24/7/2019
In 1994, amongst other things, we did a bit of a grand tour of Scotland, and due to some obscure maths on my part we opted NOT for a campervan, but a small hire car and staying all at B+Bs. Even though it was High Tourist Season. Because all B+Bs worked out cheaper. Which is was. Which we never did again. But due to the sometimes uncertain nature of B+Bs, this time it made for a couple of unique overnight stays...
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Tues 7th June 1994
(Scotland, somewhere east of Inverness, on the Moray Firth)
We’ve used up quite a chunk of day, time to find a B+B and a feed and in that order and soon.
On the other side of Nairn the country goes very open and fairly townless, and – worryingly – rather B+B-less. First we try an old converted mill. No, sorry, full up. No, don't really know of too many other B+B's around here. You might like to try the old place at the railway crossing.
Okay, keep going east, watching out for a railway crossing, with that naggy little feeling you get when the day is wearing on and you have NO prospects of a bed whatsoever.
Just about to resign ourselves to sleeping in the car and sure enough, there's a B+B sign at a railway crossing on a side road, pointing at what was once an actual railway station. Even has “Brodie Castle” on its frontage still, over what used to be the platform, old Roman numeral clock and all that still in place. Very atmospheric. It even has the original railway tracks going past, with quaint old white boom gates on the road alongside. Original signage intact.The B+B is now a sort of two-storey house, looks like the stationmaster used to live in the top half and the bottom was the waiting rooms, ticket office, baggage store etc. Hey, this is cool. Yes, looks a bit two-star from the outside but heck, not much to choose from and how many people can say "WE slept in a railway station."
We book in and hump our baggage up the steep little stairs to our room, which is the old-fashioned kind with no TV or ensuite bathroom, just a handbasin, and a timeshare bathroom-loo down the hall. Ah, this'll do, the room has cute little dormer windows up in the roof, and it’s big and comfy, and it’s quiet and it’s ours.
Mine Host is a very pukka Englishman and him and his wife used to run a pub over the other side of Inverness, but decided they’re getting too old for pubs, so they bought this recently, and are still fitting it out. But it’s neat and clean and Mrs Pukka seems nice, and happens to do an 8am breakfast. So we’re laughing.
We whip down the road to the local Red Chef for a feed that's too big for our middleaged stomachs, stagger back home to our railway station and kit up for a late walk to burn up a few excess calories.
This whole area was once the estate of Brodie Castle not far away so the lady tells us, and as a compensation deal for having the line run through his estate, the squire demanded his very own station, and very popular it was too in the ‘20s and ‘30s for the tweedy upper-crusty brigade, who used to come to stay with the squire to get in a spot of what-oh jolly good show old bean what what shooting and fishing.
wwwwwwrrrrooooohhhuuUUUMMM
...as the 6:45pm to Inverness SLAMS through! The bloody line is still alive! AND it sits not twenty feet away under our bedroom window. Pray that everything they say about the smoothness and the quietness of the modern all-electric Britrail passenger service is true.
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It’s now nine o’clock and a train is going through every half hour like clockwork. It moves the furniture. Makes the window frames do odd little cicada noises. But at least it relieves the TV-less boredom. We resort to fighting over a crossword in the absence of anything that looks like moving pictures.
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Wed 8th June
(Brodie Castle Railway Station. Morning. Grumpy. Grumpy-grumpy-grrrrumpy).
The last sodding train went through at eleven-fifteen in the sodding pee em. And before that they went through with just enough regularity to catch you nicely drifting off to sleep each time. And the first one this morning was five-fifteen. We sure know how to pick a B+B with character. But the Travel Gods weren’t finished with us…
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(Glen Shee. Same day. Late afternoon. And feeling a touch better).
Glen Shee is down at the far southern end of a National Park, a huge valley with the road snaking off into the distance, and after that everything goes farm-y, a bit sort of hillbilly-ish. But by the time we cut across to the A9 and roll into Pitlochry the countryside has turned decidedly rich and genteel and tourist-y, sort of spa-ish, be-decked with Victorian guest houses and quaint old hotels, along with thousands of B+Bs, obviously a popular town.
For the hell of it we decide to go for a private hotel, and pick one called “The Claymore”, where we get a choice of the only two rooms left. One is in an ex-coachhouse thing but it’s out the back, and one is just up on the first floor AND it’s going for two quid less than the normal rate but I don’t ask why. So we lock that one in. Don’t even listen to the lady’s little explanation.
Turns out - it’s the Fire Escape Room!
I know this sounds stupid, but that's about the only way one can explain it. With a bit of investigation and logic we realise it works like this...
In the event of a fire you – well, not us, but the rest of our fellow sleepers up here on the first floor who can't get down the big staircase because it’s seriously alight – they must all run along the corridor to OUR room, which is the one with the big FIRE EXIT sign over the door, then they smash a little glass case right by our door handle using the special little bronze glass-donger hanging there on a chain, undo our door with the lever that’s in the little glass case, run through our room, jump over our bed cases clothes bags towels boots drying undies, hopefully waking us up in the process, and scamper out the odd little door in the far corner of our room with the special light and the sign over it that says it only opens outwards, then tumble down the narrow staircase that’s behind it to the back of the kitchen, while we sit up in bed and award points for style.
Disappointingly, nothing catches on fire all night. Would’ve bought tickets to see that.
So, not only have we now slept in a railway station, but also in a Fire Escape. THAT’S what you call class.
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