Blue Above the Chimneys

by Fraser, Christine Marion

  My disappointment was intense, and I felt myself go hot and cold with humiliation when the quaint object was immediately surrounded by a crowd of curious children. I grew even hotter as I pictured myself driving the monstrosity.

  ‘I’m not going out in that!’ I said to Da as we both peered from the window to watch the machine being unloaded, the proceedings hampered by the children who had already loudly called it everything from a scooter to a stagecoach.

  How differently I had planned the scene. A gleaming blue three-wheeler should have arrived at our gate while neighbours peeked in admiration from their windows, the children silent with awe and respectfully envious.

  Da sniffed, but his eyes showed a spark of interest that had been missing for months. ‘I think they dug that yin oot the ark, Chris. It’s a real auld-timer.’

  ‘I won’t go out in it,’ I repeated stubbornly.

  ‘Ach, away and no’ be daft,’ he scolded. ‘It’ll take ye oot the hoose. What does it matter how it looks if it’ll take ye tae new places?’

  His voice was gruff, but his words were kind. Full of curiosity, he went down the path and gave the vehicle a good going over. When he came back he had christened it ‘Black Maria’. It lay in the shed that had been erected at the side of the building, and for almost a week I fought feelings of anger, shame, disappointment. I had been given instructions on how to operate the controls, and assured my instructor with a false enthusiasm that everything was perfectly clear. He watched me get into the vehicle and drive round the block in it. I had felt a small thrill at the motion of wheels and found the machine easy to manoeuvre, but my humiliation raced to the fore again when people turned to watch my slow progress, their looks verifying the fact that Black Maria was ridiculously out of place in a world of modern transport.

  The installation of a power point to feed the machine was my responsibility, but electricians were expensive to employ so Black Maria stayed in the shed. The batteries lost their power. I couldn’t make up my mind whether it was worth all the bother, so I didn’t press the matter too far.

  One night Ian arrived unexpectedly, armed with rolls of flex and power fittings.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked with mixed feelings.

  ‘Da asked me to come and fix up a power lead to the shed,’ he replied, already starting work.

  At his words I felt an odd pang of affection for Da. He was old, lonely, seemingly uncaring, yet he was concerned enough for my welfare to ask a favour of Ian so that I wouldn’t be tied to the house. Ian had taken training in electrical work and soon had a power cable fixed up.

  Tentatively I began going out in Black Maria, Da taking my chair back to the house because there was no room for it in the narrow little machine. Da peeked from the windows as I drove slowly away and I was reminded of another time when a lone figure waved me goodbye, sad yet glad that I was broadening my horizons. I was unable to go too far because of the limited power available, but the rural areas round Carmunnock were within my bounds. Driving through country lanes, I gloried in the scents of green fields and wild flowers. My love of the country wasn’t a restless one. I was quite content to sit for hours looking at the many changes that weather conditions could bring to one landscape. To reach out and touch a leaf … that was ecstasy. To hold my breath as I observed some tiny wild creature … that was awe at the wonder of creation.

  At weekends a member of the family accompanied me. It was strictly against Ministry rules to carry a passenger, but the presence of a near one gave me confidence to face that awful curious world one had to traverse before reaching green terrain. There was barely enough room for me in the narrow black seat, but with the aid of a cushion my passengers sat side-saddle and made the journeys very merry affairs, especially Mary who was always game for anything. Kirsty, on the other hand, wouldn’t sit beside me for anything, though she couldn’t help laughing when she watched the rest of us screeching to a halt outside the gate. That of course is a gross exaggeration, because there was so little power in Black Maria you could have stopped it with your feet like a scooter.

  Uphill journeys were a real slog and it was then I had a following of cheeky urchins running to keep up with me while they kept up a colourful flow of rude comments. Though I never became totally immune to such unwelcome attentions, I took to the road almost every day, weather permitting. A long black apron affair gave some protection against the rain but I didn’t fancy looking even more ridiculous muffled to the nose in black waterproof, with my rickety old hood making Black Maria sway in the wind.

