To those of you who accompanied us on the first trip . . . and a warm kiwi welcome to those joining us for the first time . . . Buckle up!

– Sam

This one is for Garance,
With love.

– Graham

Contents

Foreword

Prologue

Chapter One The Prison Diaries

Chapter Two Perilous Beginnings

Chapter Three Middle-Earth

Chapter Four Graham’s Favourite Massacres

Chapter Five Animal Antics

Chapter Six Celtic Connections

Chapter Seven The Eighth Wonder of the World

Chapter Eight Scotland on Steroids

Chapter Nine There Be Sharks

Chapter Ten The Far North and Graham’s Favourite Massacres, Part Deux

Chapter Eleven Welly Wanging and Udder Adventures

Chapter Twelve Between a Rock and a Winery

Chapter Thirteen Ab’Zorbing the Culture

Chapter Fourteen Valentine’s

Chapter Fifteen A Swing Made for Two

Chapter Sixteen Remembering

Postscript

Acknowledgements

Author Biographies

Picture Section

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Foreword

When Graham McTavish initially asked me to write this foreword, I was reluctant. To be honest, I didn’t really want to read this book.

This has nothing to do with Graham; quite the contrary, I’ve always held Graham in high regard. We had both served in the trenches together during the making of The Hobbit trilogy, and we’ve stayed in touch ever since. Our friendship is based on a mutual love of history and an uncannily similar sense of humour. I watched the first season of Men in Kilts and enjoyed every minute of it, welcoming the news that a second series was on the horizon.

My problem was about the country they had selected for their second series. The Men In Kilts could have gone to some place in Europe, fumbling their way through multiple countries with unfamiliar languages and questionable cuisine. Or perhaps the Middle East, with its exotic foods and where wine and scotch are prohibited in many regions. Imagine them trying to smuggle hip flasks across a border and ending up in prison. That would be funny! They could even have opted for Australia, where men wearing skirts are not merely accepted but celebrated. I’ve heard they have the odd good wine too.

But no . . . they came here, to my country. To New Zealand. And this triggered a reaction that has been hard-wired into me since birth.

To explain what this is, I will try to paint a picture of the New Zealand I grew up in – a country largely ignored by most of the world. We exported lamb to Britain and had a great rugby team, and that was it. Oh, and we mustn’t forget New Zealander Ed Hillary who had conquered Mt Everest in 1953. But that was about it, the extent of our global significance.

We were painfully aware of our humble status. Many Americans, we were informed, had no knowledge of New Zealand, and those who did often mistook us as part of Australia. Whenever a movie or a TV show presented a scene with a world map, Kiwi eyes instinctively darted to the bottom right, searching for our homeland, only to find it missing most of the time. World maps often reached the east coast of Australia and stopped there. We were simply too insignificant for the world to care about. Sceptical? Play Risk and try to invade New Zealand, or better yet, search ‘World maps without New Zealand’ online.

The only positive thing we could think of was that, with the Cold War at its peak, our obscurity might offer us safety. We hoped that the Kremlin was also using these incomplete maps. But overall, this insignificance had us feeling like the weird kid who’s always left out when picking teams for sports.

When I was a kid, Coronation Street was New Zealand’s favourite TV show. We were all too aware that the episodes we avidly watched every night (on our one and only channel) had actually aired in Great Britain five years earlier. It gave us a sense of being not only thousands of miles from the rest of the world, but also years behind. On the rare occasion that an uncle or aunt would make the long journey back to the Mother Country to ‘visit the family’, they were also on a secret mission. While in the UK, they would watch the latest episodes of Coronation Street and return with valuable intelligence about the soap opera’s future plot lines. Uncle Frank would be bombarded with questions, ‘Do the Ogdens still run The Rovers Return?’, ‘Does Ken Barlow get a girlfriend?’, ‘Ena Sharples does what . . .?? Oh my God!’.

Our sense of isolation did foster self-sufficiency and resourcefulness. Back then everything came into the country by sea, so if anything broke down, or needed repairing, it took forever to ship a replacement part in. We had no choice but to fix things ourselves, and the entire country developed a ‘do it yourself’ mentality. Anything from a car or bus to a dishwasher, had to be fixed using whatever materials we could find. Fortunately, New Zealand farmers built their fences with something called eight gauge wire, and it proved to be a versatile part of any makeshift repair. It was amazing to see this humble fencing wire used in so many inventive ways. I’ve used it myself. Even today, if something breaks down, you’re likely to hear somebody mutter ‘No worries, mate. I’ll fix it with a bit of No.8 wire’.

Despite the confident resilience that Kiwis developed, an inferiority complex also became part of the Kiwi psyche. We were incredibly sensitive about what people ‘from overseas’ thought of our country. I remember, in 1976, when the majority of us flocked to cinemas to watch Sleeping Dogs. Roger Donaldson’s movie was the first feature film shot in New Zealand in many years, featuring New Zealand actors on the big screen, speaking like us. It was unsettling to hear our own accent. The audience I saw it with squirmed in their seats – ‘No! We don’t really sound like that . . . do we??’

