by Jess Smith
‘It wouldn’t bother you if you stayed on a dung heap, so shut your face or I’ll rip it off!’
‘If you try that, lady, then I’ll turn your backside into a sieve when I ram those talons up your arse!’
‘That will do with the foul tongue,’ said Mammy, pointing a finger sternly at Shirley.
Then she whispered to Daddy, ‘Perhaps she would be better staying with Granny after all.’
‘Definitely not, she’s our daughter, and until a suitable lad comes along then she’ll stay with the family!’
2
A VERY LONG DRIVE
Protests ignored, we were on the road, and you’ll never guess where to—of all places, over the Border, our feet were to travel to England! In those days a distance like that was seldom contemplated.
Perhaps sitting behind the wheel of a grand bus made Daddy feel like ‘King o’ the Road’. Have castle, will travel. One with wheels, that is. Maybe it was the sense of freedom he felt after six war years; especially the last three spent fighting from a tank. He never told us, but I think it made him claustrophobic. By God, though, he didn’t half eat up those long tarred miles as we trundled down to England.
Mammy adapted no bother to her wee Fordy van (as she christened it). And a mite too fond of it she became. Because, at the brow of every hill, her insistence to stop and give the wee green van a rest, then check if it needed a drink of water, had her and Daddy shouting at each other more than once, I can tell you.
After several days on the road, everybody began to think the land went on forever. Mammy asked Daddy, ‘Where do we stop, Charlie? My bum’s gone past the point of rigor mortis.’
‘I mind chumming an English lad during the War,’ he answered, ‘who sang the praises of his home town—Manchester, he called it.’
‘Manchester, where in heaven’s name is that?’ She looked at him as if he had mentioned a far outpost on the moon.
‘Lancashire,’ he answered, putting a reassuring arm round her waist. ‘The county o’ the Rose.’
‘Dad, that’s where Glasgow is!’ shouted Shirley, who was reading a ‘true romance’ comic on the back seat of the bus.
‘No, that’s Lanarkshire,’ said Janey, ‘and hurry up with the comic, you’ve been reading it for days.’
We spent a few weeks getting acclimatised to the shire, stopping at Lancaster, Preston and several towns round about. Best place was Blackpool. ‘It would have been nice to live there for the winter,’ I heard the older girls say. But Manchester was where my father had set his sights, and he wouldn’t be swayed.
Everybody settled back as we travelled the last few miles to our destination.
Soon it was time for tea, and after eating and tidying up Daddy smiled, saying we’d soon be there, adding when we came into the town that Mammy had best stay close behind the bus. ‘If you get lost, lassie,’ he warned her, ‘I’ll never find you.’
We all laughed, imagining our Mother driving wee Fordy round in circles.
‘Is there a place to pull on, in this Rosie-shire town?’ she asked.
‘Jeannie, there’s miles of houses, surely a wee corner can be found to winter on. When we get there we’ll have a drive round in the Fordy and find some place suitable.
He added, ‘there will be a lot of waste ground, because the brave folks who live here have seen the worst of Hitler’s flying bombs flatten whole streets.’
‘I just hope the polis give us the freedom to settle, then,’ she said.
‘Oh, I hardly think we’ll cause any difference to the landscape,’ he reassured her.
‘Another thing, I hope this town isn’t too big, I don’t like the idea of my lassies living in a place where I can’t keep an eye on them!’
It was easy to sense our mother’s fears. She had seldom been in a place any bigger than Aberdeen.
‘Everything will be fine, wife, never fear, just think on the hawking you can do among so many folk. When we go home in the spring you’ll have plenty to crack to the folks about, it’s not just anybody who can say they travelled so far, now is it?’
Little did our father know just what a tale she would tell! Oh my, if we but knew what Manchester had in store for us, the bus would have been put in reverse there and then. Ochone! Ochone!
I can’t recall much of the actual journey down to England; being only five I played with my toys and my wee sisters. One thing I do remember thinking was how much like Scotland the bonny welcoming hills of Cumbria were. Great rolling giants clothed in green and brown velvet.
