A82 lifeline service for tourists to mark 60th birthday

However, given the sheer volume of motorists that stop off at Tyndrum's ubiquitous Green Welly Stop in the summer months (around 1million) it became overwhelming and she parked that task.

The amount of time it was taking to respond wasn't the only reason she passed on the labour intensive job to another member of her team.

"Quite honestly some of them were quite depressing," she says.

"I'm not a fan of social media - not when it comes to comments online. I just think they are very unfair and they should tell us at the time and we would do something about it straight away, not go away and be brave with a keyboard in front of them.

"So now we have an internet team who look after that."

The Green Welly Stop is a familiar site for A82 drivers (Image: Google Maps) Next year the Green Welly will celebrate 60 years of fuelling up A82 drivers with Scotch Broth and petrol. Tyndrum is part of the West Highland Way so the business also welcomes a lot of walkers too.

The secret of their longevity she says, is a simple formula, done well. Clean (and multi-award-winning) toilets, decent home-made grub and service with a smile.

"We don't pretend to be anything we're not," she says.

'There's an element of people saying 'you've got to stop at the Green Welly' and they are disappointed - and that's not about anything we've done.

"We are roadside services, there is no getting away from that. It's all about comfort food and home-made soup and  very clean toilets and somewhere to shelter on a very rainy day - of which we get many.

"It's why we are still here.

Tyndrum is a popular stopping point on the A82 (Image: Getty)

"We've followed that formula through since the early days. It's never been complicated.

"What we do, we try to do as well as we possibly can. We don't go out of our way to market the business, it ticks away by itself."

It was Fiona's grandparents Les and Betty Godsen who realised in 1965 the potential of snapping up a small roadside business at the "geographically perfect spot" where the roads fork to Oban and Fort William.

The first 'Green Welly Stop' (Image: The Green Welly Stop)

At that time it had a post office, a general store and a single petrol pump. 

The  Cruachan power station was almost complete and the couple bought one of the work huts for £32.50 which became the first coffee house.

The following year they bought another one to use as a craft shop. 

Then in the early 1970s they decided to knock it all down and built the restaurant as it is now.

The couple retired from the business in the early 1970s and it has been added to over the years and now includes two cafes, a filling station, retail shops, and a whisky shop as well as a laundry and shower facilities.

Fiona started working at the Green Welly as a nine-year-old clearing tables and later went on to study hotel and catering management at Napier University, going on to work in Aberdeen before returning to run the business.

"My dad had a wild idea in the middle of the 1980s to build a shop basically selling Barbour jackets, green wellies and socks," she says.

"It was the first of its kind and certainly one of the first independents. At that time we were known as the Clifton Coffee House and Craft Centre.

"From the mid-1980s people were calling us The Green Welly so we decided not to fight it. To go with the quirky memorable name."

A low key celebration is planned for next year's milestone with Fiona and partner Edward celebrating with at couple of casks of whisky between the team, which stretch to 80 people during peak season.

'The business is doing well, we are constantly re-investing," she says.

Building work has got under way to create a Changing Places toilet following a six-year campaign by a collection of Tyndrum businesses.

The toilet is for disabled people and those with life limiting conditions, their families and carers, for whom a standard accessible one is not adequate to meet their needs.

There are no suitable facilities for many miles in any direction of the village.

Sarah Heward with Edward and Fiona Robertson owners of the Green Welly Stop (Image: Shine PR)

The Green Welly offered to provide the land required free of charge and the cleaning and care of the facility after funding was granted by the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and the Hugh Fraser Foundation.

The campaign to build a CPT in Tyndrum was launched six years ago by Sarah Heward, the Founder and Co-Owner of The Real Food Cafe in Tyndrum after her father became ill and died from a degenerative neurological illness.

Asked if she would like to build another Green Welly, there is no hesitation from Fiona. 

"Absolutely not - one headache is enough," she says.

She is not interested in adding accommodation into the mix either. 

"The accommodation we have, we need for live-in staff," she says. "We've got about 40 beds, that's our priority. 

"The business takes a massive dip in the winter period, we don't make any profit," she adds.

"It's really hard but we are open because the customers want us to be. We realise what an important service it is.

"The government need to get their finger out and look at hospitality."

The Green Welly introduced a £6 charge for overnight parking last year and despite a few online grumbles the owner says visitors understand why the business did it.

"Some ignorant people leave a lot of rubbish lying around," she says. "We actually had had comments from camper vans saying we should be charging.

"Our facilities are open till 10pm. We don't want to be charging for our toilets and we know that people come in use them and go away and that costs us tens of thousands of pounds every year to run.

"It's just about trying to get something back for overheads."

The Green Welly is a popular spot for motorcyclists, with a large bike park that's permanently open. A keen biker herself Fiona says she hasn't been able to get out as much after developing rheumatoid arthritis after having Covid but is hoping to pick it up in the winter months.

As the owner of a vital tourist service and a consumer of the route herself she says the North Coast 500 is something, "I would avoid at all costs during the Summer."

 "It's very good for the areas but you've got to have the people with the willingness to put things into it and they don't have enough infrastructure," she says.

"I don't think tourists  realise how remote it is and that there's not accommodation on every corner."

The couple don't have children and what will happen to the business when they retire is "an unknown quantity."

"It's all about having the right management team in place and we have excellent managers," says the owner, who still enjoys "the craic" of serving customers. 

"I've cut my days to four last year. It's just hard for me not to be involved, I've been here for so long."