The room at Cample, small for a living room, yet cosy,
with the warmth of human nature. The room reeked, redolent,
with human smells, rich, pungent, not unpleasant smells,
safe warm smells, smells of cuddles and babies cries and kisses
and of hard-worked bodies and the down to earth laughter
of good people who worked in the forests and on the land.

The room laughed all day and into the evening time, when children
newly washed, were packed, in giggling groups, off to bed.
Leaving the grown-ups to their own, silent, secret pursuits,
hinted at with knowing wink, and look, as dishes,
washed in common sink, were carelessly clattered, clean,
into their cupboard home, long past the final evening drink.

The smoke from countless cigarettes and oil lamps,
whose guttering, glowing, globes, sooty at midnight, mingled
with the frost-rimed, embers of the oily black wicks.
Incense of poor Scots homes thro` the ages.
The golden light of study, on the table, thro` the night, after work.

As new split logs, green, sparked in blackened range, scented
as the baking bread that mingled with the morning smells of
breakfasts bacon, fried with tatty-scone and runny egg.
And, every midday time, with aromatic hot Scotch broth,
then afternoon's melted buttered toast and sweet black tea.

All came together to make up the special aroma that was
the room at Cample, small for a living room, larger than life.

Wilson Irving
(C) 1999.