Hand to mouth delivery

Image: © Pete Marrison Taken: Unknown

You may think that this just a photo of a dog. In fact it is a picture of the Royal Mail in action in the late 1970’s delivering post to the Inchfad Island on Loch Lomond. The island has been occupied and farmed for centuries. Cattle have to be ‘barged’ to Arden or Balmaha for sale. White deer have also been seen there. After the closure of illicit whisky stills around the loch at the beginning of the 19th century, Inchfad for a while, became the home of a registered distillery. Well into the 21st century, the McFarlane family at Balmaha combined their Royal Mail postal contract with passenger cruises around the inhabited islands. In the late 1970s, a resident of Inchfad had a collie. When the boatman was about 100 metres away from the jetty, he sounded his horn. The dog came running and waited at the end of the pier for the post. In this picture the postman/boatman has folded the letters into that day’s newspaper and carefully put them into the dog’s mouth. The collie is turning away and about to take the post to his/her master who can just be seen waiting at the far end of the jetty. Pure Disney! I took this sail several times more, usually in the boat “Margaret”, but never saw the collie again. There are two videos below for those wishing to share some of this experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMrxcp4Jy54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hzldm5_Z4c

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