Reviewer's comment on Biffy Tales by J. M. Jock Gibb: You know that it's iffy when you sit in a biffy and search for something to read. So pick up this rhyme and have a good time, just right for your moment of need.
That's my "bum" attempt at capturing the tone of Biffy Tales, a collection of humorous rhymes about northern outhouses by Jock Gibb of Gibsons.
Gibb, who grew up in Aberdeen, Scotland, is now unwillingly retired in Gibsons as a result of a heart attack and subsequent transplant. In 1949, he joined the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and learned the fur trade in various outposts of northern Ontario. While working out in the bush, along with his many Scots colleagues, he had an opportunity to sample most of the rural biffys, good or bad. (The dictionary cites the word biffy as uniquely Canadian slang for a privy or toilet.) One of Gibb's first managers, a Scottish fellow, liked to regale visitors with a colourful repertoire of outhouse stories. Jock always thought the stories should be written down.
"I passed on some of my stories to my old HBC chums and they passed me back tales of their own," he says. "I find a lot of people are fascinated by them."
Some of the tales in the self-published book include one contributed by Gordon (Scotland) Brown that describes two wee lads who liked to play at making bombs from a lead pipe loaded with shotgun shell powder. Their mischief blew their outhouse to smithereens. In another tale, two feuding families, the Dicks and the Hansons, in the tiny hamlet of Pikwotonei, disagree about the position of the Dicks' outhouse, in full view of the other family. Ripping the offending building down only makes things worse. The Dicks, now without an outhouse, "sit bare bum in the sunlight," and the Hansons are forced to turn their heads away. They will get their revenge when winter arrives.
In other poems, Gibb cogitates on the advent of the modern port-a-potty or delivers a muckle rhyme in Scots dialect, The Bottomless Pit, complete with glossary.Gibb has also written an autobiography of his life with the Hudson's Bay Company, available for sale. As an economic development officer for the north, he was stationed in the Arctic for three years at Repulse Bay and Coral Harbour and has also written humorous stories on that subject. One of his arctic tales finds its way into this book, in which he describes the dubious joys of outhouses in the frozen north.
"We had a honey bucket," he recalls, "with a garbage bag liner." The outhouse was vented by open pipe to the outside, ensuring there would be no lounging around after the cold wind blew down the vent.
Biffy Tales is available for $9.95 by calling Gibb at 604-886-1989 or by ordering through a new website being built by his daughter at http://jockgibb.tripod.com.
The first edition, with a variety of confusing typefaces and punctuation errors, is now being redone in a revised second edition with new sketches by the author. It comes complete with a string loop suitable for hanging near the throne.
