Spirited flotsam

Yesterday, Malcolm was browsing his mother-in-law’s bookshelves. He settled down, post-prandial and seasonal glass of Black Bush at hand, to renew his acquaintance with Compton Mackenzie’s delicious Whisky Galore (note: 1947 and still deservedly in print. The exclamation mark arrived only with the 1949 film adaptation).

Today, by coincidence, he picked up the mystery of the empty sixty-foot long cylinder, washed up at Benbecula, that turns out to be a Coors beer fermentation vessel.

Whisky Galore, of course, describes the effect of a ship-wreck, involving 28,000 cases of export whisky, between the two fictional islands of Great and Little Todday, and in the great drought of wartime.

Quite what the islanders would have thought, today, of the dubious benison of several thousand gallons of American fizzy beer defies even Malcolm’s imagination.

Mackenzie’s original conceit was derived from the sinking of the SS Politician at Eriskay, and he based the topography on Eriskay and Barra. From Barra (where, by choice, Mackenzie is buried) it can only be a couple of dozen miles to where the Coors cylinder arrived.

There is a further twist to the story, about which Mackenzie was apparently ignorant. Also on board the SS Politician was a large consignment of ten-shilling notes, nearly £150,000 in worth, apparently bound for the West Indies. As wikipedia has it:

By 1958 the Crown Agents reported that 211,267 notes had been recovered by the salvage company and the police and had been destroyed. A further 2,329 had been presented in banks in England, Scotland, Ireland, Switzerland, Malta, Canada, the US and Jamaica. Only 1,509 were thought to have been presented in good faith. That still leaves 76,404 banknotes which have never been accounted for. Like the whisky, their fate remains a mystery.

There may also be a few heirloom bottles of “Polly” still out there, too. In 1987, eight were sold at auction for a total of £4,000.

For once, Malcolm can claim no direct link to these events. It does faintly remind him, though, of the prevalence of Spanish brandy in the County Cork in the late 1950s. This was the result of a profitable barter scheme involving Cork fishermen swapping pilchards for the hard stuff.

Quarrelsome?
Contumacious?
Just bloody-minded?

What is it about the Ulster Protestant that leaves Malcolm lost for a word?

Well, one might well start with the seasonal spat between the two Presbyterian churches in Portadown.

The Presbyterians ordained their first woman Minister, the first woman ordained by any Irish faith, over thirty years ago. Well-educated (Edinburgh BA and BD, with further qualifications in social work, and an OBE to boot), literate and civilised, Ruth Patterson still represents too much of a novelty for many in the sect.

Witness the curious goings-on (or, rather, not going-on) between the two presbyterian fanes at opposite ends (in so many ways) of Portadown.

Since the end of another war, the Second World War, the two churches in Portadown (Armagh Road and Edenderry) have alternated Christmas services. The First Presbyterian (a nice piece of élitism, there, and pictured above) in Portadown extended its biennial invitation, as usual. There was, however, a caveat: the Edenderry Minister, one Stafford Carson, would not share his pulpit with the Minister from Armagh Road, Christina Bradley. The reason: the Rev. Bradley is not a pukka gent, and so fails to reach St Paul’s exacting standards.

Mrs Bradley put her case with reasoned dignity:

… although the Edenderry session sent an invitation to Armagh Road, Mrs Bradley sought clarification and it was confirmed she would not be permitted to play any part. Thus, the invitation was “sadly declined”.

“It has been the tradition for the ‘away’ minister to preach the sermon, while the ‘home’ minister conducts the service,” said Mrs Bradley. “Stafford Carson and I had a long talk about it. He was the essence of courtesy, but the bottom line is that I am not welcome in his pulpit.

“It is sad to see such a long-standing tradition terminated. It has been an excellent tradition. I would have been proud to continue it, but I am precluded from doing that.

“In Faith, I studied for the ministry to which God called me. I am a woman and cannot change that. This discrimination against women is created by society, not by God.”

Or, as said Stafford Carson is also quoted:

I … am saddened at the end of such a long and fruitful tradition of united services and am sorry to see it end, but I believe that the Bible – especially in the Letters of Saint Paul – is specific on this issue and therefore I must follow my conscience.

There are twelve months for the two sides to made some kind of Christian peace. On past experience of the stubborn Ulster constitution, that is not exactly a sure-fire prospect. Meanwhile, Malcolm refers to Ruth Patterson for an appropriate comment:

When I look back over the years I see many areas where we, the church, did not provide leadership and didn’t speak out when we should have. We should have been the prophetic voice speaking out in front. Certainly, there were some who did that but by and large we weren’t courageous heralds of a new age.