In Highland Harbors With Para Handy

by Neil Munro

ON A CLYDE PUFFER Get ready for charm and whimsy with the sweetness and bite of twenty-year-old single malt Scotch. There's a new cook named Sunny Jim on the steamer The Vital Spark in this collection of droll tales of the Scots characters. This is a ship full of wonderful characters. The Vital Spark is a "Clyde Puffer" carrying goods from Glasgow to the dreamy lochs and misty hills of the Highlands. Captained by Peter Macfarlaine -- nicknamed Para Handy -- "the smertest boat in the tred" is peopled by the likes of pompous engineer Dan Macphail, superstitious Dougie the ship's-mate and The Tar -- and featuring visits by Hurricane Jack and other odd folk.

108 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2008

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads data base.

Neil Munro was a Scottish journalist, newspaper editor, author and literary critic. He was born in Inveraray and worked as a journalist on various newspapers.

He was basically a serious writer, but is now mainly known for his humorous short stories, originally written under the pen name of Hugh Foulis. (It seems that he was not making a serious attempt to disguise his identity, but wanted to keep his serious and humorous writings separate.) The best known were about the fictional Clyde puffer the Vital Spark and her captain Para Handy, but they also included stories about the waiter and kirk beadle Erchie MacPherson, and the travelling drapery salesman Jimmy Swan.