The Fallen~Sparrow~Hawk; The Commercial, Port William

The Commercial, Portwilliam.      April 3, 2002

I decided today I would go to Portwilliam on the rumour that the Commercial Public House was owned and run by members of the Jolly family. I would have to be discreet. I took the bus from Newton Stewart following a lift from Tristan. I was extremely exhausted. I sat in the Commercial in the company of the landlady and a ginger stray stretched luxuriously in front of an open fire. Her husband, a beefy dark-haired man in his early fifties emerged from the back. He turned out to be loquacious, explaining he had had the pub for a year and was building up custom. He was at present levelling ground out back to make space for two static caravans. His eyes were a translucent brown and I tried to see the face of the slave in his strong jaw-line and deep-set eyes; his hair lacked the legendary frizz. A character came in briefly. He looked like a big English school boy in kaki shorts. When he left the landlord said, “His mother’s just died. He’s burying her tomorrow. Brilliant musician”.

“What’s his name?” I asked in an attempt to get to the subject of surnames”. The landlord said a name I can’t now recall… (Means to an ends).

“Is that a common local name?” I asked, getting warmer.

“Well, yes” said the landlord.

“What are the other local names”, I queried. He reeled off a couple and after a pause he said, “Jolly”.

Bingo! I thought.

“That doesn’t sound like a typical Scottish Name”, I said rolling my cigarette with an air of indifference.

“Well”, he said “There is a rumour…..”

The landlord explained that the Jollys made every attempt to straighten their hair, even to the point of shaving it off. It is well suspected there might be Negro blood there but, the family being reportedly rough Celtic- Rangers-staunch-catholic bunch. I would have to go to Dunragit, but broaching the subject of their slave ancestor would be a very delicate matter.

The landlord turned out not to be a descendant of the young slave and did not confirm the rumour that The Commercial had been owned by them in the past. He did confirm, a) that the Jollys have frizzy hair and, b) that they are a rough lot even down to the children and c) that they all live in Dunragit.

The landlord wanted to know, once I had opened the subject of the slave Jolly, who he married. I told him I was due to visit Monreith House on the Tuesday 9^th and Wednesday 10^th April in order to see the portrait and go through some papers and books of Jolly’s owner to establish how much William Maxwell paid for him. I will research his burial, marriage and arrival and the descendants. Where is he buried?