One night in Jedburgh, famed for Jethart Snails a ‘nippie sweetie’, Ali’s friend Ben had a gig in the Carter’s Rest, a local hostelry. There are many reasons to visit Jedburgh – the food at the Indian restaurant, the superb ruined Abbey, James Hutton’s Unconformity and being on the jury at the Sheriff Court. The Carter’s Rest was never in that list and being absent from the Good Beer Guide wasn’t a particular recommendation either.
So there we were with a separated housewife with her amply bosomed daughter, my son with his leg in a plaster and his facially bejewelled friend, my wife showing that she was spending through the recession to save Marks and Spencers and myself. Yes Kelso had arrived in Jedburgh for a night out.
The first amazing site of the evening was the Abbey lit with red, green and blue lights – my god I thought the tourist agency has finally come to its senses and made something of the dark Abbey at night – however this turned out to be the band disco lights.
The beer selection explained its absence from the Good Beer Guide so it was going to be Guinness all night and the toilet all morning. The band were clustered in one end with huge speakers balanced with their tests rattling all the bottles precariously balanced on the shelves above the seats. We got our drinks at the relatively empty bar (filled with friends or relatives of the band and some locals hitting each other in the stomach at the end of the bar) and sat down, the music started this was going to be a jolly night I thought.
I went to the loo and whilst in mid flow was asked ‘Are you still flying?’ which was one of the more bizarre urination interrogations. It turned out to be a fellow microlighter (now bearded probably as a disguise to visit Jedburgh) who was there because his son was on guitar.
The stomach punching locals had now been led like the Pied Piper children to the band and were gyrating in the small dance space in front of the band. that would have been mildly amusing for a minute or so however they then chose to clamber over our table and talk incoherently to the guys (was this another gay stag party we had stumbled into?). One guy was trying to sit down at the table on a stool which I kept moving with my foot. He tried picking it up but hadn’t realised on the multikilogram force capable from a well fed Mike and staggered away with the cheery, if not ill-advised threat of ‘gonna punch you in the pus pal’. We asked the bar staff to save them from themselves and a fiesty barmaid ejected a couple of the stomach punchers, who were ruffling ali’s pal, and we settled down to enjoy the band.
Ali was dragged up in his plaster cast for a dance with a drunken pink woman and I followed doing a mix of highland dancing and the pogo – the only dances I can remember after a few pints of Guinness.
A mono browed neanderthal decided to take an understandable liking to the ample bosoms and sat opposite them staring – do they not have ample bosoms in Jedburgh? After jamming his fingers in between the tables he left and I did a passable impersonation of him and his antics when I noticed that old familiar stare from my audience – ‘he is behind me isn’t he?’, they nodded.
He sat down beside me speaking the occasional wordthat one could understand, although the majority made me think this chap was at the dentist. I asked him to leave my personal space which he was well invading, not to mention his ill advised choice of a urine based after shave. He stupidly declined the suggestions to retreat and so ended up sprawled on the floor with a confused look, which with the monobrow was a comical sight. I gentlemanly had worked out that he was right handed from his glass of double vodka and coke and pulled him off the floor, effectively neutralising any resistance with a convivial ‘are you ok?’ note of concern. He staggered off confused and we strategically moved all of our chairs to another table as the separated housewife started to push monobrow down a corridor with some threats of her own.
A few more songs and the Jeddart slugs returned to the welcome of the bar (why do they still serve people who can hardly walk vodka?) but this time had chosen less aggressive targets – local bosomed girls out for the night who quickly left texting their friends not to bother coming to Jedburgh where ‘care in the community’ is the norm. We decided that it would be safer making an exit before chucking out time and bundled back into the car where it was much easier squeezing everyone in the back than on the way there.
As one who survived a night in Campbeltown I had thought the wee border town of Jedburgh would be less troublesome. A town with a sign offering Free WiFi, if anyone tells you the password that is, but in fact offers free loonies. A night out in Jedburgh? Just say No.
