By Susan Morrison
Copyright scotsman
It’s also a noble sport. I was a champion. My dad said so. Well, I had access to a world-class training ground where I learned to make those stones fly. My childhood gym for skimming was Dunoon beach. It’s not for sandcastle builders. It’s a shoreline of pebbles, sea glass and bits of broken crockery from Caledonian Steam Packet boats. Cups and saucers seemed to go overboard fairly regularly. Not surprising if you ever tasted the coffee. You could also find lovely slices of blue slate. Flat, rounded stones to be hefted and held, ready for skimming. Stone chosen, perfect your stance. This is no pebble chuck-and-plonk. This is skimming. Technique is everything. Stone in a relaxed hold in the right hand, flat side to the sky. Left foot, left shoulder presenting to the waterline. Right leg back, taking your weight. Fully extend right arm. Bend back and slightly downwards from the waist, always keeping those eyes locked on the water, not the horizon. Keep stone and water parallel. Watch those waves, pick a spot, then sling that arm forward in a smooth, fluid movement. Flick the wrist to get a spin and watch that baby leap five or six times. Poetry in motion. Tragically, the world of stone skimming has been rocked by scandal. It was inevitable. Football had match fixing, cycling had Lance Armstrong and the 2014 Sochi Olympics had an entire Russian team so pumped on doping drugs it’s a wonder they turned up for the right events. And now it’s the turn of the World Stone Skimming Championships. Up on Easdale, rumours of dirty doings reached the ear of Dr Kyle Mathews, the events organiser and “Toss Master”. Competitors must use island slate, but some stones had been tampered with, deliberately rounded to make them skim better. Ban this filthy practice at once. Had I been in charge, Calmac would have dumped these “stone doctoring” villains onto uninhabited Lunga, there to stay until they repented of their evil ways. An American chap called Jonathan Jennings won. Well, you know the Yanks. Terribly competitive. They’ve probably got training camps and coaches for this sort of thing. He skimmed a cumulative distance of 177 metres. We didn’t do distance. We used to count the number of skips. Things have changed. Sounds quite far. I guess it’s possible, given that they skim into the calm waters of an old quarry. Wuzzes. Back on the Clyde we took on open seas, mate, with obstacles like high-wave wash coming in from the MV Glen Sannox (the one that worked) and the occasional US nuclear submarine heading to sea. Last year I was back on that beach where I’d stood with my dad more than half a century ago. At my feet was a spectacular stone, just begging to skim. Couldn’t resist. It flew from my hand and jumped six times, something of a personal best. But I can’t claim it. The first rule of skimming is that all skips must be seen by other people or it doesn’t count. I’m OK with that, though. Might take myself up to Easdale next year. Wonder if the BBC needs a commentator?