Allow me to apologize for this long-winded explanation of my hesitation in reading this book. I’m almost there. Please bear with me . . .

Every so often, a book or TV series by a foreigner who had visited New Zealand would appear, in which they gave the rest of the world their opinion of our country. It was horrible, like reading your school report. We would collectively react in one of two possible ways:

• If they spoke highly of us, we could hardly contain our pride. In our minds, New Zealand had suddenly gained the official status of ‘the world’s greatest country’.

• If they criticized us, or worse, ridiculed us (I’m looking at you, John Cleese), it would ignite a defensive instinct ingrained in most Kiwis. Some of us would feel the urge to hit back (this ‘stuff you’ attitude probably kept our rugby team, the All Blacks, fuelled for decades, as they continually triumphed over teams from much larger and better resourced countries), but many Kiwis would descend into a bleak embarrassment.

Reading this today, it might be difficult to comprehend the intensity of this embarrassment. Picture this: your child is performing in a school play. They’ve practised for weeks, mastered their song, and on the big night, they yearn to make their parents proud. Then, mid-song, their voice cracks, going off-key. They forget the lyrics. As sniggers break out among the parents, your child stands frozen . . . and loses control of their bladder. That’s somewhat how we felt.

That is why I was reluctant to read this book. I didn’t want to trigger the insecure ‘fight or flight’ impulse that many Kiwis still feel, whenever our country is under the spotlight – however deeply embedded that is.

However, I didn’t want to let Graham down either . . .

Times have changed and I had to ignore my instinctual reactions, put my big boy pants on, and read the damn book that Graham had written with Sam Heughan . . . this book.

So, that’s what I did . . . and I loved it.

The New Zealand that Graham and Sam explore is no longer the country I grew up in. We’re now in a world interconnected by the internet, where international travel is commonplace. New Zealand has become a popular tourist destination, and our sense of isolation has largely evaporated.

Graham’s obvious affection for New Zealand and the sense of wonder that Sam clearly experiences during his first trip here, makes this book not only easy to read – it’s also immensely entertaining. Their exceptional sense of humour shines through even when they recount less than positive experiences. I found myself laughing out loud many times – and this was often when they try to grapple with one of New Zealand’s many . . . er, eccentricities.

This book is an extensive account of Graham and Sam’s adventures while filming their Men in Kilts series in New Zealand, but it’s much more than that. It reads like a commentary track on a DVD, a parallel narrative, jam-packed with behind-the-scenes stories, amusing anecdotes – and the occasional intelligent observation (these are pretty thin on the ground).

As they travel from place to place, they occasionally delve into the history of a particular location or person. These are my favourite bits. Traditional historians often present such information in a dry, self-important manner. But Graham and Sam skilfully deploy satire and irony to bring these historical accounts to life in a refreshing and entertaining way.

Most importantly, it documents one chapter of the peculiar friendship between Graham McTavish and Sam Heughan. I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed Sam’s persistent roasting of Graham, and I think you will too. Knowing Graham quite well, but never having met Sam, there were some moments when I thought, ‘Oooh . . . Sam might have crossed the line this time’, and yet there’s plenty of times when I’d think, ‘Yep, bang on! That’s exactly the Graham I know’. But rest assured, Graham gives as good as he gets, and this constant banter makes the book a delight to read.

But you don’t need to take my word for it . . . you’re about to find out for yourself.

Sir Peter Jackson

Wellington, New Zealand
July 2023

Prologue

‘And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death.
And then I had another quick look, and behind the really scary guy on the pale horse there was a camper van, and the name sat in him was Samwise, and I beheld he was Ginger . . . and Hell followed with him . . .’
(with apologies to . . .) The Holy Bible, Revelations 6:8

GRAHAM

New Zealand. Aotearoa – ‘the land of the long white cloud’. Interestingly, it was in fact only the North Island Māori who called it that. The South Island iwi (tribes or clans) preferred to call it ‘Te Waipounamu’ after the precious green stone (Pounamu) that was only found there. They don’t like it when people call it Aotearoa.

In older maps you see New Zealand described as North Island, Middle Island (Middle-earth, anyone?) and South Island, with the tiny and delightful Stewart Island dangling off the bottom, like a comma. On others it is marked as New Ulster, New Munster and New Leinster respectively – clearly an Irish cartographer.

A new land. The newest on the planet. Rising from the oceans like a perfect jewel that lay undiscovered by man for millennia until a group of migrating Pacific Islanders, in probably the 14th century, saw that long white cloud, after many weeks of travel, and knew that cloud signalled land.

