THE GRAIN OF AN IDEA ...

… sometimes that’s all it takes to grow a story. In this case, it was planted on a grey and windy day on a Scottish island where distilleries abound. We had toured the newest one, and I had done my usual trick of sticking my head into the mash tub to breathe in the fumes. It could be that’s where the best stories come from.

 We set off to browse the gift shop, and to marvel at the singular prices of the single malts, maybe even to indulge in a wee modest sample of 12 years’ seniority. Who knew? But before we could reach it, our ears were assailed by an unearthly moaning, keening sound, like a voice — no, like voices wailing for something irrevocably lost to them.

 There was nothing and no-one to be seen around us. Everyone else was inside the distillery shop, exclaiming over furry coo keyrings or branded fridge magnets, or in the café getting cosy over traybakes and lattes. I definitely needed some caffeine. Outside, the wailing abated slightly, but I could still hear it, low and melancholy, rising sometimes to a pitch of despair. While I waited for my cappuccino and my whisky-flavoured flapjack to arrive, I asked a woman in a staff T shirt: “What is that noise?” She stopped and looked puzzled for a moment. “What noise?” Then, as I nodded towards the exit door, she laughed and said, “Oh that. It’s just the wind in the corrugated roof. We don’t even hear it any more.”

 That’s that then, I thought.

Or maybe not.