The Vital Spark: The Adventures of Para Handy and his crew on a Clyde puffer. (Para Handy Tales)

The Vital Spark is the first of the collections of Neil Munro's classic humorous tales of Captain Para Handy and the crew of the Clyde puffer Vital Spark.

From the turn of the 19th century and almost to the end of the twentieth, the puffers were an everyday sight on the Clyde and all through the Inner Hebrides, Islands off the West Coast of Scotland. They had mostly replaced the old sailing barges, which were reliant on a fickle Scottish weather. They were small, dumpy steam lighters of sixty to eighty tons, usually flat-bottomed. They were at best capable of five knots or so, but that was still better than the old sailing barges or gabbars.

The West Coast of Scotland today, is one of the finest sailing grounds in the world, when the weather is fair. But its heavily indented shoreline as well as the many offshore islands, always made it difficult to navigate by land. Even today, many of the roads are single track and are often cut by snowfall or landslips. The only sensible and economical way to transport goods was by sea, even after the railway was extended from Fort William to Mallaig in 1901. Even then, that left isolated communities all over the region with no access to supplies except by sea, so the puffers were still in business.

The Puffers themselves were small ships, between forty and sixty tons and so could enter the smallest harbours, built for fishing boats. Their flat bottoms meant that they could be allowed to settle while loading and unloading, waiting for the next tide to float off again. This was standard practice, but tremendous care had to be taken to ensure that nothing could penetrate the hull. They were essentially the equivalent of today''s FedEx delivery van. They carried everything from coal to lumber to fish, livestock, even furniture and motor-cars. The men who crewed them were often a little rough and ready - as Munro will show - but loved their work; they were dedicated seamen all.

The city of Glasgow was the hub of a diaspora that extended deep into the Western Highlands, to places where the Gaelic was still the everyday speak. It was the home port of the Vital Spark and many others like her. While Tarbert, Mallaig, Arisaig and Oban were the berths of the fishing fleets -- which in those days were enormous, plundering the silver herring -- Glasgow was too far from the fishing grounds in the Minches. So the fishermen landed their catches at their home port and they were transported by the gabbars, then the puffers and latterly the railway, to market in the great city of Glasgow, to feed those whose labour turned the wheels of industry.

Few people and only the very wealthy, had motor cars, even in the later Para Handy Tales. Traveling in the Western Highlands relied on shanks' pony or later, bicycles. There were already the great passenger steamers belonging to the MacBrayne line (later Caledonian MacBrayne and then CalMac) but those ships, their captains, crew and passengers had little interest in cargoes of coal, timber or the herring. The puffers were still in business.

The last Clyde Puffer in normal service, VIC32, was retired in 1993. Her name comes from 'Victualling Inshore Craft' and she was actually a War Department vessel that saw service in World War Two. She was restored, renamed The Vital Spark and now lies at Inveraray. A smaller replica lies on the Forth and Clyde canal for the tourists.

We hope that Para Handy, MacPhail, Dougie, The Tar and Hurricane Jack are enjoying a well-earned retirement; they certainly made us laugh.