It’s not often that anyone can report a Paisley enjoying themselves in the deeply Irish environs of Parkhead. But we have East Dunbartonshire education department to thank for arranging for writer Janet Paisley to talk to 600 primary staff at Celtic Park.
This was not merely a day out in paradise, but a serious in-service event about writing 5-14 (page nine). In a tour de force, Paisley left her audience somewhat dumfoonirt by revealing that while there were numerous Scots words for hitting people such as skite or kelp there was only one word for laugh (keckle) and none at all for smile.
Paisley’s expertise is not surprising. For, as well as being a professional writer, she is also mother of six sons - which is presumably why she knows so many Scots variants of skelp.
More light was shed on various other local patois after English writing guru David Wray was left wondering why his audience dissolved when he mentioned taking a group of primary pupils to Buckfast Abbey in Devon.
When Wray was informed of the reputation the monks’ tonic wine has in the west of Scotland for rendering partakers extremely tired and emotional (forjidget, indeed), he added his own bit of local colour by revealing that the monks’ habitat was known as Fastbuck Abbey because of the popularity of their product.
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