Salad Days and Snow ways

                              Back in the year 1970 I had left school and was about to embark on what nowadays would be called a ‘GAP Year’. I can’t remember whether terms like ‘finding oneself’ or the ‘real world’ were prevalent in those days.  It turned out not to be so much a GAP year per se but more like a dark, abyssal two year GULF into which I tumbled. Various jobs came and went, mostly lurching into view like a drunken man trying to find his way home. One of those found me at the Strathspey Hotel working as a porter. This purpose built monstrosity of a building spoilt the Highland quaintness of the old village community of Aviemore in the North of Scotland. Aviemore, through no fault of its own, was becoming a ski resort for the mountain of Cairngorm in the National Park of the same name.

  One morning a beautiful crisp winter’s day arrived at the same time as I had two days off. Azure, sunny skies glistened from the glittering white which lay silent and glorious on the mountain tops a few miles to the East. The conditions looked perfect. I was keen to get up there to ski. But, dear friends, there is a fickleness about skiing in Scotland not always present in many other resorts. The ski hill was closed. Most of the 3,500 to 4,000 foot peaks of the Cairngorms are treeless, windswept, heather-clad barriers to cold North winds with not much other than a Faeroe, a Shetland or an Orkney island lying between them and the Arctic. So it was a frustrating experience to see perfect snow, in itself rare, and find that the lifts were closed. A blizzard on the day before had caused the mountain road up to the ski lifts to be blocked.  3 pounds & 40 pence per day was being offered for casual labourers to go up and dig out the road. I jumped at the chance for such unexpected riches.

    The works’ bus dropped us at the foot of the hill with spades, pick axes, shovels, barrows basically any sharpish implement which could be wielded. I was young. I had strength. I enjoyed physical work. So I attacked the snow with vigour but with little science and no system. Monty was working alongside me. He was a full time employee of ‘The Hill’. He saw my sweated efforts and was not impressed. With others he quietly organized  barrowing and dumping so that a regular rhythm and method would see systematic progress. It was slow and steady and the impatience of youth reached lunchtime with seemingly no significant progress. Meanwhile Loch Morlich below us was so obviously a solid plate of ice. As we worked 2,000 feet above it, the snow and ice was getting harder and harder to move.

       As the afternoon rolled forwards, my youthful enthusiasm began to wane. I sweated in the cold, Monty did not. He plodded methodically. He was a silent companion, a man of few words, a toiler for the week, his full-time job, my weekend pastime. There were other casual workers there with us, mostly students, mostly possessed with the same wish to see the road clear and the ski hill open. Monty dug and shoveled, picked and cleared and uttered never a word. Eventually one of the younger members of the crew flung down his spade, wiped the sweat from his brow and sat on a lump of ice. His frustration was evident.

“Monty,” He tried to attract his attention. Monty paused and leaned on his shovel.

“Aye”.

“Don’t we have a snow blower?”

“Aye,”

“Well, where is it?”

“We’re digging for it.”

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    Dear friends, in these days of isolation and a search for a way out of this pandemic, don’t we hope for better preparation in the future? May I humbly suggest the following, drawing from this incident in my salad years. Even though there may be no blizzard in the immediate forecast, let’s plan for one. Even though there may be blue skies and the conditions pleasantly perfect, let us have the foresight to recognize that things may not be as they seem. So, friends, it is important that the World Health Organisation and national leaders throughout the world ensure that there is a snow blower; that it is parked in a safe, accessible place low on the side of the mountain, sheltered from the storm and ready for action when needed.  Let us ensure that it has not been left to rust, not hidden in a forgotten backwater, that it is properly maintained and fueled.  And please, please, please, O Powers that be, don’t wait for the crisis to be upon us and carelessly lose the bloody snow blower in a giant snowdrift like some long extinct dinosaur in the Badlands of Alberta,  waiting to be discovered by an avid paleontologist thousands of years from now!

“Between the idea

And the reality

Between the notion

And the act

Falls the shadow.”  W.H. Auden.