From the Dungeon 21/09/2007

The Funniest guy I've ever met.

A couple of years ago, I spent a week on my favourite 'desert island'.. the Hebridean island of Barra. There I stayed in a B&B at Halaman Bay called 'Ocean View' with Chrissie and John.  Ocean View is in the township of Borve 'BORGH' and overlooks the rather beautiful Halaman Bay.   Barra is a land of machair and beautiful beaches.... go there sometime and soak up the tranquility.  It's a land where everyone, except maybe the odd tourist in a hurry, has time to stop and talk to you.  That's part of the reason why it's one of my favourite places.

At breakfast time on my second day, I met a strange Irishman at the breakfast table. He was the funniest guy I have ever met in my life. On that morning and the one after, I had great difficulty in eating my breakfast because of the tears running down my face.  Pat Ingoldsby is one funny guy!  I soon discovered that the Isle of Barra is one of his favourite places too. Pat hails from southern Ireland where he is a writer and poet, much of his material being in the native gaelic. He used to sell his material through a distributor but these days, he sells mainly on the street and his cats run the company.

Pat doesn't much like doing things the easy way. He gets to Barra by a circuitous route that involves days of travel on boats and trains and suchlike. He could get there by aeroplane in two hops... Dublin-Glasgow in a 'proper' aeroplane and Glasgow-Northbay by Loganair Twin-Otter. This would take a few hours at most if planned carefully. Somehow, I get the impression that he doesn't fancy flying.  His head is filled with the most improbable stuff... rubbish some might say, but I found it fhilariously funny and sometimes it does you a power of good just to leave the real world behind and imagine the things that defy the laws of reality, and dare I say, physics.  For myself, I like to go to Barra by plane.  I absolutely love travelling by Twin-Otter and I like the beach landing even more. The first time I went to Barra was many years ago and I was accompanied by my better half. She thought she was going by Boeing 737 but when I pointed out to her that we were actually going in the small aircraft parked partway under the Boeing's wing,  well I won't use that sort of language here.  It cost be a couple of expensive whiskies in the airport bar to calm her down a bit. I didn't actually mention the beach at Northbay until we were in the descent.  Still, I digress... back to Pat.

He had arrived on Barra with his clothes and books after almost a week's journey. He must be very keen, to travel like that. I'm sure that for Pat, the whole journey would have been an adventure rather than a chore.  He likes to walk down the road to the IOB, as the locals call the Isle of Barra Hotel, and walk on the beach at Halaman Bay. I can see where he's coming from.  Last time I was on Barra, I walked along the curve of the bay in glorious evening sunshine with only a few cattle for company. It's a beautiful place and great little island where you can forget the outside world, at least for a while. It's a small place and so I bumped into Pat again, in Castlebay, the main town.  Actually, it's more of a village than a town, but that's part of the appeal.  Barra gets an honourable mention in Pat's web pages http://www.patingoldsby.com/

Pat's 'official web presence is run by a friend. His book company, Willow Publications, is run by his cats, who I believe are the CEO and Financial directors.  I can understand that, after a few breakfasts with Pat, it would make sense to you also.

Pat on Wikipedia Pat Ingoldsby

I think Pat is pretty well known in writing and poetry circles. He's done work for the BBC and others. I'm rather glad that Pat has not chosen to go down the commercial route. He may not be rich and famous, but I can't help but think that he's made an good choice and is all the better for not going down that road.  He seems to really love what he does and you only need to talk to Pat for two minutes before he takes you to a new world of sheer fantasy with flying sheep and semi-ordinary things with mystical properties.  Some of them would be really good, in a practical sense,  if genetics and perhaps the laws of physics could be bent a little ... no make that a lot!... to make them possible. While we are at it, I guess we should change all the laws that govern ordinary things because  Pat's world doesn't have ordinary things, at least none that I noticed.  The world is a richer place with people like Pat. I work in IT and my days are filled with computer problems while my hobbies usually involve radio, computers and things related to them. Sometimes it's good to escape from reality. My breakfast meetings with Pat Ingoldsby at Halaman Bay did that in a most thorough manner.  I don't share Pat's ability to leave the real world behind, hell I wish I did,  and enter one where anything is possible and perhaps normal, but he has given me a glimpse of how much fun it can be to throw reality aside for a bit over breakfast.  I know Pat writes serious material but my enduring memory of Pat is of imagining the impossible over breakfast with the tears of laughter running down my cheeks. 

Allan Copland