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Holidays in Scotland

When I was a teenager, my pals and I went off camping in Arran, which is an island off the west coast of Scotland. We arrived by ferry at Brodick and went off looking for a place to camp. We found a very nice place along the sea front to put up our tents, which was a peninsula, next to a golf course. We pitched our tents there, and spent some time beachcombing and playing football, if I remember well, and then when it got dark, we decided to go to the local town for a drink. We decided to take a short cut across the golf course, and it was completely black, and none of us had a torch. We set off anyway, across this completely dark golf course, which we didn’t know had some burns – ditches with little streams at the bottom – running across it. So we were marching along merrily towards the pub, when splish!, splash!, splosh!, we found ourselves knee-deep in water after falling into one of the streams. We dragged ourselves out and continued onwards to the pub.

The pub was nothing special, but we had a few drinks there, and when we finally got back, taking the road instead of returning across the golf course, we couldn’t find the tents, or even the peninsula on which we’d camped. “What’s going on? What’s happened? Where are our tents?” we asked ourselves. It turned out that the area where we’d set up the tents wasn’t really a peninsula at all, but that when the tide came in it became an island. So, the tide had come in and cut us off from our tents. For the second time that evening we got wet feet, as to reach our tents we had to roll up our trousers, take off our shoes and socks and wade across to them.

At the time I was living in Elgin in the district of Moray, which is quite a nice area in the East of Scotland. It’s famous for not having any thunderstorms. It has the fewest thunderstorms of anywhere in Britain, and is also well known for its whisky, as it is in the heart of the whisky distilling area, and has much fertile land for growing barley, and nearby there are hills where there is peat and fresh spring water, which you need to make whisky. So, all of the famous whiskies come from there, like Glenfiddich and Glengrant, for example. There’s a shop there where many of them are bottled, called Gordon Simpson’s or something like that, and this shop sells about five hundred types of whisky, all from local producers. They have really special whiskies there, some thirty years old. In this shop we found a bottle which was produced at a distillery which I used to live next door to, called the Longmorne distillery, and even though we lived right next to this distillery we had never sampled its produce, so we bought a bottle. It was awful. It tasted like paint-stripper!

Another time I went camping was on the Isle of Iona. We camped in the north-west corner, I think. Iona is a very special island, which is historically important because Saint Columba lived there and founded a monastery there – he was the man who brought Christianity, in the form of the Celtic church, to Scotland, from Ireland. The story goes that he left on a very small boat from Ireland and stopped on another island further south and wanted to settle there but discovered that from this island they could still see Ireland, so they moved on to Iona, from which they couldn’t see Ireland, so they wouldn’t feel homesick.

It’s a very beautiful island, with the monastery, a very nice mediaeval church, and beautiful, very ancient rocks, which, due to the movement of the geographical strata, consist of lovely, pretty, marble-type old rocks. There is a very special, unique, magical atmosphere there. The water surrounding the coast is very clear and blue, and there are some wonderful clean beaches there, with little rock-pools dotted about with little fish, crabs, and starfish in them, and lots of seaweed and driftwood scattered along the shore.

The weather is amazing, as it changes every fifteen or twenty minutes, so it can be pouring down with rain one minute, and then bright and sunny the next.

Anyway, we camped in the north-west corner where there is a farmer who lets you camp on his land, which is basically a strip of grass next to the beach. It’s a lovely sandy beach with lots of driftwood, so we made a fire there and sat around it cooking soup in an old pot that he lent us and baking potatoes in the fire, drank a bottle of whisky, walked up and down collecting nicely shaped pieces of driftwood and watched the sun set on the horizon.

Holidays in Scotland

1. Where did Joey and his pals go off camping?

2. What was special about the place where they put up their tents?

3. How did they spend the day?

4. What were their plans for the evening?

5. Why did they decide to go across the golf course?

6. What did the course have?

7. What happened when they were marching across it?

8. Did they reach the pub after all?

9. Which way did they get back?

10. What did they see when they got back?

11. What did the area turn out to be?

12. What did they have to do to reach the tents?

13. What was that district famous for?

14. Why is the region so perfect for distilling whisky?

15. What did they buy in a specialised whisky shop?

16. What was it like?

17. What was another place he went camping in Scotland?

18. Why is the Isle of Iona so historically prominent?

19. Why did Saint Columba settle on it?

20. What can you find on the Isle of Iona?

21. What about the sea surrounding it?

22. What is really amazing about the weather there?

23. Where did they camp?

24. What was that part of beach like?

25. What did they do there?

Holidays in Scotland

Training 1

Joey and his pals went off camping in an island off the west coast of Scotland. They arrived by ferry. Then they found a nice place along the seafront, which was a peninsula. When it got dark, they went to a pub. They took a short cut across the golf course, which had some little streams. So, they were marching along, when they fell into one of the streams. They dragged themselves out and continued onwards to the pub.

