Tale of the Minister’s Fish

Sometime in the 1920s, a miracle occurred in Lagg that my late mother remembered well. She and the rest of the Park family came to Lagg every summer to stay in the Lindsay cottage. The Rev. Graham Park, an upright, scrupulously honest and serious man, his wife Euphemia (Lindsay) and their five children, John, Lindsay, Katherine, Graham and wee Effie (my mother) all managed somehow to fit into the cottage. The Rev. preached at the Jura church to give the regular minister a break and was in charge of the paraffin lamps. One day when two other ministers were visiting and also staying in the cottage, a seemingly divine intervention took place. No doubt, Him up there, seeing such a concentration of aspiring holiness, decided to plant a miracle on them. Sort of good for street cred, He must have thought. He would have noticed them as in those days ministers were easily identifiable, never being without their dog collars and a peculiar sort of minister’s hat that you don’t ever see nowadays – like a top hat with 9/10ths cut off. Into Lagg bay which has no stream running into it, charged a huge shoal of sea trout, mistakenly seeking an ancestral river to have their babies in. Lagg bay was full of fish thrashing about, all looking for the promised land/river. This heavenly munificence galvanised the Holy Men, and being practical men as well, they immediately detailed someone to climb Lagg hill towards Gatehouse to watch out for the gamekeeper happening on the scene and making trouble. Thereupon all three ministers, with their dog collars and flat hats on, rolled up their trousers and waded in. For a brief period, they were re-enacting scenes from the Sea of Galilee, grabbing fish in heroic and biblical style. Sadly there was no mention of loaves anywhere in this story. Everyone who did not have an official or potentially censorial status got a fish - all of Lagg and Ardmenish got some, and a few others besides. They were all eating sea trout ‘to the bands playing’ as my mother said. After giving away loads, there were still fish left over so they wrapped them up in parcels and sent them to their friends and relatives on the mainland in Greenock and Gourock. And here’s the miracle: they all arrived fresh!

Reference

 * Lindsay Neil, March 2005. (pub. In the JJ)