by Jess Smith
Davey, unlike me, had no sisters but he did have two brothers. His youngest brother was called Alex, who had the brain of a genius, always studying. Sadly, though, his older brother whom he idolised was killed in Germany while serving with the Remies. He and several lads who were heading back to barracks took a short-cut over a railway line. No one knows the details, but their army vehicle got stuck and was hit by an express train. I always felt heart-sorry for his parents, because they never got over losing their eldest son. Still, to have our grandson put some happiness back into their hearts made me feel good in a small way.
Daddy was chuffed to have another boy in the family (Chrissie had two, Shirley one and Mona also had one). When he peeped into the tiny mite’s cot, he smiled and assured me ‘he’s the look of a soldier about him.’ The strange thing was that Johnnie, by the age of sixteen, was a member of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces.
Before I leave the maternity ward, let me share this last bit with you, reader. It was on my fourth day when the metal clips and stitches were tightening their grip on my abdomen and I felt like screaming with pain. A nurse brought me mail, a wee letter from Mammy to cheer me up, lovely. However, when the smiling nurse pointed out the address I nearly fell from the bed. Instead of writing PERTH ROYAL INFIRMARY, my sweet, innocent mother wrote ‘Jess Smith, R. I. P.’ (Royal Infirmary Perth). It caused hilarious laughter through the Matty that day, I can tell you, folks. I saved that envelope as a keepsake.
A terrible thing happened after that. It was July, and Janey and her family came to Arnbro for a few weeks holiday. She had three lovely wee girls and was six months pregnant. Across from where our caravan was stanced, her man parked theirs. Between us was the access road. Wee Irene was their youngest, just starting to walk. She was with me when her mother called her over. None of us saw the car. Baby Irene was killed outright.
That was when as a family we cracked. My parents and two remaining sisters went far away up to Macduff on the Banffshire coast to retire, living in a house for the first time in many a year. Mary married and moved to England. Janey had another girl whom she called Angela, she said she’d lost an angel and now had another one.
Within no time my youngest sisters met and married fine northern lads, leaving Mammy and Daddy, oh, and wee Tiny, all alone.
For a time Davey wandered about the country with me being a true traveller. I was fine, but unknown to me my man hadn’t the stomach for a lifestyle alien to him. And to rub salt on his wounds, the skin condition which robbed him of the chance of being a joiner dug deep. Poor lad, although I tried to treat his weeping sores, it became apparent he needed to see a skin specialist. I remember the doctor saying only daily emulsifying baths would help. There was nothing else for it but to find a house.
He also began drinking heavily, so we headed back to Crieff. I thought if he were on home ground then he’d pull up his socks and we’d make a go of it. We moved into a flat in Gallowhill. In times gone by this was where sheep stealers and murderers hung for days. Our wee ground floor flat looked out onto the very place.
Soon Davey found work in a pallet factory along the Broich. I was pregnant again and not very well. For a start all my relatives had moved away, I had no one to turn to, while Davey drank more of his wages than paid bills.
It was between Christmas and New Year. You know, the time when a lot of Scots lads don’t need an excuse to down the ‘cratur.’ My husband included.
If our marriage had chances, then they were thinning rapidly. I decided to have one last go at healing the cracks. This is what I did.
A thick frost was covering everything; even my washing hung stiff on the line. I stared out through the kitchen window and felt the tiny feet inside my belly kick hard against my ribs. ‘I think you’re another wee laddie,’ I told the unborn child, running my hand gently across my swollen belly.
Johnnie was only eighteen months and looking up at me with sleepy eyes for his ‘sooky’, a piece of flannel he took to bed to suck on. I pulled it down off the pulley where it hung still damp, and gave it to him. I’d done all my housework and it had gone two p.m., so I thought I’d take a nap with my toddling boy. Davey had gone ‘for a pint’ earlier, and I didn’t expect to see him until five, teatime. When Johnnie and I cuddled in, time seemed to slip by, and soon he was prodding me to get his tea. I got up, heated him soup, and by eight o’ clock he was bathed and ready for bed once more. The house was very quiet, and as I had bought some cocoa powder I made a chocolate sponge.
