In reply to UKC Articles:
If people want to read Campbell's obituary for Haston, here it is.
DOUGAL HASTON - CUMHA DUGHALL
So, mighty Haston, the painter of Lagangarbh, has gone now, too: killed in
some meaningless ski-ing accident. It's worst when they die abroad.
Remember the aching disbelief when Smith went, the dreams from which
you couldn't bear to wake, the feeling that you'd turn a corner, somewhere
near the High Street, and there he would be – tatty raincoat, grinning
suedes, wicked schoolboy smile – and the feeling that came after?
At least they found Haston’s body and somebody, Moriarty, saw him
buried. You thought it didn't matter about Haston – he'd none of the
innocence of Smith, he'd been away from the High Street too long, he’d spent
too much time with the worshippers of money and fame - but then you saw
the newsreel of Moriarty carrying the coffin through the nnow and then it
mattered. The indomitable giant, his great head bowed, shuffling up through
the drifts with the front end of the stretcher and the black coffin swaying past
the camera made you crack.
Now you wish you'd gone, don't you? You wish you'd mortgaged your
meaningless house a bit more and gone. Well, it's too late. Sometime soon
you'll be walking in the City and there he'll be – loping along in his big boots,
long hands slotted in pockets, ahoulders hunched, the big wolf grin and the
North Wall eyes, ready for anything. But he won't really, will he?
You remember that time when you both hitched to the Ben, you got there
first and he had the key? You kipped in the shithouse, threw the Elsan
outside and cursed him. Four o'clock in the morning, a big blue shiny
morning, the door burst open and there he was, stripped to the waist cracking
that huge grin and waving the key in front of you. Or that other time when
you stood all the way from Paris in a train to Chamonix, stumbled out of the
station and didn't know a soul? You turned a corner and he was coming
towards you like a golden greyhound, sunglassed and sandalled, just back
from the Eiger and who could mistake that smile ?! Or the time you tried
that horrible route of his on the Tannery Bridge, 'grade six sustained' he said,
and you quivering on the final miserable fingerhold while he grinned down
the parapet and held out a merciful hand? Well these times are all gone
now, for you and for him, and won't be again. Except, once in a while you'll
get that kick in the guts that tells you it's a dream and you're going to wake
up and whenever you go moping about the old wynds and closes there'll be
the feeling at corners and the feeling that comes after.
Remember Scott, sitting in some dreary single-end of a studio staring
at the camera like a poleaxed bull while the blathering B.B.C. imbecile asked
if he ever really knew him? What does knowing matter, (you felt like
screaming)! He's gone and, with him, a long loping stride, narrow hips, wide
shoulders, a lipless grin and bright blue bivouacked eyes.
Robin N. Campbell.
