Mr. Campbell, your memory is accurate. It takes some explaining to account for John Grieve, who played the puffer's engineer as a rule, singing a Sunny Jim song.

What I know comes from the liner notes from the Highland Voyage compact disc. The disc has liner notes that you won't find on the old vinyl-record sleeve, for an excellent reason: on the occasion of the re-issue and new format, the sole surviving veteran of the Highland Voyage sessions (one of the producers) gives his account and memory of how it all was.

The "Master Mariner" series had Duncan MacRae, near the end of his life, as Para Handy. For some reason, for this recording project, somebody wanted more box-office pull, and wanted to pull in a "name" from outside of the Para Handy adaptations. Maybe there is more to the story than has been told. The result, anyway, brought on board actor Alex MacKenzie from "The Maggie" a/k/a "High and Dry," an classic Ealing film in which MacKenzie played the skipper.

Well, there is room for only one skipper on the Vital Spark, and Duncan MacRae was not shifting for Alex MacKenzie. So, while MacRae got top billing as skipper Para Handy, and Roddy MacMillan continued as the puffer's mate, the other parts were changed around. No Angus Lennie as Sunny Jim here. Instead, Alex MacKenzie became the engineer, and John Grieve was left peeling potatoes and singing "The Crinan Canal for me."

Oh, talking of the songs: the Highland Voyage liner notes give the songwriting credits to, guess who, Alex MacKenzie. True, this?