Farewell to a man of ideas Leading article …

My brother Kenny

Biography
Lorn Macintyre
The national institution they buried with his mobile phone

Life of George
My intimate examination

The night I nearly drowned

The sea
Mike MacKenzie
Saving the coastguard service


Alan Fisher
A new future for the Middle East?

Bob Smith
The new kid

A man without enemies

Person of the Week
Sir Alec Cairncross
Profile by Barbara Millar

Lazy read

The Richard Wild series


The Midgie
Now we know where the money comes from

03.02.11
No. 362

Life of George

‘Can you describe, in your own words, the discomfort you experience?’ (Can you use someone else’s?)
     ‘It’s like the raw wire of a Christmas tree light winking inside my helmet there, Doc.’
     His joined-up eyebrows dance as he traces a lethal line. Andropausal plumbing’s very own Richter scale.
     ‘And how’s your stream?’ His steel fountain pen hovers. After some hesitation, I manage an ‘uncertain’ response.
     He writes some more and I peer at his dandruff. The quiet lends an opportunity to run through some face-saving quips to jolly along the inevitable examination. Starting from ‘Gonnae no’ dae that?’ all the way up to ‘Hope that’s still your finger by the way’ – depending on how invasive the process becomes.
     ‘We’ll just have a look, shall we?’
     He glides to the curtain and, just like that, sweeps it back as a magician revealing a sword-pierced assistant.
     ‘Pop up here on your left side.’
     He pats a black padded table elevated to a certain height.
     ‘Move a little more to the edge – that’s fine – knees up towards your chest – just apply some lubricant – (it gets cold and slippy back there) – and what did you say you did for a living?’
     In as normal a voice as possible I say ‘fitness IN-structor’ before concentrating on relocating both eyeballs to a forward position.
     ‘Sorry about that,’ he says, stripping off plastic gloves the size of flippers. I wait for post-traumatic stress to take hold and wonder if counselling is available.
     ‘Feels benign, you’ll be glad to hear – though quite enlarged. We’ll try these pills to reduce the swelling – if they don’t have the desired effect, then confronting the certainty of finely honed blades wielded by strangers is a true test of one’s mettle.’
     Perhaps he only mentioned surgery as a potential alternative? All I heard was ‘benign’.

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Winter skyline, Dundee
Photograph by
Islay McLeod

 

Biography

 

My brother Kenny

 

Lorn Macintyre

 

Kenny Macintyre

 

Lorn Macintyre’s ‘Funky Facebook History of the Macintyre Family’, inspired by his three short stories collections, ‘Tobermory Days’, ‘Tobermory Tales’ and ‘Maclay Days’, is attracting admirers on Facebook. Here he offers Scottish Review readers a preview of his Facebook posting relating to the activities of his late legendary brother Kenny, BBC Scotland’s political and industrial correspondent.

Dramatis personae:

The Banker:

The Banker’s Wife:

The Author:

The Political Correspondent:

Sister Mary:

The Political (and Industrial) Correspondent went out jogging round a Glasgow reservoir on Sunday 30 May 1999. When the Author visited him that evening he was lying on a mortuary slab in the Western Infirmary. He was 54.      Every major media outlet on both sides of the border carried an obituary. Tony Blair, then prime minister, said: ‘Kenny was more than a journalist, he was an institution’. When Mrs Thatcher was visiting Inverness, her press secretary was adamant: no interviews. But as she progressed in stately fashion along a corridor the Political Correspondent, with the timing of Groucho Marx, emerged from a cupboard, microphone in hand. ‘Ah, Kenny!’ the prime minister greeted him, and gave him his interview.
     The Author has been in the Political Correspondent’s car of an evening in a layby when he had a mobile phone clamped to each ear, talking simultaneously to a prime minister and a secretary of state for Scotland. The Author was ordered to take a stroll, since he had no business eavesdropping on affairs of state.
     The Political Correspondent was a very fast and impatient driver. Detained on Loch Lomondside by a traffic jam and, as always, late for the Mull ferry, he drove up among the trees, but as he descended from this sylvan detour a policeman was waiting to book him. The Political Correspondent’s car was really a skip on wheels, its floor inches deep in dud betting slips, discarded press releases and newspapers.
     Once Sister Mary was in the car with him when he was forced to brake at a zebra crossing to spare the lives of a family of four. The garbage in the car slithered forward with the sound of an avalanche and a mobile phone came to rest against the Political Correspondent’s shoe. ‘Ah, that’s where it was!’ he exclaimed.

 

When a letter arrived, informing the Political Correspondent that he was being awarded an OBE for services to political journalism, he tossed it
into the wastepaper basket with an expletive relating to a certain
bodily function.

     When the Political Correspondent was a record-breaking athletic youth on Mull, Dr Flora Macdonald of Salen warned the Banker that his third son had an enlarged heart. It was a metaphor as well as a medical diagnosis. The Political Correspondent cared nothing for fame, fortune or honours. Very often he had holes in the soles of his shoes and his suits would have been rejected by a charity shop.
     For purposes of sociological study the Author used to accompany the Political Correspondent to Shawfield and various flapping tracks because the Political Correspondent was devoted to greyhounds. On one occasion the Author witnessed the Political Correspondent distributing his winnings to the homeless lying on the warm-air grilles outside Central Station.
     When a letter arrived, informing the Political Correspondent that he was being awarded an OBE for services to political journalism, he tossed it into the wastepaper basket with an expletive relating to a certain bodily function.
     Not only did the Political Correspondent keep to himself some of the hottest political stories of his time until the morn arrived to break them to the nation; he was friends with politicians and supported them in their personal problems. The Author recalls walking up Byres Road to the BBC in Glasgow with the Political Correspondent, the only occasion on which he divulged his dealings.
‘There’s a big story in the tabloids tomorrow,’ he announced. A prominent Scottish politician was facing exposure for an indiscretion.
     The Political Correspondent was summoned to the politician’s house and was asked by the distraught wife: ‘Can he survive, Kenny?’ The Author had to wait for the answer because the Political Correspondent had stopped at a flower stall to buy a red rose for a female broadcasting colleague he had been annoying. ‘I phoned Downing Street and was told, no, he can’t.’ The Political Correspondent stayed at the fallen politician’s house after that fatal call, to offer his support on a personal level.
     The Political Correspondent could never have retired. Some prominent people survive on alcohol and cocaine; his stimulant was adrenalin, supplemented, like his close friend Donald Dewar, with junk food, despite the culinary skills and care of his wife Elizabeth. The Political Correspondent would have made an intolerable pensioner.
     His grave is in the peaceful cemetery in Taynuilt, where he was born, under the shadow of Ben Cruachan. His sons put a mobile phone into his coffin, but Downing Street has been spared a ghostly persistent ring-tone. Nearby are the graves of the Banker and the Banker’s Wife. All are tended with love by the Family, and Sister Mary is constantly lighting candles for the repose of their souls, and in gratitude for having survived numerous excursions in the Political Correspondent’s car.

 

Lorn Macintyre is a writer and poet