...in their tartan array! So spake Sir Walter Scott, and so it was in Oban today when the great and the good from the aristocracy of Argyll marched ahead of the pipe band to the annual Games.
There is a ton of prejudice and inverted snobbery larded on when it comes to the Oban Games, which is, quite genuinely, a date in the high society calender for the whole of the UK, and does indeed bring some very beautiful, wealthy and wonderfully dressed people to the town. Right now, this minute, they are stripping-the-willow in ball gowns, filling out dance cards (yes! Dance cards!) and moving towards the famous breakfast tomorrow morning at the Gathering Ball.
The Games are run and supported financially by the Argyll county set, and they put on a fantastic show. Lots of local people either can't go because it is a weekday, or won't go because they object to the toffs. I love the toffs. They are really nice folk who keep some splendid traditions going, strutting about all day with bog myrtle in their bonnets and leaning on their cromachs.
We had great fun in the heritage tent, met loads of new folk and old friends, avoided the regular bores, were treated to free whisky, and all in all I can't see the harm in it. You are not supposed to go into the members enclosure, where the voices are suddenly conspicuously loud and rather yaa, but I wandered through to find one of the Games Stewards and no-one threw me out.
People need to chill about toffs. They can no more help the way they speak, move, stand, dress, shake hands with their peers and say "hallay niyce to meechaw" despite only being aged 14, than I can help doing it the way I do. We are all accidents of birth however it turns out.
Apart from anything else, I bought a splendid hat today in Lochaber tartan with bobbing feathers, and refused to take it off for the rest of the afternoon. I even wore it ...well, not quite home, but as far as the traffic lights by the High School where I got such odd looks I took it off. Mainly for the sake of my daughter who also has to live in this town.
But Cath, you are almost a toff. You sound like a toff.
ReplyDeleteAha! Now here is the accident of birth. Two generations ago my family was solid working-to-middle class stock: clerks and production line workers at Electrolux on one side, and rural stock and village policemen on the other. Then my two clever parents won places at Cambridge, ironed out the Luton and Northamptonshire brogues, did modern languages and embarked on a life in the diplomatic corps. I went to boarding school rather than do 2 hours of arabic a day under Gadaffi's new regime, and here I am. I sound like a toff. But am I one? I don't think the Duke of Argyll would really think so somehow...
ReplyDeleteBut wait a minute Kirk, you have never met me... how do you know? Dat-dadadaaaa! (Loud and exciting film music!!)
ReplyDeleteI've not met you, but I have heard you speaking, I just didn't introduce myself. Why do you think I was so keen to meet you on facebook? A fine young looker like yourself speaking in an upper-middle class accent and I couldn't resist, obviously. It just so happened that I was embarrassed to be drinking coffee at the time (alas, I know!) and I do hate to be seen with creamy lattes rather than a brew.
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