Ferryden is not a town that many people will have heard of but I grew to love staying there when summoned to my employers office in Montrose before and after periods of overseas work. Just across the south Esk from Montrose, it is a small fishing village that has transformed into a pocket North Sea oil and gas port but has retained its charm and of course beautiful coastline. 

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I worked for a Marine Electrical company based in Montrose Harbour and spent most of my life travelling from country to country, ship to ship and oil rig to oil rig with a team of electricians. I was a day rater so only paid for days worked, thus no contract, no pension, no sick leave and no job security. The rate was however very good and a fear of not working again if I rejected a job and an element of greed ensured that I was seldom home with my family in Edinburgh.

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Prior to travelling to a ship or oil rig, I would spend a few days in the office working on the logistics and discussing details of the work to be carried out, and on completion I would return to finalise the paperwork, drawings etc and hold a post mortem with the company owner. I could have stayed in one of the hotels in Montrose but they were pretty dismal and on the opposite side of the river to the office. I therefore chose to stay at a small end of terrace bed and breakfast with just three bedrooms because it was warm and the breakfasts were amazing. 

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On this occasion, I had been working on an oil rig called Sovereign Explorer for over a month, sharing a cabin, the only privacy a moth eaten curtain across my top bunk. Working twelve hours a day with no recreation, I am pretty sure that apart from the salary, the conditions were worse than most prisons. I was therefore very happy to be in the rigs Heli Lounge struggling into my survival suit and dreaming about beer, a shower and a soft bed whilst waiting for the clattering noise of an approaching Sikorsky helicopter. It landed on the helideck with a thump, the sad joiners handing us their lifejackets to wear on  the flight back to Aberdeen, and we were soon ducking down and making our way beneath the still rotating blades. There is an element of urgency to try and get a seat by a window or exit door because in reality there is little chance of surviving a landing on the rough and freezing cold North Sea but the odds are better if you can get out before the chopper turns over. I managed to get a window seat, put on my ear defenders, closed my eyes and dreamed of at least a week with my wife and three children in Edinburgh.

 

The noise and vibration increases dramatically, the helicopter rises a few feet above the helideck before slowly moving to the edge and for a moment dives towards the sea and then with clattering blades and screaming turbines it rises into the grey sky. Aberdeen heliport is a place of misery when joining a ship or rig but a place of joy when coming home. We help each other out of our survival suits and this basically involves dislocating your shoulders and then its out to the waiting taxis and off to Aberdeen station. Tickets bought we went into the station bar and ordered pints of what tasted like nectar of the Gods. By the time we got on the train I was already pretty drunk and needing the toilet but I decided I could manage to hang on until Montrose so that it would not disturb drinking the half bottle of vodka and cokes that we bought from the trolley.

Now exceedingly drunk I was aware that the train had stopped, but being dark outside and having lost track of time I did not realise that we were in Montrose station. I literally fell off the train onto the platform and the boys threw my holdall after me. There was a taxi at the stand and because I was staying in a small bed and breakfast the other side of the river in Ferryden I would need his services but there was a problem. The station is closed at night so no toilets and my bladder had now reached the critical stage. The taxi driver gave me strange looks as I put down my bag and walked up and down concentrating furiously on not wetting myself. The pain subsided and the pressure moderated so I jumped into the taxi and off we went. 

As the car bumped over potholes the front passenger seat was at grave risk of being swamped but I had  a plan. Money ready for the driver, old Mrs Fletcher would have left the front door of the cottage unlocked for me so all I had to do was run up one flight of stairs and the toilet would be mine. We pulled up outside, I thrust the money at the driver, grabbed my bag and ran for the house. I am sure most of you can identify with what happened next. When the mind knows that there is a toilet in the vicinity it starts relaxing all the muscles that you have spent ages tensing up in order to prevent a flood. I got to the front door. Yes it was open, I dropped my bag ran up the stairs and there was my nirvana in the form of a white porcelain bowl called Armitage Shanks. Sorry to be basic but standing there, one hand on the wall in front to prevent me from falling over, I kept repeating 'this is great' 'this is great' 'this is the best feeling' 'this is better than an orgasm'. I do not remember any more of that particular night but I do remember being woken by old Mrs Fletcher in the morning. I did not need worry about covering myself up because I was still fully dressed and yes still wearing my boots. She was carrying my holdall, looking at me and shaking her head. Most of the men from our company stayed with her because the rooms although small were comfortable and her breakfasts superb. This was therefore not the first time she had seen one of us in such a state, but she tutted  and said 'get a shower and come down for some tea and toast, and by the way you left the door open last night and your bag on the step outside'. 'Sorry Mrs Fletcher' I replied, 'I was a bit drunk and desperate for the toilet, must have fallen asleep'.