It is a child’s conjuring of a perfect land. Like Peter Pan’s Neverland where you are never far from an adventure. There are volcanoes, alps, fjords, lakes, beaches, subtropical rainforest, and even a desert. I first came to New Zealand in 1994 touring my own play about Vincent Van Gogh called Letters from the Yellow Chair with my good friend Nick Pace. I returned several times with my first wife, Gwen, who is from New Zealand, but didn’t imagine I’d end up here. When I came in 2010 to film The Hobbit, I knew immediately that I would want at least one foot always planted in this magical faraway land, so in 2014 I bought a house.

SAM

As someone new to New Zealand, I had always imagined it as two ‘Treasure Islands’ (South Island – Te Waipounamu, and North Island – Te Ika-a-Māui) in the Pacific Ocean at the bottom of the world. A country filled with hobbits and flightless birds, the best rugby players in the world and the home of one very grumpy Scottish actor. I imagined a landscape uncannily similar to the Scottish Highlands, equal in beauty but more heightened in drama and pristine wilderness, basically MUCH bigger than Bonnie Scotland. I guess that’s why Academy Award Winning director Peter Jackson filmed The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings here. But the truth is, my friends, the true appeal of the New Zealand archipelago, its two main land masses stretching 268,000km² (103,000 square miles), is . . . IT’S ADRENALINE COUNTRY!

[Graham: Oh God!]

Oh yes! Everyone here is crazy for extreme, endorphin-inducing, bum-clenching, eye-watering, lung-busting ACTION! Yes, Graham, your hobbit hole is nearby, and you filmed here in this astonishingly beautiful land, but do you think I’d agree to go on an adventure with you because of that? No, no, no, it’s because of the wild, extreme and very dangerous activities, Grey Dog, and we’re going to dive right in!

WELCOME to the land of Zorbs, zip lines and bungee jumping . . . these are MY people!

[Graham: You forgot to take your medication again, didn’t you?]

GRAHAM

It was very possible that the whole journey may never have happened. The fact that it did is nothing short of a miracle. Admittedly, this particular miracle may have been conjured by the forces of Beelzebub, those ones that really love inflicting suffering on bald, bearded sexagenarians. (And no, Sam, that’s not the name of an exclusive online dating site.) More will be told of the shenanigans and hurdles that we had to overcome to get Heughan into New Zealand but suffice to say, for now, that it was almost as if New Zealand herself didn’t want him there. This shy, remote country at the bottom of the world was shouting in protest at his arrival. Pleading with the universe to preserve her dignity and keep the bounding be-muscled one away from her shores. How did this journey begin? To understand that, let’s go back to the beginning . . .

We first met in the sweaty casting office in Soho, both Sam and I auditioning for acting roles in a time travel show set in Scotland called Outlander. (If this is the first you’re hearing of this, then you’ve likely not read our worldwide bestseller, Clanlands, and must immediately start there.) I was up for the part of Dougal Mackenzie and Sam was going for the lead role of Jamie Fraser. Even though he had little TV experience, he landed the part, making me immediately hate him. However, on set, we strangely bonded, in the way that people who are thrown into an alien world bond. Filming Outlander in Glasgow and the wilds of Scotland was, in fact, an amazing time for all of us, especially our merry band of thespian Highlanders, comprising me, Sam, Gary Lewis, Stephen Walters, Grant O’Rourke, Duncan Lacroix, and, of course, Caitriona Balfe (who plays leading lady Claire Beauchamp/Randell/Fraser and recently graced the big screens in the film Belfast). We had no idea what the show would be like and for Sam and Caitriona, it was their first major job on TV but we all shared a sense of mutual, strong support towards one another. Then, sadly, it was ruined when Sam and Caitriona murdered me in Season Two (spoiler alert!), their ‘characters’ thrusting a ruddy great dirk (dagger) deep into my chest, their twinkling eyes suggesting this was something more than acting!

Somehow our relationship survived this trauma (lots of soul-searching and primal-scream therapy), and Sam and I reunited in the even more clammy environment of a camper van in the Highlands of Scotland in 2019, when our idea to travel around Scotland together in ‘the Fiat Flatulence’ camper became a reality, leading to a Clanlands book and the first Men in Kilts TV series. The Clanlands idea had been conceived by Sam and me in between takes (and lattes) on the set of Outlander and was born in my kitchen in New Zealand (well, that’s where I was standing when Sam rang).

[Sam: I’d say it was born in a parking lot just off Great Western Road in Glasgow, where I had arranged for a crew to film our adventures. I just needed a grumpy companion for the ride.]

