Jamie Rix: On Tour in Argyll and Bute

On Monday 16th May Chris and Heather from our children's team set off on another Scottish Friendly Children's Book Tour. This time they were taking the hilarious Jamie Rix, author of Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids, The Revenge Files of Alistair Fury and many more, to Argyll and Bute. They had a wonderful time, but what did Jamie think of the tour? Read on to find out in this incredibly long but highly entertaining blog...

I had never done a tour like this before so had no idea what to expect. It came as an extremely pleasant surprise to discover that I was to be driven around by not one but two people for the entire week. And they had names – Heather and Chris - so we could talk. And they were staying with me every night in the same hotel. I would have company for dinner! Yes, I really was that naïve when I flew into Glasgow airport at 8.00am on Monday with (I hate to admit) a very tiny hangover from my eldest son’s birthday the night before. I mean, how did I think an event like this would be organised? I was visiting 10 schools in five days in Argyll and Bute an area of Scotland that covers 2700 square miles… maybe I thought I’d be walking or travelling by Tardis.

Anyway I was very grateful to be met and whisked off to the first school, Rhu Primary in Helensburgh, where I did my bit and shocked Heather and Chris with the reading I had chosen from The Revenge Files of Alistair Fury. I watched their faces blanche as they realised they had committed themselves to spending five days with a man who said the word “willy” in front of primary school children. Still, it got a laugh. Rather a big one as I recall. And that’s sort of what I’m about. Inspiring children to read and write by telling funny stories and showing them that books ARE fun!

By the time we got to Arrochar Primary School Heather and Chris had forgiven me and were even encouraging me to find ruder passages to read. But when I suggested the seasonal revenge that Alistair Fury takes against his family in “Tough Turkey”, employing initially curry fudge and then copious amounts of dog diarrhoea, they withdrew their request. “Willy” would be fine. So “willy” it was.

Chris then got his own back on me by driving along a road that was clearly first cousin to a Big Dipper. Ten minutes up and down was all it took to kill the conversation and make both Heather and I feel violently sick. We arrived at beautiful Oban in vertical driving rain; the sea was black, our faces were green and bed beckoned. We did briefly surface to be shouted at by a waiter who had some rolls he needed to shift, but the rest of the evening was a blur.

The weather had cleared by the morning and we spent a fabulous day at two Primary Schools in Oban – Rockfield and Park Primary – which were locked in fierce competition over a Netball match. It also gave me a chance to flex my Zumba! muscle, when, after my chat, Park Primary After-School Zumba! Club met in the hall and invited me to join in. All I can say is that it looked like it was going to be fun and as a fifty-two year old man I should have known better.

Slept on the floor.

Got up at some ridiculous hour to catch the dawn ferry to Mull and eat one of the best breakfast rolls to be had on a dawn ferry to Mull. One of my friends in London, who loves the Isle of Mull more than anywhere else in the UK, told me that I had to visit his friend Alisdair in the theatre, but we didn’t have time for that, because we had three schools converging on Salen Primary School and we were late. Well we weren’t actually late, we were early, but for reasons known only to himself, Chris had decided to drive all around the island to show us the view. And doing that drive made us late… not to say sick again. I swear, that Scottish Book Trust car was a boat in another life.

Off to Tobermory in the afternoon and a chocolate shop that wouldn’t leave us alone. It just kept calling us inside and making us buy more chocolate. Heather was the worst.

After another lively session at Tobermory High School, the schedule had us back on the road, the boat and the road again, so that by the time we crawled into our hotel that night we were exhausted. Even the beautiful view across Loch Fyne could not revive us.

And in the morning the view had disappeared, because it was raining again.

Luckily our first session at Lochgilphead Primary School was indoors although it felt like being outside, because we were in the largest gymnasium I have ever seen. It was part of a sports complex to die for (or die in, depending on how fit you are). There was a boxing gym and a dance studio and two basketball courts, and that same day, not surprisingly, the school was holding its very own Mini-Olympics. I should not be surprised if several next-generation-Olympians come from that school.

Had a major spelling issue at the next school we visited, Tarbert Academy. Nobody seemed to have a name I could recognise: Eairdsidh, Cairistìona, Fionnlagh, Ciorstaidh, Ruairidh… Luckily, Heather and Chris had brought along a pad of yellow post-it notes and made a decent stab at covering my ignorance by slipping the names to me in advance. It was a good effort marred only by the fact that I couldn’t read either of their handwriting.

Note to self - must be better prepared for local names if I ever go out on tour again, unless it’s a tour of Russia that is, in which case I will just give up.

Spent the night in the beautiful Creggans Inn Hotel (which I can spell) and ate fish that was still wet from the loch.

The following morning (my last) we visited Strachur Primary School, which was single-handedly trying to save the native Red Squirrel from extinction by constructing a bridge across the road to stop the little critters from getting squashed. When I was a boy we used to have Red Squirrels in our garden in Roehampton, London. For nostalgic reasons I went on a little walk to see if I could see a Red Squirrel but only saw a whale. Not up a tree, obviously. That would have been unusual. It was in the loch, swimming with somebody else’s supper.

And finally on to Kim Primary School and the biggest audience of the tour. I was looking forward to going out with a bang, but we started with a whimper. The start was delayed by nearly half an hour while a second school, St Mun’s overcame minibus problems. When we did finally get going it was a brilliant session. The biggest audiences always are. Grizzly Tales was met with gasps of horror and nervous laughter; The Incredible Luck Of Alfie Pluck drew groans of nausea when I explained how Alfie, having become the luckiest boy in the world, discovers that everyone wants a piece of his luck. Unfortunately, ‘everyone’ can only get at it by stealing the luck gene from inside Alfie’s body which means capturing him and eating his brain; and The Revenge Files of Alistair Fury brought the house down (again) when Alistair’s big brother William had his willy chomped off by a piranha fish.

Surely there have to be better ways to make a living… Well if there are, I can’t think of any.

To find out more about Jamie Rix, visit his website.

If you've enjoyed Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids or The Revenge Files of Alistair Fury on TV, we urge to you check out the books - you will not be disappointed.

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