Micheal Parkendson RIP

It’s always the fleekeen same, isn’t it? You pop your clogs but your thunder is stolen by your more successful mainland cousin. Readers will no doubt be well aware that popular chat show host Michael Parkinson recently left us, with plenty of media coverage highlighting his long and illustrious career.

Sadly (with the exception of a passing mention on page 7 of the Steinish and Plasterfield Livestock Classifieds Quarterly) the national press did not feel that the demise the same day of Parkinson’s Leodhasach cousin merited a similar number of column inches.

But as always, us coves at MUHOS will try and rectify the situation and bring much deserved praise to the cove who was a fixture of the BBC Alba and Grampian TV schedules since before the telly was invented.

Michael Parkendson was born 88 years ago amid the pits, slagheaps and dark satanic mills of Cearns-ley, a forbidding cluster of peat-miners’ houses between Stornoway and Guershader.

Parkendson’s father toiled below ground at Grimeshaderthorpe Colliery, and had few pleasures in life apart from playing 44th chanter in the colliery’s world-renowned band, his pack of faithful racing sheep, and the loft of homing faoileags that he kept on his allotment. Watching his old man trudge home over the moor each night bowed beneath the weight of his tairsgear, coughing up lungfuls of smùir, his face black with dead midgies and humming the tune to the Hovis Bread advert, the young Parkendson resolved to get an education so that he wouldn’t have to follow his dad down t’ poll-mònach.

As a lad, Parkendson was a keen cricket player who liked nothing better than playing on the Cearns-ley village green on a Sunday morning in his cricket whites and then afterwards going to the quaint village pub for a much needed pint of ‘Old Bogie’. His early hopes of a career in the sport were dashed, however, by the fact that he had to play all on his own because nobody else in Cearns-ley knew what the fleek cricket was. The confiscation of his bat and shinpads by a posse of churchgoing cailleachs outraged by his Sabbath-breaking carry-on didn’t help either.

On leaving school Parkendson did his National Service on the Bin Lorries, seeing active service in the Middle East (Branahuie) during the Suet Crisis, before turning his hand to journalism. 

He started out as a junior reporter on the Melbost Guardian, writing articles about fish landings on Holm Pier and the latest drainage attempts at Sandwick School pitch.

He then moved to BBC Alba in the 1960s as an on-screen reporter, and eventually did his first chat show in 1971, simply called ‘Parkendson’.

Every Saturday night he interviewed the great and the good of Stornoway life, chatting to film stars, politicians, sports personalities and entertainers.

Guests included:

• Top comedian Uilly (The Big Tin) Cannery 
• Movie legend Ossian Wellies
• World Champion heavyweight box player Mohammed Caley (originally known as Cassius Cleitir, until he lost his sponsorship from thon hotel in Sheildinish for refusing to fight for South Lochs in the Viet Ram war)
• Fred Lochmórstàirre – top-hatted former employee at the Waterworks, where he learned everything he knew about tap dancing
• Roy CastleGrounds – top light entertainer and host of ‘Free Church Monthly RecordBreakers’
• Top crooner Bing Crossbost
• Wild actor Oliversbrae Peed
• Mod Hull and Guga

Parkendson also interviewed civic figures including various Provosts of Stornoway, Church Moderators of all denominations (not at the same time), famous bus drivers and members of the Dawn Squad. 

About the only major celebrity of the day who never appeared on his show was Cailleach an Déacoin. This was a constant source of regret to Parkendson, but ultimately The Cailleach was far too famous for BBC Alba to afford him.

In the early 1980s Parkendson took over as host of the popular and long running radio show ‘Deserted Island Dish’.  This show on Isles FM 4 featured a guest Niseach every week, speaking about their favourite dish and how they went about preparing it. Not surprisingly, every guest had the same favourite food (guga and potatoes) and all were cooked in exactly the same way (boil in diesel for 10 hours).

Parkendson also tried his hand at presenting ‘Give Us A Cluer’ alongside: Lionel Blarbuidhe and Ewe-na Stubbs.

Famously, Parkendson was one of the ‘Gang of Four’ who fronted Grampian’s morning tv slot ‘TV-AMadan’: Breakfast telly was all the rage then, and Grampian was keen to copy BBC Alba’s success with an impressive lineup that included  Angela Ripleyplace, Anna FordTerrace and David Frobost. 

And finally, in the mid 1970s, Parkendson surprised his viewers by appearing on the cover of ‘Band on the Randan’, the then new album from erstwhile Peatle Paul McCearc-ney and his new band ‘Swings(lockedonaSunday)’. The cover of the album featured the band, plus local celebrities, caught in a searchlight whilst trying to escape from the cells in Stornoway Police Station. Parkendson appeared on the cover along with Diggum Da, King Cole and Bogie.