1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge by Tony Hawks, Prefers to remain anonymous Page A

demonstrated that he could talk persuasive nonsense but it had all been a rehearsal for this call. He was fantastic. I listened in wonder as he managed to convince a Dublin bureaucrat that it was vitally important to get a man and a fridge airlifted out to a tiny, sparsely populated Atlantic island.
    ‘…you see he’s from England, and they’re following the story over there and I’ve been inundated with phonecalls this morning with press wanting to know how he’s getting on. Ifs a big disaster for us up here because this is one of the biggest chances we’ve got to promote Donegal and Tory Island—and we’re all in complete shock because the last thing we expected was this ferry to be broke down and everyone is gutted because everyone put so much work into this…this is a big bombshell, everyone was running round last night trying to ‘elp…yeah…yeah…I understand that…right. Ifs just I don’t want to be the one going back to the committee saying that we failed on this one. If we let Tone down, we let Ireland down and we lose out on millions of pounds of tourist revenue.’
    I blushed a little. Andy hung up and turned to me.
    ‘This is it—the end of the road. They’ve promised that they’re going to ring me back in twenty minutes and let me know one way or the other.’
    ‘What do you think the chances are?’
    ‘Good. Pretty good. He really did seem like he wanted to ‘elp.’
    I was getting quite excited. I’d never been in a helicopter before.
    Hang on though, hadn’t I read somewhere that the helicopter is the single most dangerous form of air transport? I became jittery and tried to calm myself down with self assurances that it was only the take off and landing which were hazardous. Then I realised that given the short nature of this flight, taking off and landing was virtually all we were going to do. Jitters became full-blown fear.
    I needn’t have worried because twenty minutes later the Ministry of Defence rang to say they were sorry but they couldn’t help.
    We felt what a tennis player must feel after losing a match having held matchpoints. Okay, the matchpoints had been on our opponent’s serve, and he was a big server, but all we’d needed was a bit of luck—a net cord or a streaky mishit return which went for a winner, and we would have been there. The adrenaline had been pumping, and victory—the moment of triumph had been within reach. It was close to midday but our day felt like it was over.
    We consoled ourselves with meaningless platitudes like ‘maybe it’s for the best this way’, Veil, at least we tried’, and unsurprisingly it did little to ease the pain. Andy looked most dejected. After all, he had spent hours on what many would have described as a pointless mission, and all his efforts had been futile. It appeared that the thought of spending the rest of the day involved in things which were altogether less futile didn’t inspire him. He left, presumably to renew his acquaintance with his wife and family, and to run some errands which should have already been run. I wandered down to the quayside to check out the possibilities of finding a fishing boat which might be making the journey the next day. If that failed, I might have to throw in the towel as far as Tory Island was concerned.
    Outside the sudden subjection to bright light provided each flank of my forehead with a new and freshly throbbing temple, reminding me that in future I should make more resolute efforts to treat my body like one. A few yards from Bunbeg House I could see a rugged looking fisherman on his hands and knees messing about with tackle, and as I approached him I was relieved to see that he wasn’t the one who had been privy to mine. I coughed self-consciously to get his attention.
    ‘Hello, I don’t know whether you’ll be able to help, I’m trying to get out to Tory Island, the ferry won’t be running till Friday, and I’m trying to find out if you know of any boats which might be