The Old Tramp

It was in the Spring of '93.  I was on a Vintage Car Rally round the Isle of Man.

Things started out badly and went downhill from there.  My navigator Graeme was lifted for being a peeping Tom an hour before we set off.   Then my faithful old Bentley had a puncture about three hours out of Castletown. 

I walked in the driving rain to the nearest settlement, the tiniest little fishing village perched just below a sheer cliff.   It looked like a one horse town where the horse had already bolted, but to me on that miserable day it seemed like Shangri-la.

I staggered into the only communal building, the tiniest pub near the jetty.  It was called the 'Boar's Head' and indeed a grotesque stuffed boar's head stood vigil in the hallway to greet me. The pub was deserted, only the landlord was there, a deaf old man who surely was over ninety. He looked as decrepit as his pub, the paint was peeling off the walls, the framed black and white photos hanging above the bar looked like they were from the Victorian Era.

Despite some difficulty communicating with the old codger I managed to acquire some sort of alcoholic beverage and took a seat.  When the rain finally went off I would leg it out of here, wherever exactly 'here ' was.

A few minutes later another elderly gentleman wandered into the bar.  A wizened old creature with a long white beard, the sun on his face and the bundle on his back showed that he was a tramp.

The old tramp began to ferret about in his backpack looking for cash.  He began to produce and methodically count coppers, bashed old pennies and filthy twopences.  It grieved me to watch it so I offered to purchase him a glass of whatever brew I was currently pickling my liver with. He gratefully accepted.

Once again I had to communicate with the old coot at the bar but at last I was successful.   The old tramp seemed pleased with his glass of booze, just the job to warm the cockles of his heart.

There was an old fashioned coal fire there, the old man stared deeply into it in a fashion that must surely have burned his face.   I looked outside, day had turned into a wild and stormy night.  The old man began to speak, on a night like this to be beside the fire was his one and only desire. He had been out on the sea on many a gale and thanked Neptune that he had survived!

Without waiting to be encouraged the old man continued with a tale of the sea.  My heart sank slightly as he started to ramble on, but I listened politely.

In the winter of '48 this old salty sea dog had been a lifeboat coxswain. One November night a distress call was received from a tramp steamer, she was twenty miles off into the Irish sea, the engine out and taking on water!  The lifeboat dutifully put out into the teeth of the gale.   Old Sandy then continued with a rather long winded and tedious account of their struggle about wind and waves on that night............until the climax came.  The lifeboat struck a rock and five crew members plunged into the cold dark waters, praying that they would not drown!

At dawn of that terrible night old Sandy grabbed hold of a marker buoy near the shore. He had swam all night and was almost frozen.   He looked round and cursed the sea, his other four shipmates had drowned, he alone had survived. Sandy finished his story.  From that day to this he had never gone out on the cruel sea again, he could still see the faces of his four colleagues even decades after they had gone to a watery grave.

After that horrendous tale I could well see while old Sandy had become a tramp, trying to escape the horror of that evening.   I decided the least I could do was buy him another drink.

At the bar a younger, less audibly challenged man was on duty.  I bought the old tramp another drink and turned, surprised to see that he had gone.  The old boy must have checked out I thought, gone to tramp another weary road alone.   

I looked more closely at one of the photos above the bar.  It was of a lifeboat.  it was the lifeboat, the one that sank.  There proudly in front were the five crew and one looked like a young Sandy, the old tramp!  The caption under the photo said '1848' which I assumed must be a mistake. 

 I asked the barman about it, he said the picture had been hung in his great-grandfather's time.  He know nothing about the lifeboat disaster.  

I stared at him with a puzzled expression on my face.  I mentioned the old tramp to him, Sandy the Coxswain.  The barman stared back at me with a doubly puzzled expression on his face.  'What old tramp?' came the reply.

'The one I bought the drink for.  Ask the other barman, the old guy with the dodgy hearing!'

He replied: 'Who?  This is my pub, there is no other barman here!'

I was already startled but jumped out of my skin as the framed photo of the lifeboat fell from it's place above the bar and crashed onto the floor.

Rain or not, I wasn't staying here another second!