Training 2

When they finally got back, they couldn’t find the tents, or even the peninsula on which they’d camped. It turned out that the area where they’d set up the tents wasn’t really a peninsula at all, and when the tide came in it became an island. So, the tide had cut them off from their tents. For the second time that evening they got wet feet, as they had to roll up their trousers, take off their shoes and socks and wade across to the tents.

Training 3

At the time he was living in Elgin in the district of Moray, which is in the heart of the whisky distilling area. It has much fertile land for growing barley, and nearby there are hills where there is peat and fresh spring water, which you need to make whisky. So all of the famous whiskies come from there, like Glenfiddich and Glengrant, for example.

Training 4

Another time Joey went camping was on the Isle of Iona. Saint Columba, who brought Christianity to Scotland, founded a monastery there. It’s a very beautiful island, with the monastery, a very nice mediaeval church, and very ancient rocks. And there are some wonderful clean beaches there, with little rock-pools dotted about with little fish, crabs, and starfish in them.

Training 5

They camped in the north-west corner where there is a farmer who lets you camp on a strip of grass next to the beach. It’s a lovely sandy beach with lots of driftwood, so they made a fire there and sat around it cooking soup in an old pot that the farmer lent them and baking potatoes in the fire, drank a bottle of whisky, walked up and down collecting nicely shaped pieces of driftwood and watched the sun set on the horizon.

Fantasy Games

My first contact with fantasy role-playing games was in school. I immediately got deeply involved in them and started to buy books and materials for playing them. I started off by playing around a table, with one person acting as a storyteller, and the others playing characters in the story. They are really in the story, in that they can change the outcome of the story by their actions, which they explain to the storyteller, who in turn tells them what happens, as well as describing to them what they can see and experience in the game’s world. So, all the players interact within the story, with each other and other characters in the story who the storyteller describes. Usually, the players act the part of the “good guys”, but not always. All the players need is a piece of paper with a description of their character on it, how strong he or she is, how intelligent, how wise, how fast at running, and things like that.

A year later, I heard about the existence of similar games which are played outside, in the woods, in old castles, and in other similarly atmospheric places. No papers are used, but instead the participants play the part of their characters, wearing costumes and carrying pieces of equipment and weapons – not real ones! – that they might need. You stay in your role for a period of time, anything between a few hours and a few days, and for all of that time you act out your character. It’s like living in another age or another world.

The type of characters you can play depends on the setting and the story, but generally, within that, it’s nice to be a character with a different personality and different attributes to those you have in real life. You might be a knight, a thief, a magician, an elf, even a monster, in a typical fantasy world. Or if the scenario is a children’s story, you might play one of the characters from Alice in Wonderland. We use many themes, such as space, stories from Tolkien’s world, or various periods in history.

Last year we used as a setting a very nice castle in Wales, and the story was from the Renaissance times in Italy, so we all had to learn a bit about that period of history in order to prepare for the game. Some people played members of the military or politicians from that time, and we set up the same situation as was at a particular historical date, but, of course, the outcome was not fixed. We just played out history from that point on, but the ending, the conclusion, was completely different to how things happened in real life. I remember I played an Arabian Doctor of Medicine, with a nice historical costume which was borrowed from a theatre. Most of the game was played by talking – there wasn’t so much fighting in that game. I think there was only one fighting person, who played a warrior from Switzerland. Most people played aristocrats, Dukes or royalty, or politicians. The storyteller of that game brought a little magic into the story, to spice it up a bit, and make it more dramatic. So, we had a seance in the game – it was actually quite fashionable to have seances in those times. That game was great fun, and it was really interesting to try to make every aspect of the game as authentic as possible, including what we ate and the way we talked.

In some games I played the part of the storyteller, often in conjunction with one or two others. So, we made up the story, decided on the setting and the plot. We would introduce the story to some players, who helped us to make the setting, playing monsters or characters with a fixed role according to the storyline, whereas the other players wouldn’t know the story, and had to find out what was happening, by interacting with the other characters.