I conjured up a friendly monster with wings who followed us from the midst of the hills, all the way to the smog-shrouded county of our destination, then disappeared as quickly as he came. I named him Greenwing. My imaginary friend.
Not like home ground, though, was the thick grey smog of Lancashire!
Smoke from a million reekit factory coal fires lifted itself up to meet the sun then fell back and covered the whole of the otherwise bonny countryside. Like a shroud, it was terrible stuff, filled lungs and brought early death to the weakest of folk. Aye, a shroud indeed!
Thankfully the use of that so-called fossil fuel has all but gone, replaced by healthier alternatives. I feel a fraud saying that, though, because nothing can ever replace the welcome one got from a coal-fire on a winter’s night.
As young as I was, one thing I do remember was Mammy saying to Daddy and the older lassies that she wasn’t feeling very well. Given that this was late October, and wee Babsy, her eighth child, was born in September past, she put her state of health down to natural weakness and the upheaval of the bus life. The War itself left its mark on many a wife, especially those left holding the fort. Her state was no different than that of many another woman in the country in those days. That thought consoled my Mammy, so she put her health to the back of her mind and got on with things in hand.
Things being Manchester, for here we were at last in the smog-shrouded city. The first thing—where to winter settle?
The journey had been a difficult one, especially when Mammy insisted on resting the wee Fordy at ever hill’s brow and refreshing it with a drink of water. Before I leave the road for this chapter, I would like to mention that when we came upon the notorious Shap Fell (an extremely steep hill on the old Cumbria A6 road), Mammy point-blank refused to put her van through such torture. This resulted in Daddy towing it while she walked behind, to make sure it was all right!
3
MANCHESTER • SAVING JEANNIE
Daddy found a scrapyard, and got permission to pull on at the rear for the night. We hardly slept for the noise of lorries coming and going. After breakfast our parents headed off to find a suitable wintering ground, leaving us wee ones in the firm hands of the older girls. By the time they eventually came back, Chrissie had skelped me three times for spitting at Mary.
‘Mammy,’ I cried, shoving my legs up so she could examine them, ‘look at the welts on the back of my legs with her leathering me!’
‘You must have been a bad bairn to deserve that,’ she answered, hardly glancing at the very visible red stripes across my poor wee limbs.
You see, if any of us wee ones got walloped by our older sisters, then without question we had most likely been bad! No why, or how, we must have been misbehaving. I remember many a time being the innocent party, but getting punished because of the mood my big sister was in (whichever one was taking care of me at the time), and Mammy always believed her, because she was the elder. Some justice, but it never did us any harm, and certainly, on this occasion, I was guilty! Well, she did stand on my big toe did our Mary, and it was right sore because Dad cut my toenail the night before and snipped it too far down ‘to the quick’, I think it’s called. It bled, and ached. So I spat, for I wasn’t allowed to slap her.
Mammy ignored us, drank her tea, then said they’d found a smashing place in an area called Cheetam Hill. An acre of waste ground, with a water tap and next door to public lavvies, you couldn’t ask for anything better. Next
day we pulled on.
It was here for the first time we came across English gypsies. We had heard many a tale about our southern neighbours, and here they were in the flesh.
Beautiful floral painted bow-wagons, a dozen of them sat in a half circle. Massive shire horses grazed close by, tethered to metal poles embedded in the earth.
There were wicker baskets filled with paper flowers, red, yellow, purple, green, pink: all the colours of the rainbow came from those baskets. I remember thinking, ‘Wish I could do that,’ when I saw the women folks, hair braided with colourful ribbons, winding crepe paper into flower heads.
Our arrival by bus seemed to cause quite a stir, and they gathered in a crowd wondering who we were, uncertain about our presence. Several men approached at the bus door. When they saw we were all female with no big burly brothers, they softened and began introducing each other.
Mammy knew she’d need eyes in the back of her head. There were plenty handsome young men, who were already crowding round, eyeing up her lassies; but it was only curiosity, if any fancying was done, then it certainly wasn’t noticeable.
