This experience happened in May, a couple of years ago, when I was motoring round Scotland. I was on the ferry from Mallaig to Armadale. It was quite a windy day. As you know. it always appears windier on board, even when you are on a small car ferry due to the ships passage. Well, I walked out of the cabin area to go down a deck and the strong wind lifted my kilt right up, front and back. The kilt lifted really easily all round since I didn't have a sporran on because I find it catches on the seat belt when driving. I was wearing an old comfortable Cameron kilt with matching tartan undershorts so it didn't really matter when the tartan blew up - I was still quite modestly covered - only embarrassed that my underwear was on show. There were quite a lot of people watching, fascinated, as I made my way down the stairs with the kilt above my waist. Since the sea was choppy and the ship was moving about quite briskly I had to hold on to the rails on both sides of the stair for balance so there was no chance to hold the tartan down. A cheer even went up from the audience! I blushed!
There was one young guy who had been watching and, as I passed, he made a comment about how good I looked in my kilt and how brave I was to wear it on such a windy day. I thanked him for his nice comment and said that it was probably a bit rash for me to be wearing a kilt on a day like this.
I thought little more about it till I saw him again coming in to the dining room of the hotel where I was staying the night. No great surprise that we were in the same hotel since there are not that many hotels on Skye. We greeted each other but he was with an older woman and they had an assigned table. I finished first and then repaired to the bar for another drink. They came in later and looked around for somewhere to sit but most of the tables were taken. I suggested that they sit with me since I had managed to grab a corner location. They did and we got talking. The older woman was his aunt. He had just finished university, in Manchester, I think, and they were having a holiday touring Scotland before he started work.
I could see John, his name was, looking intently at my kilt. He asked a few questions about the tartan and the sporran and I knew that was not all he wanted to know but his aunt was there and that inhibited him. Quite soon she said that she would go up to her room and watch television but we should go on chatting together. After she left, John told me that he wanted to know a lot more about my kilt. I asked him what specifically he wanted to know but he said that he felt he couldn't really ask with all the other people around. I suggested that we get another drink and go up to my room where I would tell him anything he wanted to know.
When we first got to my room there was a moment of awkwardness but that soon passed and we settled down with our drinks. I took off my jacket. It was quite a reasonable sized room with two chairs. We were sitting opposite one another and I could see that John was trying to look up my kilt. I opened my legs slightly and watched his gaze focus on the spot between my knees. I was fascinated that a young man like him should be remotely interested in an older guy like me but of course it was the kilt that he was really interested in. not me. He was well built and reasonably good looking too.
I asked him what he wanted to know but he changed the subject slightly and told me that he had never seen a real man's kilt close up before. Kilts had fascinated him from an early age and he had looked for them on TV, in magazines, and even on the internet, but he had never seen one close up in real life. When he had come to Scotland on this visit he had expected to see lots of guys in kilts but I was actually the first that he had seen. I told him that very few guys wore kilts in the normal course of event. They mostly kept them for weddings, Highland Games, and occasions like Burns Night. He asked about my tartan and I told him that this was the Cameron of Erracht tartan. It was not a very well made kilt but it was comfortable enough and suitable for driving around in. When he had seen me on the boat I had been just wearing a pullover but now I had on a tweed jacket and a rabbit hair sporran. I said that this was proper day dress which I could have worn on the boat. Evening dress would be a black jacket and a fancy sporran with a silver cantle.
He cleared his throat and looked slightly embarrassed then said that he had heard that Scotsmen didn't wear any pants under their kilts! There was a pause!! But from what he had seen on the ship today that clearly wasn't the case. I laughed and told him that it wasn't true that all Scotsmen went naked beneath their kilts. I went 'True Scot' as it was called, on occasions but I preferred wearing pants.
"Were those special kilt pants you were wearing earlier today?" he asked.
"Yes, they are really called kilt undertrews. They are not very common now but they can either be plain coloured to tone with the kilt or in the same tartan to match it. The idea is to disguise the underwear as much as possible so that when the kilt blows up or I sit carelessly it is not obvious which is kilt and which is pants. But when my kilt blew right up on the boat today there was no disguising my underpants. It only works if the audience just gets a quick flash." Another pause. "I am still wearing them, by the way!!"