Feeling incredibly hungover and sorry for myself, I went down for breakfast and there was Gordon tucking into bacon and runny eggs. Gordon is a man I have worked with in all the bad places around the world. The places the government tells you not to go to! A diminutive Geordie in his late thirties, I admired him for his work, he was totally trustworthy and for reasons I could never understand women found him incredibly attractive. 'Jesus you look like shit and you will need to sober up quickly because we are off to Aberdeen to get our jabs later this morning' he said. Sipping my tea I tried to process what he had just said and it begged the obvious question 'why do I need jabs, I am working in the office and then having some leave'. 'We are off to darkest Africa Boyo' he replied.

Sitting in front of the boss in the open plan office, he was looking at me and shaking his head whilst the office girls giggled in the background. After telling me that I smelled like a brewery and looked like shit, he trotted out the same lines I had heard so many times. 'Steve you have got to understand, we are a small company and I have nobody else to send, this could be a big opportunity for us, life extension of a drill rig is big money' he said. The rig he was referring to was in Angola and I listened as he explained how the place was not as dangerous as the press made out and the civil war had quietened down a bit recently. Anyway we would be arriving at the airport, met and flown straight offshore. 'Absolutely not' I replied 'my wife will kill me and I haven't seen the kids for ages'. So later that morning with flights booked for the next day, I was in the company van with Gordon heading up to Aberdeen to get our injections.

We entered a rather smart modern private clinic and the nurse told us that we would need six injections and they would not normally recommend giving them all at the same time as it could make you feel quite ill for a few days. I am scared of needles and in my weakened state I nearly passed out before she had even started. 'have you been drinking' she asked. 'No' I replied. I could hear Gordon laughing from the next cubicle. 'Ok' she said ' but remember that the yellow Fever vaccine reacts very badly with alcohol and will make you feel very ill. As I thought that passing out was a distinct possibility I asked her if I could lie down for the injections and if I did pass out she could then do the other injections before bringing me round. The answer was a negative and I left the hospital with three injections in one arm, two in the other and an incredibly painful bottom. 

Gordon drove us back to the Montrose office for a briefing. The boss took us into the conference room gave us details of the work and we would fly from Aberdeen to Paris the next afternoon and from there onwards to Luanda. 'Now go and get some rest, you still look like shit and you have a long journey ahead of you tomorrow and the day after' he said. I swallowed an anti malarial tablet to add to the cocktail of chemicals swimming around in my bloodstream.

Back at the B&B I agreed with Gordon that we would have an alcohol free night but we would go into town for an Indian curry a little later. I had a sleep and by the time Gordon was knocking on my door I was feeling pretty good apart from one sore arm and a distinctly painful bottom. We walked into town and as we passed through the fishing village of Ferry Den we managed to go straight past the two pubs even though they looked warm and inviting. Across the old bridge spanning the river Esk we went and the wind off the estuary was cold and damp so we were pretty chilly by the time we reached the other side. And there it was in front of us the South Esk Inn. It did look like a good place to warm up and this was usually our favourite pub to start the evening when staying in Ferry Den. 'I guess one pint won't do any harm' said Gordon 'Nah it should be ok' I replied. 

I remember a large number of beers in the Market Arms, being exeedingly drunk, complaining that we had not eaten and the Indian restaurant would now be closed. All I had eaten all day was a few nibbles of toast at breakfast so I decided to go in search of any sort of food I could find. The only place left open was a kebab shop so I ordered one of those kebabs that only drunk people buy. It was pitta bread full of sliced fatty meat, some token limp salad and half a gallon of incredibly spicy chilli sauce. I could not find one on the internet that looked anything like as horrible as the specimen that I bought and mine was dripping  with the bright red sauce. I decided to eat it when I got back to the B&B and set off to walk back to Ferryden.

 

The rest I do not remember but I certainly remember waking up in the morning with Mrs Fletcher standing at the door, the lights were still on from the night before, I was naked, lying on my back and she was looking horrified and staring at my chest. I looked down and the mess on my ribcage looked as if my lungs had exploded out of my body. There seemed to be blood, and indescribably awful lumps of body tissue all over me. For a second I thought I had been attacked in the night but although feeling far from well I did not feel bad enough for a man who appeared to have had at least one lung removed whilst asleep. I then remembered the kebab and by way of confirming this, I dipped my finger in the sauce and put it in my mouth to taste it. 

