the king wears rubber soles to prevent this happening to him and that the king also wears a "peculiar rubber matt" over his bottom to "prevent him slipping off his throne all the time." The king gives him a tour of the cairn and its industries. The reader discovers that is the Gorms who manufacture copper and put it on copper beach trees and go out on "heathercraft" to spray heather with a "purple liquid" without which it "wouldn't be as beautiful and purple as it is." The man then sees women "milking hind stag beetles," but accidentally "dilute[s] the special shrinking mixture" in his stomach and begins to grow back to full size. He is rushed out of the cairn before he grows back fully. Part Six The old man decides to visit London after overhearing the conversations of "people having picnics in the heather." He boards a train at Ballater, but the train is stopped near Aboyne by cows on the line. The cows are then cleared but the train is impeded again at Aberdeen, whence it can go no further because "heavy falls of snow ha[ve] blocked the line to London." The man decides to return to Ballater, but sees on the platform a woman dressed entirely in tartan and wearing a "huge hat [...] angrily prodding the station-master with her umbrella," in protest over the London service's cancellation. The story ends by saying that the old man were "[s]ecretly [...] rather pleased" not to go to London. "He couldn't think of anywhere more special to be," concludes the storyteller, "than to be living at the foot of Lochnagar." References External links The Old Man of Lochnagar, 1980 at the Royal Collection British children's books 1980 children's books Children's fiction books Books by Charles III ABC Weekend Special Hamish Hamilton books Cultural depictions of Charles III