Dave The Pretend Scotsman

I used to keep a diary, well, it was more like a journal of daily activity. It all started after my eldest daughter gave me a fountain pen and a moleskin book.

Diary Snapshot

Most of the entries were pretty dull, but as I was researching my family history at the time, I thought it would be a good idea to keep a journal as a snapshot in time for any future generations. As I saw the weekly prompt was ‘daily-diary’, it motivated me to get the pile of books out of the cupboard in the spare bedroom and read through them. Honestly, they are full of mundane entries like, ‘I stayed in bed this morning as I am working nightshift this evening….’ or ‘the twat next door is playing his out of tune guitar way too loud, I want to throw a jar of pickled eggs at him!’ Every now and then, a more interesting entry would crop up that I had completely forgotten.

‘Saturday, June 27th, 2009:
I went to the greyhound race track in Hall Green this evening with some of the lads from work. It was to celebrate the upcoming summer break. I’m not a gambling man, so I was a little out of my depth, but the socialising was good fun. The racing was over by 9:30pm and we retired to the bar for a few beers. I sat next to Dave, who I knew but not too well. He was one of those guys I always tried to steer clear of, a personality thing but I don’t know why as he was quite pleasant. A local lad with a local accent we started talking about the usual things, football, music and where I lived etc. The beer flowed freely as you’d expect with a group of guys on a night out. The time must have been around 11:00 pm when out of the blue, taking me by surprise, Dave started talking in a broad Scottish accent! Never before have I heard anyone change complete accent midway through an evening out. It was bizarre, so much so that I disappeared to the toilet. When I returned, Dave was talking to another guy, still using his Scottish voice and I could see the other guy was looking as confused as I was!’

‘Monday, June 29th, 2009:
Spoke to some of the guys at work today about Saturday night and asked them for their thoughts on Dave’s strange accent. Typical answers include, ‘Oh, he’s nuts..’ ‘Yeah, he’s not all there..’ ‘Weirdo’. So it seems he has this strange need to talk the way he does, but only when it suits him. I have never heard anything like it before in my life.’

I then fast forward to another entry in July where Dave asked me for a lift home as he knew I went past his house. No problem, I didn’t mind at all.

‘Friday, July 10th, 2009:
Early shift today, finished at noon. Dave asked if I could drop him home. As always on a Friday afternoon, the traffic is heavy. We reached the A45 and then got stuck in traffic. As we sat there, Dave’s phone rang. He answered and immediately started talking in a broad Scottish accent! I found it highly amusing at first, after all, it was like sitting next to Billy Connolly. “Aye, we’re stuck in traffic, so I dannae ken when I’ll be hume.” What a palava!! He must have been talking for at least 10 minutes before we got moving again and he said goodbye to who ever it was on the line. As soon as he put the phone back in his pocket he said to me in his usual Brummie accent, “That was the missus. Her wanted to know where I was.” So surrealistic.

Well, that’s a couple of entries from my pile of diaries. I’m sure there are many other little stories tucked away in there somewhere. Who knows, I may even start writing them again, though I feel they would be even more banal these days especially being confined indoors through this Corona virus.

This post is in response to the Weekly Prompts

P.S. Dave isn’t the guys real name although the story is true.