Tannadee

Maurice Gray

Description

Tannadee, a picturesque village in the Scottish Highlands, finds itself suddenly forced to fight for its life when Gordon Weever, a billionaire bully, reveals plans to build an exclusive golf resort nearby. Though most of the locals oppose him, Weever pushes on, employing dirty tricks and splashing cash. He trashes a rare woodland, he annexes land. Somebody needs to stop him. But who? Step up local teacher, Chizzie Bryson with his out-of-the-box idea for the villagers to compete in a Highland Games to raise funds with a surprising ally. Weever's own daughter rejects her father's rapacious antics, time after time attempting to remodel himinto someone she can respect... and failing.The time of the Highland Games dawns, and a diverse range of local characters compete on behalf of Tannadee including agreasy wrestler, a hypochondriac miler, a suicidal hill runner, a pretty-boy hammer thrower, a hen-pecked cyclist, and a wild-boysprinter. Can good morals and fairness win the day? And can they be the iceberg to sink Weever's titanic ego once and for all?

Sujets

• Highlands and Islands
• Northern Scotland
• Humour

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 28 février 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838598273
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 Maurice Gray

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 978 1838598 273

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd



For Cathy


Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44


Chapter 1
“Look! That cloud – it’s just like you, Dad,” said Chizzie Bryson as he and his father stood on the front lawn of their family hotel, overlooking the little town of Tannadee in the Scottish Highlands.
“Where?” asked his dad.
“Straight ahead, over the loch there. It could be an omen.”
“It’s nothing like me.”
“’Course it is; it’s got a broad head, chubby cheeks, a bit of a paunch, big shoulders and little legs.”
“It’s got hair.”
“That’s the omen! Your hair restorer’s actually going to work this time.”
Johnny Bryson eyed his son sternly. Baldness was a touchy subject. “I’d have hair as thick as your mop,” he grumbled, “and be just as slim, but for a lifetime of work and worry. And now, on top of it all, I’ve got Weever coming.”
Chizzie laid a hand on his father’s shoulder in mock sympathy. “Sorry, Dad, you’ve had it very tough, I know.”
“If only you did know. I’ve worked all the hours God sent and, finally, when I get the hotel refurbished and fabulous, along comes that fancy billionaire Weever to sweep me away. I tell you, some nights when I put the tea towel over the budgie’s cage, I wish I could just climb in there and spend my days chirping away with not a care in the world.”
Chizzie smiled, unsure whether there was more to this than just wild imagining.
“I mean,” continued Johnny, “there’s that little ball of feathers, with nothing but seed and water. And is he happy? You bet he is! A million times happier than I am, and I’m a bloody human being with private health insurance!”
“You’re not thinking of selling up, surely?”
“Selling up! Are you nuts? No! I know you’d like me to, though, but it’s not going to happen, Chisholm. It’s not going to happen. No way.”
Chizzie looked away. He hated seeing his father’s plaintive look – the look of the martyr; it was a look he knew could snare him for life. “I wasn’t suggesting you sell up, Dad, but you know my position: I enjoy helping in the hotel, but I also enjoy teaching part-time. It’s the modern way, having a varied career.”
“You can’t run a hotel part-time. It’s a one hundred per cent commitment. It needs passion. You’ve got to love it. I really can’t understand you, son; all the Brysons – every one of us – has been passionate about what we do. We’re a passionate breed. We always have been. I blame your mother’s side of the family, God rest her soul. And God rest my father’s soul. If ever a man had passion, it was him. D’you know what he told me just before he passed away?”
“Yep.”
Johnny took no notice; he was lost in nostalgia. “He said, ‘If you can lose your head while all about you are keeping theirs, you’ll be a football manager, my son.’ And d’you know what? He was right! I became that football manager.”
“For a little time.”
“The point is that passion got me a career that could’ve seen me rich and famous.”
“So what happened?”
“I wasn’t good at it. Or, at least, it wasn’t good for me. All that sittin’ out in the cold, gettin’ jaws like a hippopotamus with all that chewin’ and my blood pressure rocketing. So I looked around for something easy. What’s easier than hotels? I thought. But, oh God, how wrong can you be?”