  But funny old Black Maria’s days were numbered. I became daring in it, flying down hills at a reckless speed, certainly beyond the limits of safety for such a wobbly concoction on wheels.

  One day Margaret and I set off to Carmunnock, she alongside me on her bike. The road there was mainly uphill which meant my homeward downhill journey was inevitably faster. We had a good afternoon in the country with a picnic and a lot of laughs. With Margaret there was always something to laugh at, because her devil-may-care attitude to life was a good partner for my impulsive nature and love of fun.

  ‘I’ll race you home!’ I yelled. She immediately took up the challenge and began to pedal furiously so that she was ahead of me before I had quite realized what I had let myself in for. Soon I caught up with her till we were abreast, but it was downhill now and soon she was well behind, unable to keep up with my wild pace. My long hair flew behind me, my face tingled with the excitement of the race, and I roared to the skies with joy. Then came a moment of carelessness, that split second in time when the reflexes don’t obey the message from the brain quickly enough. Our corner loomed, I fumbled to operate the brake but accelerated instead. In a series of mind-tearing zig-zags I swerved across the road to smash into a stationary car. In a jumble of impressions the shiny black bodywork of the car sped closer to my face, I kissed the boot handle with quite unintentional passion, then I was rolling about on the road with as much abandon as a heartily kicked football. Margaret skidded up to me and a lady pounded the tar on the road in a rush to get to me. They both grabbed me under the oxters and pulled me to the safety of the pavement, where I sat trying to collect my wits.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Margaret, in the sort of choked voice that was bottling up nervous laughter.

  ‘I forgot my brakes,’ I said with an insane snigger. My head had stopped spinning sufficiently for me to be able to see that Black Maria had crumpled like a concertina, the hood swinging crazily to one side, the front wheel deflating slowly with a tired sort of hiccuping hiss.

  ‘Oh hell!’ I said in dismay. ‘What am I going to tell the Ministry?’

  ‘Your face is all bloody,’ snorted Margaret with a total lack of sympathy, ‘and you’re going to have a beaut of a black eye.’

  I sat on the verge feeling as if my face had been kicked for weeks. I also felt extremely silly. Our Samaritan lady asked anxiously. ‘Have ye broken something, hen? Can ye no’ stand up?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I assured her shakily. ‘I can’t walk anyway and I haven’t been able to stand for years.’

  ‘She needs her chair,’ said Margaret. ‘I’ll run home and get it … you stay here,’ she directed me with a wicked snigger.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I returned sourly. ‘I won’t get up and walk away.’

  ‘I’ll bring ye a wee chair to sit in the now,’ said the Samaritan lady, and scampered into a nearby close, to reappear in minutes with a kitchen chair. She helped me climb on to it and I sat there, in the middle of a housing scheme, at the side of the road on a kitchen chair, trying to look as if I did that sort of thing every day of my life.

  ‘Here, ye look a bit shaken,’ said the Samaritan lady, ‘I’ll away and get ye a cup of tea.’

  She disappeared just as Margaret hove into view with my wheelchair. I welcomed it like an old friend, feeling oddly secure with my wheels round about me once more. Margaret went to peer at the car which had saved me from an unknown fate in a sogg
y roadside ditch. ‘There’s not a scratch on it,’ she reported. ‘Your wee buggy’s taken all the bashing.’

  ‘Thank goodness,’ I said gladly, not in the least sorry for Black Maria. My worry was the Ministry officials and what they would have to say about the affair.

  The Samaritan lady tottered out of the close, balancing a tray containing a pot of tea and a plate piled with biscuits. Her other hand held another kitchen chair which she plonked down beside me. ‘I’ll have a cup wi’ ye,’ she said companionably, and the three of us sat and chatted in the friendly way that Glaswegians everywhere are famous for.

