Terence Mayne (SH 47-52) recalls some bizarre encounters.

“At St Bees, and cycling in the Lake District on three quarter days, gregariousness was my extra subject, and so, since leaving, I have had many interesting encounters.

I met a man in Portrush, a bankrupt known to have lit a cigar with a five-pound note, and who would not sell his fabulous yacht buried in mud in Cannes. I once chanced upon a toothless solicitor, difficult to understand rattling on about sailing in Shamrock 2 in Lipton’s Americas Cup years. And then there was the farmer in Dakota, who told me there are 688 types of barbed wire, mostly made in the USA, Russia and Australia. He had a 95% collection in foot lengths and a misunderstanding wife.

The first stranger I talked to came from an encounter in my youth. Rising at 7.00am on a holiday morning in the late 1940s, a tall strange gentleman came out of the smoke-room having played poker with my step-father and some friends. He casually asked me to go and get his car parked some two miles away. So, this 14-year-old farmyard only driver, asked mummy if he should go do it. She replied, ‘Certainly not!’  So that was that. But not quite. When I told the stranger the negative news he replied ‘Ridiculous, with your name you can do anything.’ This advice has stuck with me, to do anything, often disappointingly badly. There were highlights however, at school the first fifteen, running eight, shooting eight and then farming. Four achievements entirely due to the stranger’s advice!  From the encounter with the poker player I obscurely concluded that talking to strangers was the learning way to live, occasionally verging on the unusual.

On the Dublin train I bumped into a Cuban-American, a woman who said she was Rosie Ruiz, who you may recall won the Boston Marathon in April 1980. She seemed about 66 and as fresh now as the newspapers reported after the race. A lovely lady, she answered all my questions and obviously loved running. Without complaining she had returned her medal and the money because it transpired she entered the race half a mile from the finish!

When I managed a Cat Home, strange customers would enquire if the residents went to Heaven. A friend advised, ‘Just say yes whatever you believe, because they are there; it wouldn’t be Heaven without them.’

How else would I know there is a silkworm farm in Carryduff if I had not interviewed a driver on a ferry with a container full of mulberry leaves all the way from Japan. Apparently the little blighters will not eat the common Ulster variety.

In a coffee bar casually chatting to three young ladies about Montana, one of them asked me to come and stay at her holiday home in that state. What a house: looking down Cosley Lake with majestic mountains and rolling plains all around. What a state: its people and places don’t just welcome you, they transform you.

At the Balmoral Show, as always, talking to as many as possible, I came across a fit young man who said he had had a clear round in the jumping arena in the early morning. ‘Good horse?’ I said. No, it turned out that it was a love of his. He goes up and over, arms out like aeroplane wings and lands on his hands to somersault gracefully onto his feet. Favourite course, Fairyhouse, with Aintree a close second!

I learnt much later that the poker player’s name was Mayne (no relation). Perhaps with hindsight (useless pastime) I should have joined the S.A.S. to meet perhaps more, perhaps less, strange persons. By the way, the yacht can’t be found and the wire collector’s wife died from dusting and I’m going back to Montana.

Thank you St Bees.”

 

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