大象传媒

My father, John Harvie, then aged sixteen, certainly knew where he was going in 1944. It was to Tobermory on the isle of Mull, to work at the Western Isles Hotel. The hotel, an imposing, Scots baronial style edifice, still overlooks Tobermory bay and the resplendent coloured houses that line the quayside. It鈥檚 a landmark and, in 1944, established for itself a small footnote in the history of British cinema.

Dad was employed at the hotel at the same time the film 鈥業 Know Where I鈥檓 Going鈥� was being shot on the island. It was made by the legendary partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Archers), one of the most famous creative duos in cinema history. The film tells the tale of a young woman on her way to meet her fianc茅 in the western isles of Scotland. Bad weather forces her to remain on the isle of Mull and there, against her will, she gradually falls for the local laird. The film鈥檚 backdrop is Mull and Tobermory, though being a work of fiction plenty of liberties are taken with local geography (the whirlpool of Corryvreckan, for example, where a key sequence is played out, is not off Mull but off Jura). Both the exterior and interiors of the hotel make fleeting appearances in the film. If you visit the hotel now, you鈥檒l realise that not much of substance has changed since those black-and-white images were shot sixty years ago.

The films stars were Roger Livesey and Wendy Hiller. It always bemused me a little that Dad often recalled seeing, and even speaking to, Wendy Hiller but never to Roger Livesey. At the time Roger Livesey was a very distinguished, and indeed very distinctive looking and sounding, actor who I thought Dad would certainly have recognised and seen about the place. When I asked him directly, did you meet Roger Livesey, the answer was always along the lines of, 鈥淚 suppose I must have done鈥�, before then going on to talk about Wendy Hiller. It was only years later that I found out the reason for his evasiveness. Despite what you see on the screen, Roger Livesey never set foot on the island throughout the entire course of the filming. As Michael Powell states in his autobiography, 鈥淩oger Livesey, playing Torquil MacNeil 鈥� never came within five hundred miles of the Western Isles鈥�. Apparently, doubles were used instead, and a fair amount of trick photography and editing, because Roger Livesey was starring in a West End play at the time and couldn鈥檛 be released for the on-location sequences. 鈥淚 know that those of you who have seen the film won鈥檛 believe it鈥�, Powell writes, 鈥渂ut it鈥檚 true鈥�. Dad鈥檚 recollections 鈥� or rather lack of them 鈥� confirms this was indeed the case.

Livesey鈥檚 co-star, Wendy Hiller, certainly was there though, and stayed in the hotel itself. Dad liked her. She was gracious, polite and unassuming. He didn鈥檛 say what her tips were like though.

Dad was employed at the hotel as both bellboy and barman. During the daytime he carried guests鈥� cases up the steep stone steps that lead up from the jetty to the hotel鈥檚 terrace that overlooks the bay and the Sound of Mull. Years later, he still cursed those steps as well as the guests for their ingratitude and miserly tips. He also helped out with cleaning and polishing, a big task in a hotel that has several floors and an awful lot of wood panelling. In the evenings he served behind the bar, a job he was fiercely protective of and which other hotel staff apparently envied. As barman Dad soon realised he got more tips than the other staff. Hence when they suggested that tips be pooled, he flatly refused to do so.

Among the other guests who stayed at the hotel, or used its facilities, were the crews of the ships anchored out in the bay. Dad developed a particular regard for the submarine crews, and especially a Lieutenant-Commander Hunt, RN, a submarine 鈥渁ce鈥� in Dad鈥檚 description. Hunt was more down to earth and considerate than the general run of Royal Navy officers, a caste whose arrogance he later got to know only too well when serving in the navy himself as a member of the lower deck. Hunt used to preside over large drinking parties, and used to slip Dad large tips to make sure they didn鈥檛 have to wait around for drinks. 鈥淭here you are, son, look after us, and I鈥檒l look after you鈥�. On one occasion 鈥� though I鈥檓 not sure it was necessarily Hunt鈥檚 group 鈥� a party of submariners tore up the bar and lounge when a drinking spree got out of hand.

Dad never liked hotel work much. He wasn鈥檛 one to kow-tow to guests and, being sixteen at the time, he missed his family and friends, especially his sisters Maureen and Ellen. So after three months he threw the job in and went back home. Home was Kinlochleven, a village between Fort William and Glencoe right at the end of Loch Leven. It鈥檚 dominated 鈥� or at least was 鈥� by an aluminium factory which employed the greater part of the village鈥檚 male population. During the war it was a likely target for German bombers and Dad used to recall how, early in the conflict, RAF aircraft used to fly down the loch and over the village trying to establish whether low level raids on the factory were possible. The mountains that form the back-drop to the village, and which hold the waters of the Blackwater reservoir that used to feed the aluminium furnaces, were considered too steep to allow for low level precision attacks. Dad talked about the aircraft making steep and precipitate climbs to avoid flying into the mountains. I can鈥檛 see the film 鈥�633 Squadron鈥� without thinking of these mock attacks.

Dad used to talk about Commandos appearing in the village from time to time. There was a commando training school at nearby Spean Bridge, and a large granite memorial now commemorates that fact. But that was about the extent of the war鈥檚 immediate impact on Kinlochleven. The German bombers stayed away. So too, come to think of it, did the film crews. Given the aluminium plant belching forth smoke, steam and pollutant gases, it wouldn鈥檛 have fitted Powell and Pressburger鈥檚 twee depiction of the Highlands and Islands as a place of ceilidhs, Gaelic folk-song and love struck lairds.

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