  Reluctantly I had to come back to practicalities. I decided it was time I reported my mishap to the Ministry. In those days, the body of Government officials who handled the affairs of disabled people were beings that I regarded with even more awe than the Gods I had once thought ruled supreme in hospitals. The Ministry Gods were a different sort from the medical Gods. The latter had your life in their hands, the former their hands on your life. Great decisions about your future lay with them. A visit to their clinic was designed to make you feel like a member of the KGB who had just dropped in to spy out the latest developments on the two-stroke engine or to sniff out the secrets of the non-squeak artificial limb. They measured methodically everything that could be measured in human anatomy. I know of course that this procedure is necessary to fit different-sized people into buggies and wheelchairs, but I hated the cold, precise way in which the whole business was carried out. To this day I often wonder how I ever got away without getting my head measured. Nowadays things are different. Like the medical Gods, the Ministry Gods have become exceedingly human, kind and helpful people, but then … shivers at the very idea of going up before the ‘Officials’.

  I couldn’t persuade Margaret into doing the unwholesome task of phoning for me so, quaking in my wheels, I approached a telephone kiosk. The world and its amenities are undoubtedly geared to meet the needs of the very able able-bodied. I don’t think even the great Houdini could have figured out a way to get a wheelchair into a phone booth. The GPO provides an excellent service but gives little thought to wheelchair-bound humans when they design their tight little boxes, and I wonder if some muscle-bound, Samson-like being was the first to open the tightly sprung doors of such creations and pronounce them fit for general use.

  It soon transpired that the great Houdini had nothing on the great Christina. After I had recovered from the blinding flash of inspiration which struck me I crawled into the booth, Margaret folded my chair, and I sat astride the chair arms which fortunately for me were padded so I didn’t suffer too much as I wobbled about while I dialled the number. Miraculously, I managed to give the coldly anonymous official on the other end of the line a fairly garrulous account of my accident, despite the hideous squashed faces that Margaret was making against the glass panes outside.

  The mangled remains of Black Maria were scraped off the road and carted away. I felt no pangs of remorse because I’d never had any real love for the weird-looking old buggy. Perhaps that is why I treated it to such wild and careless handling, but whatever my reasons I didn’t reckon with the resourceful Ministry repair shops. I had thought Black Maria to be mouldering in the scrap heap, but two weeks after the mishap she was delivered back to me, all the creases straightened out and looking as good as she ever would.

  Disappointment raged through me. I had thought myself rid of the quaint vehicle, had expected the Ministry to give me something more suited to the faster pace of modern traffic. A few weeks later I learned my case had been reviewed and I was requested to go back to the Appliance Centre for a further physical examination.

  Impatiently I awaited the results of the visit. Officials everywhere are good at forcing you to learn the gentle art of patience, but I had practised so much of that in my time I felt I’d had enough. Eventually the letter came, and it contained the mind-boggling news that my application for a petrol-driven three-wheeler had been granted. How I got through the months of waiting for it to come, I’ll never quite know. Before each morning post I teetered on the edge of a smouldering volcano of emotions. Each unfruitful visit made by the postie brought me near to tears of frustration.

  Quite often no letters came to our house at all and I sat at the window, watching the postie whistling his way past our gate, my heart cold and heavy at the prospect of having to wait for another day, another post. If I saw the postie open our gate and approach the door, all the life forces inside me were held in suspense at the click of the letter box. But I was sufficiently dignified and in control of myself to allow the postie to go down the path and shut the gate before I almost broke the sound barrier on my way to the hall.

  How many bills and circulars I gazed at with tears in my eyes I’ll never know, but one day it came, in a buff envelope, and the formal words telling me that my buggy was on its way filled my heart with their beauty.

  A few days later it arrived at our gate, blue and gleaming, an apparition of such complete and miraculous wonder that for a long time I could do nothing but just look at it from the window, unwilling to rob myself of those precious moments of just savouring a dream come true.