In August 2019, we jumped into filming a Clanlands teaser over several insane whisky-fuelled weekends in the Scottish Highlands before we headed to Los Angeles to present the aforementioned tangled footage to the assembled executives of Starz (the American cable and satellite television network that makes Outlander). That they agreed to fund an entire season of Men in Kilts right there in the room still amazes me, but they did. But before we made it to Scotland to start filming, dear old Covid put a halt to the world and Sam and I found ourselves writing the Clanlands book. That first book was written (well, my contribution) in, you guessed it, New Zealand. The release of Season One of Men in Kilts followed, after which our thoughts naturally turned to where we could go next. We considered Scotland again. I remember Sam was very keen on travelling by boat around the Hebrides and across to Ireland – I think he even mentioned Scandinavia. [Sam: Men in Kilts – in boats! Who wouldn’t love that?] But considering what happened to me at sea just before Sam arrived in New Zealand . . . I’m glad we didn’t. More on that later. I always suspected the island-hopping boat idea was some Captain Bligh ruse to keep me constantly at the point of being swept overboard, or at least vomiting regularly on camera!

However, fate kept pushing us towards the Antipodes, and with Britain bouncing in and out of various Covid lockdowns in 2021, with no guarantee of being able to film without being shut down at any moment, New Zealand looked a very attractive prospect indeed. Seemingly Covid-free by dint of pulling up the national drawbridge, strict quarantines, and stopping anyone with a runny nose from entering the country, life was carrying on as normal. And owing to busy schedules, our only combined free time was December 2021 and January 2022, because ten years on, Sam was still busy frolicking on Fraser’s Ridge in Outlander, plunging naked into icy streams! And meanwhile, I was terrifically busy clanking around in a suit of armour in a land called Westeros (actually a very large film studio called Leavesden), filming House of the Dragon, the blood-soaked prequel to Game of Thrones in which I play Ser Harrold Westerling, pretty much the only morally upright character in the entire show. [Sam: Did you ACTUALLY do any filming, or just sit around drinking lattes, recounting tales and anecdotes of filming with yours truly?] [Graham: Actually, I save the anecdotes of working with you for my therapist and legal depositions.]

And, crucially, for the purposes of our Men in Kilts follow-up, over 20 per cent of the New Zealand population are of Scottish descent, many arriving during the Highland Clearances (1750–1860), which started after the Jacobite Risings, when the Outlander TV drama was set, and effectively how Sam’s and my journey began. Scots continued to settle here after that, even willingly – with assisted passage between the 1940s and 1950s and the creation of the ‘Ten Pound Pom’ (the amount of money charged for passage by the New Zealand government). Because, if you fell asleep in Scotland and magically didn’t wake up until you got to New Zealand, you would, in fact, believe you were still in Scotland.

[Sam: Welcome to Scotland, down under!]

CHAPTER ONE

The Prison Diaries

JANUARY 2022

Location: Top secret MIQ (Managed Isolation and Quarantine) hotel, somewhere in Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand

SAM

What day? The time? Who knows? I’m jet-lagged on the other side of the world and am in purgatory.

The 1970s air con above the bed buzzes angrily at me every 64 seconds. I time each interlude. 73 . . . 45 . . . (?!) . . . 66. Clearly, the machine, like me, has lost track of time. But the random hisses and vibrations disturb my thoughts. I look around the bare room for something else to distract me. A worn grey carpet. Double bed, single thin sheet that doesn’t fit and two pillows that have given up the fight and resigned themselves to their sentence. One side-table. One box of sealed water. A phone. A flat-screen 24-inch TV mounted opposite the bed, the cables making their escape through a hole in the wall. A writing desk. One chair. All the items would be appropriate on a film set where the brief was ‘1970s faded motel’. I stare out of the double-glazed window with no handles or levers to open it; even if I wished to break through, I couldn’t. I consider how painful it would be to take a run at the thick glass. ‘No, think happy thoughts, imagine yourself outside.’ The view was of a man-made fence covered in thick black gauze, which obscured anything other than the sky and the tops of a few tall trees, waving to me in the light summer breeze. The sun breaks into my cell and illuminates an angular patch of the worn carpet, heating its synthetic base. I lie on this little blanket of sun and wonder if people will ask, ‘Where did you get your tan?’ I imagine there are birds outside singing, but I can’t tell. I can’t hear anything other than the occasional ‘BUZZZ . . . tick, tick, tick’ of my air-con companion.

Peering through the security keyhole, I spy an empty white corridor and a grey door, like mine, opposite. I wonder if its inhabitants are staring back.

‘Yes, buddy, come see New Zealand, you’ll love it, mate! It’s so outdoorsy, with INCREDIBLE views, and the people, they’re really, really nice . . .’ Graham had enthusiastically convinced me, long before I started my journey here. I curse him as I pace between the viewless window and the door. ‘Seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . nope,’ I sigh. Almost nine medium, average, passable steps. Why had I come all this way, halfway around the world, to be locked up and losing my mind for seven days? No. Ten days!

