From Kelvinside to Wigtown

Victor: When I first heard about our visit to Wigtown I was cock a hoop. Wasn’t I Barry?

Barry: Your hoop has never been more cocked, Victor.

Victor: No, not since we mounted a musical version of Romans in Britain.

Barry: Uh huh.

Victor: Wigtown! WIG! TOWN! A TOWN of WIGS!!! I couldn’t wait to come to this town in Scotland where the first ever hairpiece was invented. You see, the passing years have not been kind to my titian follicles. My hairline has gone the opposite way of my waistline - thinning. I have been overcome with a combover. I’ve kissed my kiss curl farewell. It has curled up and died.

Barry: That’s enough bad hair puns Victor.

Victor: Sorry Barry. Anyhoo, last year, for my sixtieth birthday, Barry booked us on a mystery coach trip. As I put on the blindfold, before boarding the bus, I looked out of the corner of my slightly cataracty left eye and espyed the word Turkey on Barry’s ticket. I naively presumed he had booked me in to a hair transplanter, as they are extremely redolent in Istanbul apparently. I spent the dark and sightless bumpy uncomfortable journey imagining my luscious auburn locks once again cascading over my forehead.

Imagine my shock and dismay when the coach came to a halt and I removed the blindfold to discover I had been sitting in the hold with all the luggage. Imagine my even bigger shock and dismay as I fell out of said hold with all the luggage, when the door was opened, to discover we were not in Istanbul but in Norfolk on a Turkey FARM.

Barry is now a militant vegan. (though he still wears vintage German leather lederhosen now and then, and when he does, I shout hypocrite at him, in a Munich accent! He then gives me the silent treatment for a couple of days and I have to make it up to him by buffing his beefy Teutonic shorts with pledge). He had brought us to this Turkey Farm to try to set some of the doomed-to-the-dinner-table gizzardy gobblers free, but as he tried to open the barn doors, burley staff hurled frozen Turkey twizzlers at him, one of which landed in Barry’s open mouth giving him brain freeze, and we were quickly escorted back to the coach. This time I got a seat.

Now, Barry has always had a bit of a kleptomaniac in him.

Barry: Ever since we mounted a musical version of Romans in Britain.

Victor: Uh huh, and as we sat on the coach awaiting the police, he undid the fly of his rayon slacks and his maroon M&S hipsters were bulging. Inside were handfuls and handfuls of plucked Turkey feathers. They had been destined for downmarket discounted duvets, but Barry had managed to half inch them from the farm, by stuffing them down his Marks and Sparks pants during the fracas.

Barry: We convinced the policeman it had been a misunderstood flash mob performance and when we discovered a shared love of the works of Dean Friedman, he let us off with a caution.

When we got home, I fashioned a fake feathery quiff from the snaffled plumage, attached some giblets for a kiss curl and dyed it all with Clariol African Sunset so it matched collars and cuffs.

Victor: “Happy Birthday to you” he sang as he placed it delicately and yet at the same time roughly on my pate. It was a bit tight, smelt a bit eggy, was surprisingly waterproof but my homemade Turkey hair system was quite the thing.

The next day I proudly meandered down Lacrosse Terrace, with it on display covering my balding bonce and my fellow Kelvinsiders laughed approvingly. I had to stop wearing it, however, after I developed a rash, came down with a mild case of bird flu and started to receive boxes of trill anonymously in the post. So, anyway, I cannot wait to come to Wigtown and get myself a bona fide toupée installed properly, hopefully with real hair depilated from real gingers.

Barry: Victor! Victor! I have just read the small print. Wigtown has nothing to do with hirsute pursuits.

Victor: What no wigs?!

Barry: No it’s a book festival and we are going to publicise our new book. Victor and Barry’s Kelvinside Compendium - a meander down memory close.

Victor: What? Our wonderful scrapbooky annual, with anecdotes, photos, scripts and songs from our hey days in the 80s.

Barry: and the early 90s …

Victor: Ok! But I have to say I feel slightly deceived.

Barry: Don’t go in the huff Victor, Please come. It’s in the Borders. Enroute we can visit my ancient Auntie Esme in Ecclefechan. Her teeth have become fused together after chomping on a particularly tough piece of Moffat toffee, and she needs us to free them.

Victor: OK. I will bring my portable oxyacetylene torch.

Barry: Do. Oh, and bring a hat too… Because … you know … your hair ….

Victor: Tut.

By Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson