Kenny aka Rosie or simply Ian..? 19 7 6 re-post 2025 2 4

I had a short while earlier booked into this Bank Street Lodge backpackers' hostel just off the high street in Fort William: at £23 the night somewhat over-priced compared to my previous nights' stay in Pitlochry where I paid no more than £19 for much cleaner, more spacious and less crowded accommodation and where now one got to share the two keys for the 4 bed dormitory with the other 3 guys staying there...The receptionists however were friendly enough though it was soon apparent they didn't own the place but were employees of a proprietor we were never going to meet… 

I met the two guys with their keys by knocking on the downstairs Room No 3 dormitory just facing the Male WC and Shower Room on the opposite side of the narrow corridor: a friendly young guy maybe mid-20s from the USA whom it later transpired was born in Moscow to Russian parents, and an older Italian guy, Vincenzo, who was horizontal on his lower bunk bed upon my arrival. So I chose the second top bed of two bunks furthest away from the window, rather than the lower bunk below the American and was delighted both to get clear of the draft from the singly-gazed window, and to find a socket for my smart phone in close proximity to my sleeping position.

Shortly thereafter this very tall middle-aged Englishman arrived whose appearance owing to his enormous size, particularly in such a confined space as our dormitory at first had the effect of setting me against him, but then after exchanging the briefest of pleasantries the conversation between us just began to flow and flow, and whatever subject we turned to he had something remarkable to contribute and so in no time at all I was inviting him to go to dinner with me to the Witherspoon's Restaurant on the high street, renown as it is for its inexpensive food.

Kenny as I shall call him, not his real name but of all his aliases this the one he himself preferred, was a triathlon athlete who at the top of his game had taken part in the European Championships, but at 55 clearly was now getting over the hill. But journeying to Fort William by push-bike, by a more obscure route after taking the train to Glasgow from his home in Hereford, and visiting numerous small islands, including Jura and Islay in the Inner Hebrides impressed me. Especially since as a young man I too had toured Scotland on a push-bike during a couple of visits, but at the mention of Jura which I had in recent years visited a couple of times, sailing there with friends, one got to talking about the author George Orwell who had spent the last year of his life writing 1984 whilst residing there. This was courtesy of Lord Astor who owned a house there in the north of of the island when it transpired George Orwell, one of my heroes for some years already, was someone about which Kenny knew far more than I especially since before his last year on Jura he had lived close by to Kenny.

Back at our hostel we got to know our room-mate Maxim, as in Maxim Gorky, our Russian probably by now naturalised American who lived in Washington DC, and who had a government job in which one could imagine his knowledge of the Russian language helped him verging on Security as it appeared by implication when naturally the present incumbent in the White House was discussed at some length…

And Vincenzo only came out of his shell next morning after the other two room-mates had left when we got to reminisce about Toscana I introduced as a topic of conversation after the most wonderful wedding we attended there in Apennines  when our godson T got married there to his Italian wife, C, back in 2011.

All in all a very pleasant stay when at the end of it Kenny left me a note with his email address on it and a short note saying how he admired the challenge that I am engaged in, in climbing Scotland’s Munro hills, and how during a future visit perhaps I could invite him along to join me for a few days..? Have a good day everyone as I hope you all get to meet some interesting people on your vacations..?