[Graham: That was an extract from The Prison Diaries by Sam Heughan, the forthcoming harrowing and brave account of an actor’s life during the Covid pandemic, to be published in 2024, all rights reserved.]

Due to the continuing uncertainty of the pandemic and perhaps Graham’s insistence we shoot close to his house, we had decided the second season of Men in Kilts would feature New Zealand in all its grandeur. But the process of getting me there had been an adventure in its own right. With a strict entry policy and border control, a crew of ten including Squeezy, our ‘safety officer’, line producer and quarantine captain, had all applied for a place in the lottery system to gain access to the country. Uncertain times and a demand for locals to return home meant that we didn’t want to take up vital places on the scheme but we had been advised and aided by New Zealand’s Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, who considered our show would begin to revitalize and restore tourism, which had been all but exterminated by Covid-19.

‘Congratulations, we did it, you’re IN!’ read Squeezy’s glowing email. I would be arriving to experience Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) on 24 December 2021, arranged like an early Christmas present from Graham.

So, with tight schedules, the holiday season was the only time we could fit the shoot in. It meant missing my family over Christmas but at least I’d be out in time to celebrate New Year with my bearded travel companion. He may even share some of his most cherished bottles of New Zealand vino with me from his vast wine collection. I imagined he had a huge underground cavern beneath a sparkling villa, filled with countless barrels – hogsheads, tuns and perhaps even the odd barrique barrel – all filled with oodles of luscious Sauvignon Blanc . . .

However, fate took a different turn and my Christmas vacation in New Zealand’s finest isolation facility was, at the very last minute, well and truly scuppered. Seventy-two hours before I flew, I was required to provide a negative test, which I passed. But then the rules changed. Ah, of course they did. Now, the powers-that-be required a negative test 24 hours before a flight, as well as proof of double vaccination and a place in the MIQ system.

‘I’m not sure about this,’ I remember saying to Alex-the-German (the executive producer of Men in Kilts and my long-suffering business partner) a couple of days before Christmas and a day before I was supposed to fly. ‘I don’t feel . . . normal.’

Alex (Persian with a German accent and now living in LA) laughed, ‘Ja, ja, when are you EVER normal? Imagine if you had Covid and had to quarantine in LA over Christmas!’ [Graham: Alex’s German accent is so extravagantly thick and over the top I sometimes think it’s a complete pretence – like my superb equestrian skills – and he is, in fact, from Iowa.]

Well, he soon stopped laughing and nearly choked on his schnitzel when I, in fact, did test positive and had to quarantine in his house in the Hollywood Hills. Luckily, he was staying elsewhere for the holidays and could enjoy a proper fröhliche Weihnachten with his family. I, however, was miserable. Away from friends and family, stuck indoors and – more importantly, given the precision planning – unable to fly to New Zealand to start filming our new show. Christmas Day came and went. I morosely managed to roast a chicken, open a bottle of Alex’s glühwein from the secret stash and raid his fine whisky collection, comprising superior Sassenach spirits, of course.

[Graham: Even while recounting his harrowing ordeal he can’t help advertising his whisky. I’m convinced that if Sam were facing a firing squad, he would offer them a sample of Sassenach and a 10 per cent discount on future purchases.]

I Zoomed my New Zealand Father Christmas, McTavish, to break the news. No longer the Grinch, he appeared on screen, wine bottle in hand, a full house behind him, munching on something he had no doubt not made himself. ‘Don’t worry, mate, we will make it happen!’ Usually the more sober of the two of us when it comes to plans and arrangements, we had switched roles and he was unusually optimistic. ‘We’ll just ask Starz for more money, they won’t mind!’

The screen froze as McTavish was in mid-flow, his beard filling the screen and a festive paper hat glued to his head. I shuffled over to the kitchen counter and picked at the carcass of the unlucky yuletide bird. To add to the dire straits I was in, I had fractured my knee and torn my MCL (medial collateral ligament) only a few weeks before. [Graham: Is that next to your LOL or your OMG?] I had been cycling back from a mega CrossFit gym session – and no, Graham, it doesn’t mean to train in a bad temper! – when I suddenly hit black ice on the road and the bike went right and my leg went left. I found myself on the ground, my leg at a 90-degree angle to my body. Somehow, I managed to cycle home, which was when I realized it was rather serious. I was due to fly to Los Angeles and on to New Zealand and I couldn’t place any weight on my left leg! With the combination of injured leg and now Covid, I was beginning to lose hope.

‘Don’t worry, we will make it work, whatever you need,’ Karen Bailey, Executive Vice President of Starz, assured me. She even popped over with some Christmas goodies and left them outside Alex’s house. ‘When you get to New Zealand, you must try some of that famous wine Graham talks about!’ Karen shouted as she sped off.