In one adventure we created, the characters were all magicians and sorcerers, and their objective was to build up a tower, a tower of power. The setting was an imaginary country with a kind of Arabian atmosphere, and the participants were all dressed in Arabian costumes, with loose clothes, masks, turbans, and things like that.

Many of our stories are set in different countries of one fantasy world, which is a conglomerate of many different environments. So, we have one country which is like Germany in the Middle Ages, a country like Iceland, some hot, desert countries, and things like that. This story was involved with making the building and fighting against dark powers who wanted to destroy the tower. When I write adventures, I like to put a moral into the story, and this time it was that the source of the magic is a dark source. Not all the magicians recognized this at first, and went on building and gaining power, but in the end, they had to recognize that their power was only a part of a dark power, to recognize that to make magic of this kind is too dangerous and uncontrollable. One sorcerer knew that the source of the magic wasn’t good, and that there was a dark power underneath the tower which would wake up when there was too much magic in it, but the others didn’t believe him, and went on regardless, because they were too lost in the money and politics which was motivating their magic, so they couldn’t stop it. After about two days, the dark power became more visible, so we sent people playing monsters and evil creatures creeping around, and in the end the story didn’t end well, because the power beneath the tower awoke, and all of the characters had to try to escape, and some died. In such a story it is possible for your character to die. Some people’s characters learnt from the events that were taking place around them, but it wasn’t like learning from a book, they just started to feel the moral. When you’re playing a character, you really become him or her, and you feel the consequences of your actions. It’s your adventure.

Fantasy Games

1. When did Nick get involved in fantasy games?

2. What did he start buying?

3. What can characters do in a fantasy game around a table?

4. What does the storyteller do there?

5. What do players need to act their characters?

6. When did Nick hear of the outside games?

7. Where are they played?

8. What do participants need to act their characters?

9. How long can such a game last?

10. What is it like playing such a game?

11. What kind of characters can you play in a typical fantasy world?

12. What kind of themes do they use?

13. What did they use as a setting last year?

14. What was the story like?

15. What did the participants have to do to prepare for the game?

16. Who did they play?

17. What was different from the historical situation?

18. Who did Nick play?

19. What did the storyteller bring into the story?

20. Why was that game such great fun?

21. What did Nick have to do when he played the storyteller?

22. What was one adventure he created about?

23. What was the setting for that story?

24. What was the moral of that adventure?

25. What is the difference between learning from a book and learning from a fantasy game?

Fantasy Games

Training 1

Nick’s first contact with fantasy role-playing games was in school. He immediately got deeply involved in them. He started off by playing around a table, with one person acting as a storyteller, and the others playing characters in the story. They can change the outcome of the story by their actions. So, all the players interact within the story.

Training 2

Then Nick heard about similar games which are played in some atmospheric places. The participants play the part of their characters, wearing costumes and carrying pieces of equipment and weapons that they might need. You stay in your role for a period of time, and for all of that time you act out your character. It’s like living in another age or another world.

Training 3

The type of characters depends on the setting and the story. You might be a knight, a thief, a magician, an elf, a monster, or a character from Alice in Wonderland. They use many themes, such as space, stories from Tolkien’s world, or various periods in history. When you’re playing a character, you really become him or her, and you feel the consequences of your actions.

Training 4

Last year they used a castle in Wales as a setting, and the story was from the Renaissance times. Some people played members of the military or politicians from that time, and they set up the historical situation, but the outcome was not fixed. The storyteller of that game brought a little magic into the story, to spice it up a bit. It was really interesting to try to make every aspect of the game as authentic as possible, including what they ate and the way they talked.

Training 5

When Nick writes adventures, he likes to put a moral into the story. Once the characters were all magicians and their objective was to build up a tower of power. And the moral was that the source of the magic is a dark source. In the end the story didn’t end well because the dark power awoke, and some characters died. You could learn from those events, but it wasn’t like learning from a book, they just started to feel the moral.

Ramblin’ Oer Them There Faerie Hills

I recall a time in my teenage years when I was walking in the mountains, the eastern edge of which roll down into the east coast of Ireland to a place called Newcastle, in County Down. I wasn’t walking to get somewhere, I was just walking for the sake of walking through the mountains for four days, because I enjoyed being alone. There were many very magical places, and they all had strange and beautiful names, the cliffs and mountains and rocks. It was a very beautiful place. After four days of just walking in the hills, I felt very clear headed, very cleansed, and when I returned to the so-called “civilized” world it didn’t seem so civilized any more, but very dark and dirty instead.

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