Mind you, being so young I hardly noticed anything like that—it’s with the passing of time listening to my sisters round a campfire I learned enough to slip such comments into the writing of those past times.
Within a week we had settled, and the gypsies treated us like kin. That was, after all, exactly what we were, their Scottish cousins.
We were on the site for a week or two when our first frightening experience with the Manchester police left this incident vivid in my mind.
Daddy had been cracking round the dying embers of the fire with one of the older men. He stood up and, stretching his back, said, ‘It’s a cold night for sure, and this damnable smog fills my lungs, so I’ll say goodnight to you, lad.’ That said, he pulled seats and stools back from the hot ashes and doused the fire. Once, as a boy, he witnessed an old man burn to death after a fiery stick set his trouser-leg ablaze, and had ever since been vigilant where campfires were concerned.
‘Yes, Charlie, it’s bed for me too. I’ve ten dozen clothes pegs need whittling first light, so I’ll be a busy man tomorrow.’
Closing the bus door tightly behind him, Daddy came over and unfolded the top of the blanket covering my face, whispering, ‘Jessie, don’t do that, you’ll smother yourself, lass.’ I had a bad habit of lying under the bedclothes. I moaned that it was cold, so he tucked the blanket under my chin, saying, ‘Only the dead have covered faces’.
‘Charlie,’ whispered Mammy, ‘before you bed yourself, bring me a drop water from the can, I’ve an awfy headache. I’ll take a powder then hopefully get some sleep.’
‘You’ll turn into a powder, Jeannie, that’s the third one today.’ He was becoming more and more concerned with her daily headaches.
‘Just give me the water, will you, man!’ she retorted as she sat up in bed and shivered.
As young as I was, I can still remember my dear mother constantly complaining about her health the whiles we stayed that winter in Lancashire.
The night grew colder. Mary had lodged her knee under my ribs, and Renie had removed half my blanket, and claimed it for her own chin.
Now, had my mother not been sore-headed I’d have wakened her, but that would have been selfish. So, unable to sleep, I sat up, pulled back the curtain and—Lord roast me if I lie—the ugliest face in God’s kingdom was staring at me through the window from the smog-shrouded night. It was a police raid! They banged their fists on the windows and rattled the sides of the bus with rubber batons. I began screaming.
My screams, coupled with the awful din, wakened everyone. Daddy was groping in the dark for the matches to light the Tilley lamp, when suddenly the thump, thump, thumping on the door added to the state of terror we were put in that night. It was the first time we had had any bother from the law.
‘You in there, come out now,’ a man shouted through the darkness.
Daddy found the matches and calmly pumped up the light until its welcome glow shone through the bus. Like moths we gathered round it. Baby Babs had wakened and Mammy held her tight into her breast. We were whimpering and shaking with fear, eyes staring from sockets like frightened owls. What was happening, for God’s sake?
Daddy slowly opened the door, not knowing what manner of awfulness stood on the other side. ‘It’s all right, Charlie lad,’ said a familiar voice. The old gypsy man my father had bidden goodnight to earlier on stood in his shirt-tail and bare feet, surrounded by several fearsome-looking men dressed in black.
‘It’s the hornies,’ said the old chap, ‘they say we’ve to move on.’
My father leapt down from the step, buttoned up his trousers, clumsily slipped his braces over each shoulder and shouted at the nightmare visitors closing round him.
‘Have you bastards got nothing better to do than frighten innocent folk in the dead of night? I’ve a puckle wee bairns in here.’ He pulled on his jacket and stood face to face with a big policeman, made six inches taller by a ridiculous pot-hat perched on his head, and waited on a response.
‘Arrest this one,’ the man ordered.
‘He’s from Scotland,’ pleaded the old gypsy man, ‘He don’t know this be common practice in these ’ere parts, sir.’
‘We’ll arrest him, then, and maybe in future he’ll remember.’
Daddy had no time to answer, as two policemen bundled him away in the back of a shiny black van. I can still see his bewildered face staring out at us, and all I could think was, how strange it was seeing my Dad in a motor car without his bunnet on.