***

Sauvignon Blanc . . . my mouth started to water. I open the hobbit-sized fridge in my quarantine room: nothing. An out-of-date pint of New Zealand milk, gone off and slowly turning to cheese. A loud knock at the door informed me dinner had finally arrived. It was day one and I’d been travelling for around 24 hours and was ravenous. The thirteen-hour trip from LA had been relatively painless. I had even managed to stretch out on a business-class flight, and I imagined arriving at Wellington airport would be a breeze.

‘Put your mask ON!’ screamed an irate airport official when I removed one side of my mask to record a cheeky voice note for Graham.

‘Pshhhhht, the Eagle has landed.’ I repeated, ‘The EAGLE has landed, over.’ I looked at the official, who glowered back at me from behind his Perspex helmet and N95 mask.

‘Put it on and stand in the box. Do NOT move!’ I jumped back, having not noticed the floor marked with a number of spaces in the hallway, each containing a groggy passenger awaiting further instruction. It was now a day later than it was in LA. Or was I behind? My jet-lagged brain tried to do the maths, the fluorescent lights disorientating me and burning my dry contact lenses into my eyeballs.

At Wellington airport I was held along with other nervous passengers for a couple of hours in a large room. Eventually, we were separated into groups and put on another plane. An hour later I was told I would be ‘held’ in Christchurch, on the South Island.

***

BUZZZ . . . tick, tick, tick. The air con woke me from my tormented dreams. Day two; or was it three? I tried to remember. Was the first day ‘day one’ or ‘day zero’? Ten days’ quarantine was all I needed to do; I’d just done ten self-enforced ones in LA. Karen had been true to her word and had found not only the finances to extend our shoot, but also, I had managed to win another place on the MIQ lottery, having had to apply for a second time. 2021 finished strongly at the last minute; the plans were finally falling into place and we were all set to go in early January. Men in Kilts: New Zealand, here we come . . .!

BUZZZ . . . tick, tick, tick . . . tick . . . tick . . . BUZZZ . . . BUZZZ. Air con, my ass. After pressing every button repeatedly, I stood on the edge of the crumpled bed and tried to rip the machine off the wall. Failing that, I turned it off at the plug. ‘Surely fresh air is healthier than piped air!’ I yelled at the machine. Its air ducts smiled back, refusing to answer. My air-con-versations (sorry) had been all one-way since I’d arrived and I was now officially losing my mind. After a set period of time and special permission, guests (inmates? prisoners? isolators?) were given 45 minutes a day to leave their room and GO OUTSIDE. But when was that going to happen? I was desperate. I needed something more than these four walls. The phone was my only connection to the outside world. I avoided Zoom calls – I didn’t want anyone to see my dishevelled demeanour and pale skin. I’d totally lost it, already.

[Graham: From my personal recollection of the FOUR times I did MIQ (that’s three more than one, twice as many as two, and four times more than once), they do a daily mental health check. I have a feeling Sam’s room was under suicide watch. Or perhaps they only checked on MY mental health? Hmmm . . . hadn’t thought of that.]

[Sam: You had your lovely, long-suffering fiancée with you to help ‘break the boredom’.]

[Graham: It’s true I did spend one of my FOUR times in MIQ with my then fiancée.]

Meals were delivered three times a day; a knock on the door and then the delivery person would vanish, avoiding all contact. The food was edible [Graham: define edible] but so unhealthy – fries, burgers, cans of Coke and sweets. Delightful for a day but I couldn’t sustain it over ten. I called the security desk. ‘How long?!’ I gasped, as if seeking air. ‘How long until I can escape outside?’

‘Ahhh, yeah, well, I’ve spoken to the military doctor, he’ll make a decision tomorrow.’ TOMORROW? I screamed in my head, that’s 24 hours, 50,000+ steps to window and back, 1000+ buzzes and . . . and . . . I won’t survive.

[Graham: This is the moment, if it were a movie, that Sam would break out only to find empty corridors, an empty hotel, a desolate post-apocalyptic landscape, and perhaps the odd zombie. Actually, come to think of it, THAT IS a description of MIQ.]

I must have gulped loudly or perhaps the air con made a noise but the kindly voice on the end of the phone answered, ‘Yeah, see, you may have to stay 14 days, you tested positive.’ I became a man possessed. I jumped on Zoom, on my email, I contacted everyone in LA. We had to prove that I’d just had Covid; it wasn’t that I was infectious, it was just that the proteins and antibodies were still in my body. In fact, if anything, I was possibly more immune than anyone in the facility! I was shielded, impervious, I was resistant to disease, I was in fact stronger, leaner, more mentally resilient; they couldn’t beat me! I would beat them! I needed to be an MIQ SUPERHERO.

[Graham: COVID MAN! I can see the poster now: Sam’s even-more-muscular-than-usual body bursting from a Spandex hazmat suit wearing matching plastic gloves and booties, wearing a mask OVER his mask, and armed with fistfuls of syringes.]

