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A Long Stride. Nicholas Morgan
Читать онлайн.Название A Long Stride
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781838852085
Автор произведения Nicholas Morgan
Жанр Кулинария
Издательство Ingram
The house at Troon also allowed Alexander Walker to indulge in his passion for golf (‘the golf and the shooting I have takes up all of my spare time’).70 It was literally built next door to the newly established Troon Golf Club (now Royal Troon), of which he was a founder member, jealously guarding the interests of Troon and Kilmarnock members against the much-resented incursions of Glaswegians, who he criticised for trying to take over its management.71 Crosbie Tower, and Piersland House in Kilmarnock, were the focus for both domestic and business entertainment. For despite his occasional misanthropic outbursts it’s clear from his correspondence that, alongside his family, Alexander Walker relished nothing more than good company and companionship, and shared food and drink.72 Few visitors were discouraged, but sometimes for all its critical importance in oiling the wheels of the business the duty of hospitality took a heavy toll. ‘I am beginning to think that my health is of more importance to me than other people’s enjoyment,’ he complained. ‘We have had to do so much entertaining to Colonials & Cockneys etc.,’ he wrote in October 1885,
that we hardly knew what it was to have a quiet day to ourselves, the consequence being that I am not all the man I should like to be and I am determined that I shall never attempt to do anything of the kind again. It seems so different entertaining strangers whom you may never see again compared with your real friends.
Blaikie, aware of the ‘constant stream of visitors’ to Scotland, apologised that the irrepressible Robert McKilligin, of R. Marquis McKilligin & Co., a frequent visitor to the London office in search of sherry and a biscuit, and an important customer, ‘told me he intended to look you up as he is a chap not calculated to forward one’s work’. On the other hand a visit from Bernard Lewis, who held the company’s New Zealand agency, promised little distraction: ‘I daresay he will be a bit of a bore but we must get through it as best we can.’73 Family and friends were much preferred: ‘We had a great party last night, about 50 I suppose. They seemed to enjoy themselves well, which was all that was wanted. Kept me a little from sleeping but that was no matter’. ‘With the youngsters here,’ he wrote to William Calder early in January 1886, ‘all around it has been parties, parties, every night. I expect we shall have the result of it bye and bye.’ And generosity did not only extend to hosting. At Christmas in particular gifts of wine and whisky were carefully dispatched to friends and customers; game from the shoot he rented was sent to London ‘to distribute as judiciously as possible’; Kilmarnock cheese was a very special gift. But for all his love of whisky and good wines, of local cheese, freshly shot game, pork pies and even snails and frog’s legs, it was something far more simple that stole his heart, as he wrote to a friend at Christmas 1888: ‘It occurred to me that you might still have a Scotch tooth in your head and I have sent you a small box of Kilmarnock shortbread. I always tell my wife it is one of the shortest roads to heaven that I know of.’74
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