It's a quiet afternoon in Auchpinkie, a tiny fishing village on the east coast of Scotland, and in Mae's Corner Shop, Mae and her cronies are setting the world to rights. Suddenly a furniture van draws up outside one of the houses along the street. A beautiful young woman is moving into Etta Swankie's old house. But no—it can't be—that's Rae, Etta's daughter, and Etta always swore she'd disinherit her!
Over the next few days the action races to its riotous climax, as Big Sandy, Rae's cousin, poaches the River Pinkie in a daring adventure, the village public convenience is destroyed by a freak explosion, and the parish minister is baffled by the sudden religious conversion of two formerly heathenish young lads.
Behind it all a spider's web of intrigue is woven, as the villagers conspire to get Big Sandy and Rae together, to get the bugger wed at last. But there are things going on that none of them ken, and secrets that only Rae's old friend Izzie knows.........
An action-packed tale of love and life, humour and romance, played out by an unforgettable cast of characters with genuine Scots voices, Poaching the River will make you laugh and cry out loud.
Auchpinkie, the fictional village where the action is set, is based on the real village of Auchmithie, in Angus. Arbeg, the nearby town is based on Arbroath, my home town. The geographical details of the village and the surrounding land are accurate and many of the features are still there today. The harbour wall was indeed blown up by a stray mine!
Big Sye, the main character, is based partly on the late Dave Cargill, who was the foreman at my father's garage in the 1960s and partly on my own late brother, Sandy Fleming. Other characters in the book were drawn from life too. However the events described are fictional!
The book is set in the early 1980s when I lived with my then wife in the village of Auchmithie and in fact Big Sye's residence -- the Chateau -- was actually our house, Number 16 Auchmithie. The story is obviously romantic but is a portrait of Scottish women, who are never held down and are used to being dominant in their own homes. Being a Scot and from Arbroath I encountered many like this.
The central escapade of the story, the poaching of the nearby River Pinkie, is true but actually happened on the River Tweed, over a hundred miles further south. The Lunan, while beautiful, is not big enough for this sort of thing, but the Tweed definitely is.
One afternoon for no good reason that I could think of I was in a bar in East Linton, close to Dunbar where I then lived. I somehow got into conversation with a group of poachers and as I plied one with drink he became increasingly informative about the shenanigans that went on between the poachers and the water-bailiffs. It was a memorable afternoon and after I left I stopped and wrote down as much as I could remember in my notebook. This formed the basis of 'Poaching the River'.
The technique of using SCUBA diving gear was explained by my informant, in nearly all the details used. This seems to have been quite a popular pastime. When we lived in Auchmithie there were two gentlemen, ex military, who were employed in the North Sea Oil business. When ashore, they were frequently out late at night and usually had a freezer full of salmon; but more than that I cannot say!
I hope he reader will not find the language too tongue-twisting. It is only used in reported speech, the narrative itself is in English. If the Scots really defeats you, there is an English-only version called 'The Spring Run' also available on Amazon. However, my father-in-law, who is about as English as it gets, read this version and said he had no trouble and that in fact the jokes worked really well. So maybe you should take the plunge and buy this one!