No more steps, no more bad food, no more losing my mind. I’d prove to them I was a champion isolator; I would thrive! I found the documents I needed, searched for workouts online, spoke daily to the Men in Kilts 2 crew, and began to regain control of my destiny.

*Cue Rocky theme tune* – duh duh duhhhh duh duh daaaah – ‘ADRIANNNNNN MCTAVISH!’

By day four, my plea for justice had been heard. The Military Commander had reviewed my case and confirmed my status as Covid-free; I only needed to remain for six more days AND I WAS ALLOWED OUTSIDE! I shielded my eyes from the midday sun, the warm breeze wafting over my mask; I could almost feel it. Birds chirped, cars and people passed by, almost in reach behind the ten-foot barriers.

I was OUTSIDE!

I stopped, allowing a sprinkler, ill-placed to water the trees and unseen gardens beyond, to cover me in a fine mist, cooling my pale skin. The exterior of the Christchurch hotel didn’t look so bad; despite being completely cordoned off from the rest of the world by the large barriers, it had a small garden in the centre and a large car park, which I was now standing in for my 45 minutes of daily exercise.

Standing on the car park sidewalk, Christchurch appeared to be a peaceful and quiet town and I could just make out some shops and restaurants nearby and a large replica of a Spitfire aeroplane several blocks away. It reminded me of Graham, strangely, our propeller plane flight in Scotland from Islay to Ben Lomond and his ancestral home, the McTavish caravan park. ‘Roger Roger, chocks away, watch out for your kilts, put the kettle on . . .’

Then I smelt it, faintly. The mask blocked my nose, but yes, there it was, a familiar delicate fragrance: lavender. It was a scent which would have sent Jamie Fraser into a frenzy and a quivering mess because it was an aroma favoured by his arch nemesis, Black Jack Randall, Jamie’s tormenter and abuser. A beautiful spray of purple flowers by the entrance to the hotel. I reached down and snapped off a twig. Lifting it towards my mask, I edged it down and inhaled deeply . . . ‘PUT YOUR MASK ON. NOW!’ The sunlight was blocked out by a silhouette. I dropped the sprig and pulled at the elastic of my mask, which slipped out of my fingers and slapped me in the face, covering my eyes. ‘Oh God, no, sorry, I didn’t mean to, I was just smelling the . . .’ I stammered, fumbling with the face covering.

‘The lavender? Yeah, most of you Poms do.’

‘Poms?’ I thought. Hardly a Kiwi expression and his accent wasn’t the same as the cheery staff I had encountered on the phone. Then I recognized him: the security guard from the airport who had shouted at me in my imaginary box; I thought I had detected an accent then. He was Australian, I was sure of it. ‘Uh, yeah, well, we have it in Scotland too, I’ve had some . . . er . . . strange experiences with it.’ I smiled with my eyes, hoping my Aussie jailer would warm to me and perhaps extend my exercise time, or perhaps slip me some contraband. ‘Ah, you’re from Scotland? My folks are from the UK, maybe you know the name Randall?’ I froze. YOU’VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME. (Outlander images flashed through my brain – of Tobias Menzies, the actor who played Black Jack Randall, flogging me with unbridled delight, the daily two-hour application of Jamie’s leather welts to my back and the terrifying prison ordeal with Randall.)

‘Well, I better be getting on.’ I made my excuses and tried to sneak away, keeping my back to the wall. At all times.

[Graham: Was he wearing a red coat and a tricorn hat worn at a jaunty angle . . . no pants? Asking for a friend.]

Randall the security guard eyed me, his hands in his pockets. I couldn’t help noticing he had some sort of blunt instrument hanging on his hip. ‘Yeah, well, walk clockwise. Make sure you stay two metres away from everyone else. You’ve got five minutes left and leave the lavender alone.’ He stared at me until I rounded the corner of the car park into the safety of the garden. ‘I’m going to have to make sure my door is locked tonight,’ I thought as I quickened my pace. That night, under my single sheet, I made a plan for how to tackle my days in quarantine; even the smallest triumphs in this place would help my mental health.

The next day I received a set of dumb-bells from the kind staff and an exercise bike. Each day, I woke up and did 45 minutes of spin, followed by a 30-minute weights session. I ordered healthy food and had regular fresh deliveries left by my door – porridge for breakfast, salmon and salad for lunch. I’d hit 10,000 steps in the 45-minute period outside, powering past other guests, under the watchful eye of Mr Randall.

[Graham: During my times in MIQ, I was often shackled to the wall, flogged, waterboarded; Leonard Low even paid me a visit with his witchy instruments of torture. (Mr Low featured prominently in Clanlands and our first season of Men in Kilts as an authority on witchcraft and the tortures endured by the accused, which he happily recreated on me with his own deeply disturbing personal collection of torture paraphernalia.) I was also shown endless pictures of Sam Heughan, which did the real damage. Okay, maybe only the last bit is true. Maybe.]

