Neil Munro 
Para Handy Tales — The Vital Spark 

The ‘Para Handy Tales’ is a collection of sea adventure tales written by author Neil Munro. Para Handy is the crafty Gaelic skipper of the Vital Spark, a steamboat of the sort that delivered goods from Glasgow to Loch Fyne, the Hebrides, and the west coast highlands of Scotland in the early 20th century. The stories partly focus on his pride in his ship, ‘the smertest boat in the tred’ which he considers to be of a class with the Clyde steamers, but mainly tell of the ‘high jinks’ the crew get up to on their travels.