Behind the Words: Lonesome Traveller

I say published in New Writing from the North because it’s listed as that my spreadsheet, but I don’t seem to have the actual issue in my possession. I thought I’d kept everything and have the two other issues of NWftN I am in, but either this one has fallen through the gaping cracks that appear when you move around the world or I made a mistake when entering the data. Both are possible.

Anyway, “Lonesome Traveller” is a slight poem but one which is fractal for me. Ostensibly, it’s a snapshot of a moment from university when a close friend, Patrick, and I went camping in Findhorn, Scotland, got blackout drunk, watched a meteor shower and passed out on the beach. The meteor shower and Findhorn more generally later made an appearance in In The Shadow of Piper Alpha when Marcus and Isobel head up there, but this moment was captured at the time. Patrick did in fact pass out on the sand and I drew various things around him, some profound, some filthy.

Findhorn is a memorable place for me: I went there with my family first, quite often camping with my father. The Findhorn Foundation is a community of what would uncharitably be described as hippies (early environmentalists, people getting off-grid, many alternative lifestyles) who we always referred to as Shiny Happy People, after the REM song. We camped at the Foundation and saw some gigs there, most memorably Mike Scott from the Waterboys doing a solo show.

Patrick is something of a legend, a man to whom things would invariably happen after a few drinks. Some of his “experiences” have made their way into my novels but many haven’t because they fall into the “you couldn’t make it up” category. I see him far too rarely these days and this poem always makes me smile, remembering the good times we had in Aberdeen and later in Edinburgh.

I think the title comes from the Kerouac book which I would have been reading around this time. Not one of his best, but again, it’s fractal, meaning all the way down however far you zoom in.

“Nostalgia, eh. How long’s that been around?” - Bill Bailey