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Ferry-tale comes true for young Argyll boy

Blair Houston
Blair Houston

A three-year-old boy has had a ferry-tale come true thanks to a skipper and crew from CalMac.

Young Blair Houston of Ardrishaig in Argyll managed to stump Santa – and his mum and dad – when he wrote his letter back in December.

At the top of his list was the Portavadie ferry – not a picture, not a model, but the actual boat itself.

Even Santa couldn’t pull off this particular treat, but he knew the people who could – so he put in a call to CalMac.

The weather had different thoughts, though, so the ferry fan’s Santa treat had to wait until Storm Frank, as well as New Year had come and gone.

Lawrence Allibone, skipper of MV Lochinvar, which serves the Portavadie to Tarbert Loch Fyne route, said: “It’s not often we get a call from Santa. In fact, I have to say we were pretty taken aback. We did explain that we couldn’t just hand over the ferry as it would make lots of other people very sad, but we absolutely couldn’t disappoint our young fan either.”

Blair, along with mum Ann Marie, dad Craig and sister Lexie, was invited on board the boat at Tarbert for a special round trip to Portavadie, where the staff at the brand new spa complex also helped to make the day extra special by giving the family use of its swimming pool and some pizza and ice-cream.

Captain Allibone said: “As an honorary captain of MV Lochinvar for the day, wee Blair absolutely found his sea legs – he even brought his own captain’s cap with him.

“He has sailed the route so often he was able to give us plenty of tips and keep us on course. He was absolutely fantastic and really helped me out.

“He’ll make a fine captain one day, maybe Santa will have a spare ferry for him by then!”

Mum Ann Marie said: “This has been such a total surprise for Blair – he is absolutely mad about CalMac and all the ferries and he’s chuffed to bits! We honestly didn’t know what Santa was going to do when Blair announced he wanted the Portavadie ferry for Christmas – we thought maybe he might find a model.

“This has been much better than anything we could have hoped for. We just have to thank CalMac, Lawrence and all the crew on MV Lochinvar – and Portavadie for such a fantastic fun and tasty treat.”