“And that’s what you want for me, is it?”
“No, I’ve done all the spade work. You get all the benefits; they’re right here, waiting for you – you know that.”
Chizzie looked back at the hotel, a solid piece of Scottish baronial architecture built in sandstone block. It had fourteen guest rooms, a dining room and a lounge, set in large lawns and shrubby gardens: the perfect country retreat. With its big windows and ivy-clad walls, it even seemed to exude an expression that changed with the weather: in sunshine it smiled, but in gloom it could mope dismally. The thought of sharing a future with it brought on a faint feeling of dizziness in Chizzie, as conflicting emotions swirled in his head. In some ways, the hotel presented the perfect life, but there was also an air of stuffy, dull existence about it. He turned to his father, whose plaintive look hung on.
“You could love it; I know you could,” Johnny insisted. “You just need commitment and a bit of passion. It’s in you somewhere; it must be.”
Chizzie tried to change the subject: “We’ve got Weever to deal with first.”
Johnny groaned.
“Maybe we should see this as an opportunity, actually,” Chizzie suggested cautiously. “Maybe we could live alongside him. His investment might just be the best thing for Tannadee and even us. Maybe there’s spin-off for everyone.”
Johnny clenched his fists and faced the hills in silence.
Chizzie knew what was coming; he could almost hear the fuse fizzing; he had to head off his father. “I just like to review the options now and again, Dad, that’s all. There’s no harm in it,” he said calmly.
“He’ll ruin us. He’s an operator. We can’t trust him,” insisted Johnny.
“He’d be investing millions in the area, and there’s no denying that we need houses, we need mobile coverage, we need decent broadband, we need the bank open more often, we—”
“Sure, sure; we need these things, but on our terms, not his. Can you imagine what his price would be? He’d have a gun at our heads. Lord and master, he would be. No, we don’t need his millions; we’ve got things he can’t buy. We’ve got traditional values here, things he can only wish for.”
“Tradition isn’t everything, Dad; most of human existence has been in the Stone Age – nothing’s more traditional than stone tools. But we’ve moved on. The greatest tradition of all is change. Without it, we’d have no hotel: we’d be living in a cave; you’d be called Ug and I’d be called Wah – probably the most traditional names ever uttered.”
Johnny shook his head. “I will move with the times as far as I need to, but no further. Tradition is our bread and butter. And d’you know something? I don’t like your—”
Suddenly, Chizzie caught sight of an osprey and seized the chance to escape Johnny’s rising wrath. “Look! There’s an osprey on the loch and it’s going for a fish. Fantastic!”
They watched as the osprey splashed into the water and half-disappeared below the surface. Then, flapping frantically, it hauled itself back into the air, with a fish slung below it, which it turned head first into the wind.
A wry smile crossed Johnny’s face. “Well, well, well, there you are. You see that? A bird with a brain the size of a pea and it gets a fish. Surely to God, some of our guests can manage it too. It’s just like I said: there’s no shortage of fish in that loch; there’s only—”
“Don’t insult the guests now, Dad, they’re your passion remember,” warned Chizzie.
“Go and get your camera, son, in case that bird comes back. If you get a good picture, I’ll stick it on the reception desk, and then no one could argue about a lack of fish.”
“Yeah, we could use it for marketing and publicity – Tannadee the osprey town. Home of the osprey!”
“Better still, the trout and osprey town. That could see us into better days again.”

Better days had certainly come and gone in Tannadee. In the nineteenth century, Tannadee had been a celebrated spa resort. Throughout the affluent world, the spa water of Tannadee had been renowned for its healing powers, and – for nearly fifty years – those who could afford to make the voyage bathed in its water and drank it. Then, in the 1930s, a new hydroelectric scheme on a nearby loch altered the water table, causing the spa water to turn brown. For years after that, enterprising locals trawled the loch trying to find a monster that would boost their economy, but none could be found. None that bore sober scrutiny, at any rate.
It seemed that the spa town was doomed. But then a miracle occurred: a local hotelier discovered that persistent application of the brown water on the skin conferred