Udo Sonntag - A Journeyman's Journey - The Story of Jim McEwan

The harbour was also a welcome place in which to swim in the summer, though sometimes we were to be found swimming as early as Easter. We even loved to go into the sea when it was raining. Now you probably think I’m exaggerating, for after all, we’re talking about the west coast of Scotland, a stone’s throw from the oft-times stormy Atlantic. But we’re also talking about Islay and the distillery, a place not entirely unknown for the amount of heat generated during the distilling process. And when the heat has done its job, it has to be dissipated, and the stills have also to be rinsed with hot water. All this hot water was discharged into the sea, as, apart from a few mash residues, there were no pollutants involved. We knew, of course, at which point from the distillery wall the pipe with the warm water flowed into Loch Indaal. We therefore had our very own, always warm, swimming pool, a heated outdoor pool that was always open and, above all, could be visited for free from Easter onwards. Islay could be like an island in the South Seas. The more I think about it, the more I realise just how good my childhood on Islay was. How many of you reading can claim to have such an enjoyable and free facility on your doorstep all year round?

But life is not only about play and leisure. The serious side of life was every bit as much a part of it. In my case, that meant having to go to school. As the crow flies Bowmore village school was only a few metres away from our house, but I’d be lying if I said I liked going to school. However, I had two wonderful school friends in Eddie MacAffer and Angus ‘Innis’ McKechnie, the three of us getting up to as much nonsense at school as we probably did anywhere else.

Much later, Eddie became manager at Bowmore Distillery and Angus was my best man, but together we had an incredible amount of fun. I remember having to tend and harvest the school garden, probably the most boring thing to do at school, but it at least offered the bonus of getting us out of the classroom. Back then, gardening didn’t interest me at all, but our headmaster, Mr Crawford, was a keen gardener. He really cared about the school garden and ensuring our responsible use of it, hoping to educate us to be great garden lovers. Harvest time showed how conscientiously you had worked over the year, a time that only served to show how little Angus and I cared for our carrots. When time came to harvest the season’s crop, we invested a few pence in a fresh bunch of carrots from the grocery shop and smuggled them into school, carefully ‘planting’ them in advance, only to re-harvest them in front of Mr Crawford. He was visibly thrilled and we were highly praised for our achievements, never having seen such magnificent carrots in the school garden.

“Jim McEwan is a true Ileach! And I am very proud of what he has achieved in his life. I love to see the boys of Islay do great things and he has truly achieved extraordinary things. I’m delighted to be able to call him a true friend.”

Eddie MacAffer

Master Distiller, Bowmore Distillery

But school days were not all plain sailing. Though I can’t remember exactly what, we had once done something wrong and were punished by having to clean out Mr Crawford’s chicken coop. This was hardly a favourite chore, but one that had to be done nonetheless. Mr Crawford led us to the chicken coop, with the birds still inside. However, after the headmaster had left, we decided to otherwise occupy ourselves, emptying the small metal water pot, using it as a drum kit, while wailing at the top of our voices. This startled the chickens, all of which flew around in a wild panic, colliding with each other in the air, feathers flying everywhere and the panic-stricken birds screaming in terror. In a panic of our own, we ran away. Though Mr Crawford never said a word about the matter and never punished us in that manner again, those chickens probably never laid another egg in their lives.

But we didn’t just have a great headmaster who loved the garden; we also had a wonderful teacher. She had us Islay boys well in hand, and most importantly, she had something that other women didn’t. Our Mrs McArthur had a television! Wow! Brand-new technology that few could afford in those days, there were very few televisions in Bowmore, but we knew there was one in our teacher’s sitting room. This was easy to discover; you needed an aerial to receive television, aerials that were so big that they could be clearly seen from a distance. I’m sure even NASA didn’t have aerials that large, but these giant masts, more like the posts on a rugby pitch, were necessary to pick up the TV signals from Ireland. However, we’re hardly talking about ultra-high definition quality here, but a rather mediocre black-and-white picture. Once a week there was a children’s programme on TV, called ‘The Lone Ranger’, a western series starring Clayton Moore. He was our hero, the cowboy who stood for good and put many a bandit to flight. It’s hard to imagine, that once a week there was such an exciting programme for us little Ileachs, yet none of us could actually watch it. Mrs McArthur, however, had a big heart, knowing well that we children didn’t have a television at home. So when, purely by chance, almost all the children were hanging around her house just before ‘The Lone Ranger’ started, she invited us into her little living room. Can you imagine? We squeezed together, older ones standing in the back, the little ones sitting huddled right in front of the tiny screen. At first I thought all the programmes depicted winter scenes, because it always seemed to be snowing – that was until I realised it was related to the poor reception. ‘The Lone Ranger’ was the highlight of the week for us, particularly when his adventures ended happily in each episode. ‘The Lone Ranger’ brought a new world to Islay for us: the Wild West, and as soon as we’d left Mrs McArthur’s house after the show, Main Street turned into a vast prairie. From High Street came the Indians and from the harbour you could hear the loud, unmistakable trampling of the great herds of buffalo. Most of the time, on Jamieson Street, the bandits with their kerchiefs in front of their faces lay in wait for the cowboys. I must have been shot 4,000 times between the church and the harbour. There were plenty of cowboys on Islay, but I was almost always one of the Indians. Even then, I never wanted to go with the crowd. To be the Indian in the midst of cowboys, that was the McEwan story.

As children we had vivid imaginations, creating our pretend worlds without computers. When we weren’t chasing Indians, cowboys or bandits, or making boats, we sometimes got carried away snacking on forbidden fruit. These grew in our pastor’s garden, surrounded by a small stone wall. I can still remember mustering all my courage to steal gooseberries from the parish garden, sneaking up with others, and paying close attention that no one saw us. At least that’s what we thought. Then I’d creep over the wall, crawl through the tall grass to the bushes and steal as many berries as I could carry in my hands. Then quietly and as unobtrusively as possible, I crept back and over the wall once more. In supposed safety, I shared with my friends the ill-gotten treasure from the pious garden. How delicious these gooseberries tasted! They were probably the best gooseberries in the world, if only because we took enormous risks to get them. But no sooner had the spoils been consumed than we were nabbed. “Jim McEwan! You know very well that you’re not allowed to do that – your mother must have told you that!” The oft-heard cry from one of the ubiquitous mothers that followed us everywhere. So, thankfully, my childhood criminal career came to an abrupt end – and only later did I discover that the priest had seen us, but was glad to let the gooseberries go, because he didn’t like them.