I cannot begin to describe the look of horror on the poor ladies face but after I had explained that it was just the remnants of a kebab she looked closer and remarked that I had eaten some of it through the paper it had been wrapped in. Sorry Mrs Fletcher, I will just get a shower and I will come down for breakfast. She left the room shaking her head but stopped and turned 'last night you and Gordon ordered a full cooked breakfast, I hope you are going to be able to eat it' she said. 'No problem I am pretty hungry so I will be down in a minute' I lied.

I got out of bed carefully but the bed looked as if somebody had slaughtered a pig on it so I made a mental note to leave money in case the sheets and duvet could not be cleaned. Clutching the remnants of my kebab tightly to my chest I went to the bathroom and leaning over the toilet let the kebab and half eaten wrapper fall in. I flushed but it did not go away, with the water rising ominously in the bowl. No time to deal with it now so I had a quick shower and went down for breakfast as if nothing untoward had happened. Gordon was already sitting in from of a huge cooked breakfast on an oval plate. Two fried eggs, a pile of bacon, two big fat sausages, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes, fried bread and of course black pudding. 

Gordon is extremely resilient but despite the fact that he was still chuckling at the description of my condition that Mrs F had just shared with him, he looked terrible. On balance however I decided that I felt even worse than he looked. We both had sore arms, sore backsides and I would swear that even real sufferers or cholera, yellow fever etc could not feel as ill as I did at that moment. We were discussing the fact that we should have listened to the nurses advice and wondering how we were going to start our travels in a couple of hours when my equally large breakfast arrived. Huge plate of greasy breakfast  in front of me she gave me a concerned look,  left the room and shut the door to the kitchen.

White as a sheet, I stared at my plate and there was absolutely no way I could eat anything and I started to sweat like some people do when they are about to be sick. Gordon managed to eat about half of his breakfast and said 'come on man she will be really upset if you don't make an effort'. We were obviously still a bit drunk because when I told Gordon of my cunning plan he thought it was a great idea and even assisted in implementing it. I got a pile of paper napkins from the centre of the table and laid them out on a table mat. I then transferred my entire breakfast to the bed of napkins, wrapped it up and went quickly upstairs to my bedroom. On reflection I have to hope that I was still drunk because the second part of the plan does in hindsight seem doomed to failure and better options were open to me. Anyway, I put the entire breakfast including napkins into the toilet on top of the kebab remnants from earlier. I dashed back downstairs and was sitting in front of an empty plate sipping my cup of tea when Mrs F came back into the room. She tutted at the food Gordon had left on his plate and asked me if I wanted some more toast. 'No Mrs F that was lovely and  we need to head up to Aberdeen soon to catch our flight. We said our goodbyes, I apologised for the state of the bed and we went up to our rooms.

At his point the situation was still recoverable but with Gordon shouting to hurry up so we could catch our train, I flushed the toilet but the mixture of a large cooked breakfast and kebab complete with napkins and partially eaten kebab wrapper refused to budge . The water came right up to the rim but slowly went down and I was sure that some of the breakfast had gone as well. It seemed to take forever for the cistern to fill and Gordon had now joined me to see what the delay was. He stared into the toilet bowl and said, 'Holy fuck'. The intact pork sausages had managed to make their way to the top and looked awfully as if I had used the toilet despite it being full of breakfast. 

Gordon is a terrible giggler and he started at about my fifth or sixth flush which had resulted in a totally full toilet, sausages, bits of egg, intact bacon rashers and mushrooms floating on the top with no signs of the water level diminishing. I was sweating heavily and he was doubled up laughing with tears running down his face. Friends! I was now getting frantic because Mrs F would expect us to have left and would no doubt be up soon to strip my kebab soiled bed. There was no toilet brush in the room so Gordon ran off the check his room but he did not have one either. I think that plan B or was it C was suggested by Gordon and if not then he did nothing to prevent me from embarking on it. I took off my shirt wrapped a bright pink hand towel around my arm and hand in an effort to have the same effect as one of those rubber plungers for clearing drains. Kneeling down in front of the full toilet bowl I put my towelled arm in and commenced what I can only describe as punching the U bend in order to try and force my cooked breakfast, kebab, paper and serviettes around the bend. It seemed to be working and the water level definitely went down so I continued to flush and fist that toilet, sweat now pouring off me and Gordon lying on the floor crying with laughter. I stepped up the pace of the toilet fisting with diminishing returns, the food stopped disappearing and brown objects started appearing. At first I thought it was the black pudding but on closer inspection it was not so it now appears that I have a toilet half full of my breakfast and debris from the waste pipe.