We huddled round our mother completely dumbstruck, shivering with fear. Eventually Janey broke the eerie silence. ‘What if they come back and murder the lot o’ us!’
‘There now, pet, that doesn’t happen these days.’ Mammy gently held her close. ‘You’ve been taking far too much of those Suspense Comics to heart,’ said Chrissie, draping a tartan rug round her shoulders.
‘The polis are wicked in England, Scottish ones wouldn’t do a bad thing like that, now would they Mammy?’ asked Shirley, peering out at the darkness through the half-open curtain. At that moment I’m sure the whole bunch of us wished we were home in Scotland.
‘Polis are the same the world over, some bad, some good. Give me my cardigan, it’s getting cold in here. Mona, put some coal on the fire while I make the bairn a bottle.’ Her milk had dried up; she hated ‘false milk’ (her description of dried milk), but the baby was belly-greeting and she was more than eager to calm her.
‘I hope my Da is all right,’ said Mona, stapping extra coals on the fire and hoping he’d be home any minute.
‘They big polis will have kicked half the shite out o’ him before we see him again.’ Shirley’s words sent a shiver through the bus.
‘You better pray they don’t or else we’ll never see Scotland again,’ said Mona.
Mammy told them not to think like that, then added, ‘I’m right angry with your father for coming this far down the country, at least if we were nearer home the folks could help if we were stuck.’ Then she ran a hand over her head and said, ‘God, these powders are rubbish, I’d be as well taking the wee one’s dried milk for this headache!’
A knock on the door had us clinging onto each other in total fear, thinking the polis were back to finish us off.
‘Lassies, come now, you’re working yourselves into a state’, said Mammy. ‘Chrissie, put the kettle on the stove. Shirley here, put Babsy to bed, I’ll get the door.’
It was the friendly old gypsy who had tried to speak up for our father. ‘Jeannie, don’t worry about your man, they’ll let him out early morning, but what is more important, we have to move on now.’
The usual procedure with gypsy harassment (and this is the same today as it was then), was that when the police came with orders to move on, that meant—move immediately, right then and there!
‘But it’s the middle of the night, they took my man away. Who do they expect will
drive the bus and where will we go?’ For our sake, Mammy tried to disguise the worry in her voice, but without success. ‘This is bad doings right enough,’ she said.
Our kindly neighbour, though, soon set her at ease by saying, ‘My eldest son will drive it for you, pack your things away, dress the children, just a couple of miles along the way there’s a nice bit of waste ground will do us all. Come on now, Jeannie, you have no choice: the police will drive your home onto the road then charge you with obstructing the King’s Highway.’
She smiled, took the kindly man’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Thanking him from the heart, she said, ‘God will see that you and yours want for little. The kindness you show us this night will be rewarded.’
‘We stick together, us wanderers, and one day you may return the favour if we come to Scotland.’
Shirley took no time in telling the man that in Scotland only God and Mother Nature determined where and when travellers lived. Not big bullies with cosh sticks and pot-hats.
He laughed, and said England had its free countryside too.
Mammy told Shirley to mind her manners, then said to the man, ‘You’ll find a grand welcome among us, that’s for sure.’
Soon we had everything secure. The old man’s son came and said the caravan was hitched up to the horses and ready for the road. Before leaving he said to Mammy, ‘I think it wise if you stay with your girls. I’ll get my cousin to drive the van, will that be all right?’
She gladly accepted his offer; the last thing she wanted to do was drive through the smog-thick streets of Manchester in the middle of the night.
As our replacement driver trundled slowly the two miles towards the new campsite, I thought of Manchester as a place of menace, where in every dark corner a polisman with a pot-black hat was lurking, and began whimpering. My sisters joined me, and before long hysteria was taking hold amongst us. Mammy recognised the signs and quickly worked her magic on us. ‘Did any of you lot ever see a bigger nose on a man than the one on the polisman who arrested Daddy? Fancy the disappointment of his poor mother the first time she set eyes on that. The nearest I can think to compare it with would be a rhino’s horn. Yes, the biggest honker in England, wouldn’t you say girls?’