Unusual Christmas card - most welcome - from David Laing up there in Ballymoney, County Antrim. He is to open in May his Bushmills to Giant's Causeway train. The progress of the scheme is to be seen in fourteen small colour photographs on the face of his card; the helicopter taking away the old bridge across the Bush river, and putting down the new one; the laying bit by bit of the new tracks, with vistas of the dunes and various other shots. Splendid. The old Portrush to Giant's Causeway electric tram was a wonder; the first, it is said to have been entirely water-powered, thanks to an ingenious local Mr Traill. It was abolished shortly after the war because it was a bit in the red. No vision of tourism then in the various authorities? No local patriotism?
But David Laing has planned long and well and has got considerable support. It should be a great success. And, at the Causeway, no matter how many times you go down the path to that great sequence of splendidly geometrical, and at the same time spectacularly beautifully varied series of rock formations, you should never tire of them.
Back to our new train. A remarkable man used to be found near the terminus, in what was Kane's Hotel - the bar. These memories arc from relatives and friends, second-hand and even third. He was a smallholder or maybe a labourer, Quigg was his name. And in the First World War he crawled out under heavy fire into No Man's Land to rescue his wounded officer, a son of Sir Francis McNaughten, one of the local gentry. It must have been a particularly hellish situation, for Quigg was given a medal for it, not just a medal but the highest - the Victoria Cross.
He was a simple, good man. When he went to his local which was the aforementioned Kane's Hotel, he would be feted as visitors were told by the barman about the quiet hero sitting in the corner. Some time in the Thirties when the then Prince of Wales, later, briefly, Edward VIII, came to Belfast a parade of old soldiers was one of his engagements. Quigg had been brought the sixty odd miles to Belfast. The Prince was led along the line, briefed as he went. As he came to Quigg he asked the usual question "And what are you doing now, Mr Quigg?" The answer "Hackin' whins for Johnny Forsythe". The Prince composed his face, nodded gravely, offered congratulations and moved on to the next man. Y.