I stood back from the toilet, soiled towel still on my arm, dripping on the fluffy carpet, wondering how a family man in his early forties was going to explain this situation to a sweet old lady in her early seventies. Everything had been done for the best possible reasons but she would soon know that I had bare face lied to her about eating the breakfast and had in fact used it as a highly successful method for blocking her toilet pipes. She was bound to tell my office and as I was the trusted senior engineer chosen to manage relations with the clients as well as our teams, this would not be good for my career never mind the hilarity amongst the office girls. There was only on thing for it. A bigger towel!
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Arm wrapped in a bath towel, I resumed my position at the bowl, with Gordon flushing and me fisting furiously. Bit by bit the toilet emptied until flushing caused the water level to rise and only slowly go down but definitely no signs of my breakfast or kebab. Yes we must have been drunk because we were so happy to have defeated the toilet that we had not considered that there was one heavily soiled towel on the floor and one still wrapped around my arm. No way was this was going to rinse off so I stuffed them in a plastic bag, put it into my holdall, scrubbed my arm, left a handful of money on the dressing table and hastily departed for the station.

​I dumped the towels in a bin on the platform and all the way to Aberdeen I was aware of an unsavoury smell coming from my right arm. I am sure the unfortunate lady sitting next to me was also aware of the odour but Gordon sitting  opposite me was trying his best to chat her up.

I will leave the story at that point because I spent the next six months working my way around the armpits of the world without returning to Ferryden again or being home for more than a few days. With our West African work successfully completed the Boss asked me to come up to the office to plan yet another project. I arrived in Ferryden sober this time, put my suitcase in my room, put my order for a full cooked breakfast on the notice board next to Gordons and went to join him for a few quiet pints in town. We were in fact relatively well behaved because having got away with dumping the poor ladies breakfast in the toilet the last time we did not want to push our luck. Before the walk back from Montrose we went to the Chinese carry out and I ordered spare ribs in spicy sauce and a king prawn curry with egg fried rice.

One problem with the bedroom was that the only way to watch television was from bed so I put a towel on the duvet next to me, carefully took the lids off my food and happy as a sand boy started chewing away at my first spare rib. Aware of my sticky hands and not wanting to make a mess again I decided to get a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom. On getting out of bed I got a bit tangled with the duvet and stumbled but luckily managed to avoid hitting any of the furniture. not so lucky really because the tin foil containers of ribs and curry had tipped on their sides and I had a mixture of prawn curry and spare rib (spicy) sauce on my sheets. I tried to clean it up with a flannel but that just spread the damage so I quickly ate my remaining food, stripped the bed and scrubbed the offending area of the sheet with Head and Shoulders shampoo. How to dry the soaking wet sheet? No hairdryer in the room, but everybody knew that the secret to Gordons wavy hair was the fact that he blow dried it. I knocked on his door and whispered 'Gordon I've had another problem with the bed'. The door opened and he was already laughing before I told him my sad tale. 'Prawns and ribs in your bed' he chuckled 'so what can I possibly do to help?'. I asked if I could borrow his hair dryer but he denied having one until he could see the look of desperation on my face and said 'don't tell anybody and don't break it' 'I won't tell a soul' I lied. It took a while but eventually the sheets were dry so I cleverly put them back on the bed the other way round so the remaining stains were less obvious and could be missed altogether.

I arrived down for breakfast with Gordon and we took up our usual positions at the table as if we had never been away. The door from the kitchen opened and in came Mrs F with a big smile and our plates of breakfast. Whilst she was pouring our cups of tea I was hungrily eating and dipping a big fat sausage into a runny yolk. She was so happy to see us, asked about our travels and I think she was maybe a bit surprised that we were both still alive after the tales we told her. She chatted whilst we ate and when we got up to leave she said 'at least you didn't put your breakfast down the toilet this time, it took the plumber ages to clear the blocked pipes the last time you were here'. 'Sorry Mrs F' I said 'but I can explain'. Apparently it was the local Ferryden plumber who dismantled the toilet and discovered my breakfast. The story about fried eggs, sausages and kebab in Mrs Fletchers U bend was the talk of the village for some time. 'And my towels?' she asked. I decided not to try and explain so I just said 'sorry Mrs F I was drunk'. 'Well I hope you haven't had any more accidents with kebabs in your room this time' she said. I promised faithfully that there were no kebab issues and we hurriedly left for work.

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