Pub Talk

Have you ever been to Shetland: Part III

The last pub in Britain is an unassuming place. You’d be forgiven for not thinking it was a pub at all.

It stands alone in a pebble-dash, sheet-roofed block on an exposed sweep of land. Beyond it the hill runs to the sea. It looks more like somewhere you’d put your sheep for the night.

Dad and I did not know it was there until we walked past. It had a sign on the container out back that said “Public Bar”. They can’t get many walk-ins, to be fair.

A few other people were also heading inside at the same time. They were coming out of campers. We all moved in together, quietly and a little awkwardly.

It looked more like a village hall inside. The long plasticky wooden floorboards squeaked as we lined up at the bar. Everyone spoke quietly. Even the bar lady.

Dad and I sat in one of the booths, which were lined up as in a diner. A Lancastrian woman asked if she and her friends could join us, which they could of course.

The leader of their party was confident and talkative. She told us she had moved up here the year before, onto Mainland. Her friends, much quieter than she, were also Lancastrians.

Funny, I said. I’d hitched up to Unst (the island we were on) from Lerwick (the capital) the day before. One of the men who picked me up was also from Lancashire. That man, Dave, had said all you need to do to crack Shetland when you move is survive two winters. If you can get through those, you’ll be fine. Philippa wondered if she’d be able to.

Philipa was a paramedic. She told us she was about to spend three weeks on Banksy’s boat in the Mediterranean. The MV Louise Michel.

The boat, we learned, was a former French naval vessel. Banksy bought it in 2020, painting it a bright pink with a fire extinguisher. It skims the Mediterranean, the most dangerous border crossing in the world, rescuing distressed migrants.

She was a little nervous. In part because she was sure she would get seasick.

Funny, I said again. The day before leaving for Shetland, I’d been on Waterloo Place in Piccadilly. A new Banksy had just been appeared. It was a statue of a man holding a flag stepping off the pedestal he was on. The flag wrapped around his face, blinding him.

It had been put up the night before. How he’d done it without being seen—the reporters asked their cameras—was a mystery.

As I looked at it, I overheard a cameraman saying they knew who Banksy was. He often saw him lurking incognito when his art first appeared.

The person he was talking to wondered if it was the man in the orange bowler hat. He wore a yellow waistcoat and a handlebar moustache. I thought it a strange guess. The man confirmed it wasn’t. But it got me wondering too.

I drifted through the crowd, peering at the faces peering up at the statue. Could that be him? Or him? What about that guy, standing quietly at the back?

Then I overheard a man talking on the phone. He had a blonde mullet and bulging eyes. He was pacing about frantically a few meters away from the onlookers. He seemed to be talking about an upcoming installation. That’s him, surely!

I stood nearby. He continued pacing, skinny and slightly stooped. He looked to have the manic-ness you might associate with a great artist.

When the call was over, someone came up to him and said hello. “You probably don’t remember me,” he said. “But my ex is your ex.”

“Excuse me mate?” An Irish accent broke my eavesdrop. “Could I ask you a few questions about what you think about the piece? It’s for French news.”

“Err,” I thought. “Sorry, no.”

He continued on and asked a lady next to me instead. She wore colourful clothes and had lots of bangles. She agreed.

“…Do you think the piece is political?” The reporter asked. I looked up at the great big flag and suit and the blind step off the cliff and thought that was a silly question…

“No. It’s not political at all,” the woman replied, which took me by surprise.

Suddenly the man, we’ll call him Banksy, saw the reporter and came to say hello. They were obviously old acquaintances. Damn, I thought, should have said yes.

The lady was now speaking at great length to Banksy about something or other, clearly oblivious to the fact she was talking to one of the greatest artists of our time.

Anyway, after a while Banksy said he had to shoot. He picked up his rucksack and bike and off he fled.

I made my way back to the library and spent the next hour sleuthing. There is a picture of Banksy online it turns out. In it, he has brown hair and is reasonably old, fifteen years ago when the picture was taken.

It was obviously not my man.

Well, I thought, that was a waste of time.