Eight yards of tartan isn't something to trifle with, not if you're dressing up in it. It's what goes into making a kilt, so when mine host signs me up for a demonstration at Linn House in Aberdeen, I know to expect trouble. "Give yourselves at least a half-hour for dressing up," Ken Lindsay warns. To buckle a skirt and slip on a jacket? Back home, the family is in hysterics. Am I going to brave a skirt, tradition and all? My son says rude things about connecting with my feminine side. My wife informs me she always knew she wore the pants in the house. My daughter fusses about how much leg I'll show.
The kilt guru lays out the dressing tutorial layer by layer. First you wear your stockings, taking care to slip on the garters. There was apparently a Russian gentleman who turned up sporting his garters around his neck, much to his host's amusement. I remind him that I've worn garters in boarding school. Next, you slip on your brogues because the long laces need winding round the calves in a bow of tassles. This requires standing or sitting in the buff, "so please remember to close the door", Ken warns me. I shut the door and bolt it for additional measure.
What about, er, innerwear? Do Scots wear underwear under their kilts? Ken laughs away all apocryphal references to sergeant-majors checking soldiers for their briefs, using mirrors to look under their skirts. Apparently, if you don't wear underwear, Ken says, "the chafing from the wool could become painful." Whether the Scots do or don't, I'm keeping my briefs on.
It's a wet October day, so slipping on a shirt to tuck into the kilt feels nice. The kilt itself has flaps and buckles, and an array of pleats that go around the back. I'm glad to be warned, what with sari and dhoti pleats in the front I might have turned up for dinner like a group of Chinese visitors to the highlands who arrived to party in kilts worn back to front. Having fastened all buckles and whistles, it's time to slip on the thingy pouch suspended from steel chains to be looped to hang in front of a delicate part of the anatomy. The rest is easier - clip on a bow tie, slip into a waistcoat and tailcoat complete with braids and shiny buttons, and you're as ready as a man in a skirt can be.
Confidence temporarily restored with the help of an 18-year-old Aberlour single malt, its easy to seek anonymity in a group of kilted up strangers trying to appear at home in their unorthodox apparel. It wouldn't be so bad but for the wobbly knees that peep out from under the skirts. You have to have legs like David Beckham if you need to show them off. Those on view are less inspiring examples.
Trouble comes when I flounce down on a couch to nurse my scotch, causing the kilt to flair at the back. There's nothing between sofa leather and skin but a rush of cold air, reminding me of how perilously close to naked I am in my formal Scottish gear. "Hold your knees close," warns one guest. "Twist your ankles together," suggests a woman who seems rather more at home in her own skirt. It's not the ankles I'm worried about, I tell her, it's my knickers I seem to have got in a twist.
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