After nine days in Christchurch quarantine, it was finally the last night in the cell which had become my home, where I felt comfortable and had a routine; I almost felt apprehensive about leaving. On my last morning, I rose with the sun, the light spilling over the barriers. I was allowed out now for a whole hour at 7am and my release would be at midday. I quickly hit 10,000 steps and decided to relax for the last few minutes before returning inside to pack my belongings and finally enter New Zealand society as a changed man, forever altered by NZ MIQ. I stopped by the bush of lavender and picked several flowers.

‘What are you doing?’ Caught in the act, I spun around but no officious officer approached me; instead, a young woman smiled at me from behind her mask. ‘Does it smell good?’ she asked.

‘Oh my God, yes, you must have some for your room,’ I replied. ‘It smells great and will send you to sleep.’ I thrust out my hand and offered her the illegal bouquet. She slid it into the pocket of her workout gear. ‘I’m Sophie,’ she said. ‘It’s my last day.’ We talked and walked in a circle, two metres apart, and I found out she had been here the whole time but we had missed each other due to different exercise scheduling. She was a yoga teacher and had occupied her time in solitary confinement by stretching, reading and, like me, occasionally talking to the faulty air-con system. She was witty, walked fast and had a great laugh, stifled by the plastic mask material.

Randall appeared. ‘TIME’S UP!’ he yelled. I wondered how he didn’t swallow his mask, each time he announced the end of the session. Sophie and I shared a look, next to the lavender bush. ‘Good luck out there,’ she said. ‘New Zealand has so much to offer, amazing scenery and flowers.’ She winked and strode back into the hotel, the lavender sprig waving from her pocket. I choked and started to follow her. ‘WRONG WAY, POM!’ The Aussie slur echoed across the empty car park. He pointed silently in the other direction. I walked towards the exit to collect my belongings and reluctantly left the Covid detention centre.

Life is all about the timing.

GRAHAM

MIQ stands for Managed Isolation and Quarantine. Like TGIF without the fact that, in there, Friday feels like every other mind-numbingly tedious day. Acronyms like this make me think about language, and the impressions words form in our minds. Managed Isolation and Quarantine is like saying Strongly Recommended Prison or Pain-Free Spanish Inquisition. I can testify that it is, indeed, an odd and disconcerting experience. I remember the first time I did it, when we pulled up in the bus that we had been herded on to . . . well . . . like sheep, at Auckland airport. The hotel was surrounded by metal fencing and we were greeted by soldiers. The woman next to me commented that she’d never stayed at such a nice hotel before, which prompted me to wonder what other kinds of hotels manned by soldiers and police she had stayed in prior to that. For those that have wondered what such a place is like, I will try and give you the short version. You are processed, handed your room key and told where to go. It’s at this moment that any similarity with a leisure hotel ends. From that moment you are kept in your room, with corridors patrolled by the police and the army, and allowed out for between 30 to 40 minutes a day for ‘exercise’ in the area designated as ‘safe’ to do so. This area is then patrolled by eagle-eyed policemen while you are ‘strongly encouraged’ not to communicate with any other ‘guests’ (just in case you planned to build a glider in your room or dig a tunnel). This exercise time is cheerily described as a ‘privilege’.

[Sam: I believe Graham used MIQ as a rehab facility. He stopped drinking, worked out daily and even took up meditation . . . McTavish meditating! He really must have lost his mind.]

The privileges are extended to you once you have returned a negative PCR test result. You are then given a blue plastic wristband to distinguish you from those ‘guests’ who might try and go for a stroll without one. These tests are administered three times during your stay. I’ve never actually HAD a frontal lobotomy (despite claims to the contrary) but if I ever do, I think MIQ is what one might feel like. Food is left outside your room in brown paper bags, and you are treated to periodic announcements blasted into your room through the PA system telling you how committed everyone is to your safety. You are allowed to leave exactly 14 days from when your plane landed in New Zealand, to the minute. Then you are ‘released’ into a parallel world of complete normality.

It’s at this moment that I feel compelled to refer you, dear reader, to other famous accounts of incarceration:

• Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King

• Conversations with Myself by Nelson Mandela

• De Profundis by Oscar Wilde, written while in Reading Gaol

And last but not least, Justine, by that notorious libertine, the Marquis de Sade (come to think of it, this last one is probably strangely similar to Heughan’s).

I can’t help thinking that Sam drew comfort and inspiration from these giants of history as he exercised on his specially supplied exercise bike. Perhaps he browsed the free internet looking for solace in the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Alas, we may never know. I leave it to you, dear reader, to draw your own conclusions from Sam’s time in a four-star hotel in Christchurch, New Zealand and ask yourself, what would Nelson Mandela say?