought, yeah, Betsy, you are absolutely right. And thank you for appreciating it.