  But practicalities had to come and I soon realized that the workings of the new machine were much more complicated than those of Black Maria. To the layman these little invalid cars might appear easy to control. A lot of people are under the impression that they are automatic and all one has to do is push a magic button and off they go. The reality is very different. A good deal of effort was required for the push-pull tiller-type steering. Fortunately this was a left-hand construction. I was unable to straighten my right arm to its full extent so a right-hand tiller wouldn’t have suited my particular case though, if necessary, the Ministry repairers were experts at adapting a machine to the user’s needs. Throttle, clutch and brakes were all integrated on the tiller and the gears were to the right of the single seat, set in a straight-through ratchet-style housing. The battery was to the right of the seat behind the gears, with visibly large blobs of grease covering the terminals. The clutch fluid was contained in a small chamber at the junction of the steering column, covered by a rubber cap which I was to discover wasn’t efficient enough to contain the red fluid which could so effectively stain clothing. Little thought had been given to the personal comfort of the ‘invalid’. The upright seatback would have been perfect for a cross-legged, meditating Buddha, but as few ‘invalids’, or any sort of human for that matter, sit cross-legged or meditate while driving, the uncontoured seat was entirely unsuitable. A thin layer of rubber covered the metal floor which was badly sealed. Inclement weather brought whistling draughts and a swimming floor. There were no heaters in the little cars. The early ones, such as had been delivered to me, also had perspex windows through which force nine gales whistled with cruel abandon.

  The general public who think that the majority of disabled people are delicate souls who cannot possibly live without every comfort in the book have simply no idea of the endurance tests that the handicapped go through every day of their lives. Later on, Jim Clark, the famous Scottish racing driver, proved in his campaign for disabled drivers that the invalid car was unsafe, unreliable and uncomfortable, to put it mildly. So think again, able-bods. Strength comes with a handicap – it has to or none of ‘us’ would survive.

  I visualized none of the above-mentioned when I took delivery of Bertha Buggy, my pet name for the snub-nosed three-wheeler. My family were as thrilled as I was with the little car, yet there was a restraint in their attitude. They had all grown so used to me being around the house, a piece of the furniture, housebound little Christine with the happy smile and the breaking heart I never showed … now I was about to spread my wings … things were going to change. Sometimes people, even one’s own dear family, don’t like change in the familiar run of things.

  Da didn’t say much at first but later on went out to examine Bertha thoroughly. ‘That’s a rare wee bus,’ he stated grudgingly. ‘The weans wi
ll no’ be able tae run after ye in that.’

  ‘It’s a pity it’s only got one seat,’ said Mary on one of her Saturday visits.

  At her words I looked balefully at the little notice on the dashboard which stated that passenger-carrying was strictly forbidden. The same rule had applied to Black Maria but I had broken it because it hadn’t mattered so much. Bertha was different. I didn’t want to do anything to risk the ire of the Ministry if I was spotted by an official carrying a passenger.

  Ironically, there was just enough space to the left of the seat in which to place cushions or a small box, but I didn’t want the awful experience of being on the mat for breaking the rules.

  For a few joyful weeks I flew up and down country roads, revelling in the freedom that Bertha gave me, but the idea of getting a job was uppermost in my mind. Then I could be entirely independent. To date, I’d had to curb my fast-growing notions for fashionable clothing. My disablement allowance was almost totally absorbed into household expenses, leaving me little for personal spending.

  Once more the Guide Movement came to my aid, my Ranger Captain arranging an interview for me in a small clothing factory at Hillington Industrial Estate. It was an establishment subsidized by the Government to train the disabled. I was accepted as a trainee overlocker, and quaking with nerves I went one morning to start my first day at work. I had never particularly wanted to be a machinist, but then I had never given much thought to what I wanted to do with my life. All my notions had been hazy and idealistic until the stark reality of growing up with no financial means had driven the dreams from my head.

  I soon learned that I had been lucky to get training for a particular type of job. So often it was assumed that a dulling of the wits went hand in hand with physical disability. Some of the concepts that ‘normal’ people harbour about the disabled belong to the dark ages. Many employers came into this category. Wheelchairs, crutches and walking sticks are often regarded with reserved suspicion, though in most cases these accessories are only there to support actual human beings with properly functioning brains.