The Para Handy Tales are a series of stories about the crew of the Vital Spark and the adventures they had. Written by Neil Munro (under the pseudonym of Hugh Foulis) they are witty in places although perhaps a bit outdated in others. Anyway, there were three collections of the stories:

The Vital Spark
In Highland Harbours
Hurricane Jack of the Vital Spark

These have also been issued in a combined volume, which I am slowly working my way through - although the stories from the first collection are available online! My favourite was the story of Hurricane Jack and how he gained his nickname (which is included in those online).

The stories were also made in to television series a few times:

Para Handy - Master Mariner with Duncan Macrae as Para Handy and Roddy McMillan as the ship's mate Dougie;
The Vital Spark with McMillan playing Para Handy this time;
The Tales Of Para Handy with Gregor Fisher as Para Handy and also starring Rikki Fulton!

I have to admit that I have never seen a single episode, but I do recommend you check out the stories of the Fital Spark... they are chust sublime!

Added to the above is another set of stories by Stuart Donald brought together in Complete New Tales of Para Handy (Para Handy Trilogy) and In the Wake of the Vital Spark: Para Handy's Scotland about life on the Clyde puffers at the time the Para Handy stories were set!

When we were on Islay last May a friend gave us a DVD with episodes from Para Handy and his crew and we watched a few of them. We had a good laugh although it's not easy to understand but sometimes the pictures say enough! Really good humour

I still haven't seen any of the episodes, but its good to hear they are on dvd!

They are really funny and well worth watching them.....

I have just discovered that there has been another series of the crew of the Vital Spark: The New Tales of Para Handy (2007) starring Lawrence Douglas as Para Handy!