fort@obantimes.co.uk
Retro Roamer
‘I’ll tell you why I’m phoning’ (as we say in Lochaber) was the opening gambit by a Fort William hotelier to a kindred spirit in the Borders. ‘Have you got a party of French people in on a New Year coach tour?’ The Borders hotel was, indeed, playing host to 40 Free French. ‘Aye, well, could you tell the courier to take an inventory from them all – as we’re short of seven wee vases, a dozen butter dishes, a few dinner plates and Heaven knows how many ashtrays, after they stayed here last night, and I reckon they thought our hotel was staging some form of Collectors Fair – for the Free French!’ Two days later a very large package arrived at the Fort hotel. ‘Fragile, with care’, it said on the outside. And inside it? Seven wee vases, a dozen butter dishes, everything, indeed, bar a partridge in a pear tree.