I was used to Davey not arriving home for tea, so thought I’d wait until he arrived before cooking. I put on a nice big coal-stapped fire and settled down with a book. Hour followed hour, and minutes after midnight had struck loudly from the town clock Davey wobbled through the door. ‘Not much use in putting soup into that beer-filled gut,’ I thought, so smiled and asked him if he wanted a nice slice of chocolate sponge before going to bed?
‘If that is what you call feeding a grown man—chocolate bloody cake—well, think again!’ He then threw my offering against the fireplace and collapsed on the settee. As I watched the cake blob and splat onto the floor I made my fateful decision—tomorrow morning, when the day dawned, he would be dead!
From the washing line I removed a pair of solid, frozen pyjamas. I then opened the back door; very calmly I pulled the alcohol-unconscious man I’d foolishly married from off the settee until he lay upon the floor. I then removed every stitch of clothing and replaced it with those still frozen pyjamas. The next part (which was hardest with me being so heavily pregnant) was to pull him outside. He’d be found in the morning, and even the most suspicious law-enforcer would never imagine that poor wee pregnant me could have any hand in his demise. He’d be dead and my bairn and me would be free.
I calmly locked every door and window and happily couried under my bed covers with the knowledge Davey was no more. I was now wee Jess—mankiller!
Johnnie wakened me needing his breakfast. I, remembering, rose from bed with a thumping headache, streaming nostrils and a terrible cold, while my victim lay cuddled into my back, sound asleep, wearing those same pyjamas and none the worse after my attempted murder!
I promise you this, reader, to this day I have no idea how he got into the house, it remains a mystery. But the strange thing was, Davey, from that day to this, has behaved in every way as the good and wise husband and father.
The unexplained, wouldn’t you say, folks?
I was right about the child being a boy, and we named him Stephen. Then, despite my doctor protesting ‘no more’, I went ahead and tried for a girl. She came along three years later and we named her Barbara.
Not many years later Shirley separated from her husband, leaving her devastated with two children to bring up on her own. My parents worried about her, so they upped sticks and settled in Glenrothes. It was here at the ripe old age of twenty-one that Tiny, our wee fox terrier cross, died. God bless that wee dog, there never was a more loyal jugal than him.
A little while later, while visiting Janey at Brechin, Daddy suffered a collapsed lung and was rushed into Strathcathro Hospital, where his youngest brother happened to be a charge nurse. ‘How long have I got, Joe?’ he asked him. Joe said he wasn’t allowed to disclose such information. But Daddy reminded him that travelling brothers don’t keep secrets like that from each other.
‘Then, see’n as ye pit it like that, cove,’ answered Joe, ‘six months! Better get things in order, Charlie.’
That was in June. He hired a small car, and after spending two weeks with every one of us he and Mammy went back to Glenrothes to spend what little time they had left together. By mid-December his six months were up. It was then that he took the decision to finish his life. ‘I will not drink water, Jeannie, or food, so don’t give me any, lassie.’
Mammy began to panic: this wasn’t how she’d imagined his end to be, not as drastic as this. But she knew her man. Black and white was Daddy, she knew he’d never put her through years of nursing a vegetable, an
d that was exactly what he’d be if air didn’t reach his lungs to feed his brain, he’d told her many times. She was frightened, so we all rallied round, taking turns to stay with her and keep the pecker up. Daddy relented and drank a little water, but took no food. When Mammy could no longer watch the man with whom she’d shared almost fifty years withering in front of her eyes, she begged the doctor to put him into the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy. At the end of January, Daddy took a massive stroke. We were all there around his bed. Each one of us kissed him and said our goodbyes. When it was my turn he opened his eyes and whispered in my ear, ‘Remember your promise to take care of Mammy.’
I stood there staring down at his pale, lifeless body. My precious father, the travelling man who never once denied his roots, joined the Ancient Ones still holding up his head, proud and steadfast in the old ways. My mentor was dead, aged sixty-nine years.
He was buried in Crieff, where he wanted to rest. So his funeral tea was held in our wee house in Monteath Street. May I say this in all honesty, that when a traveller dies it is out of respect that travelling folk come, some hundreds of miles, and they certainly came that day. It was a freezing cold February. My house was bursting. The womenfolk stayed inside while the men lined up outside in our garden and even spilled onto the street with cups of tea and scones in shivering hands. I still wonder what my ‘scaldy’ neighbours were thinking.
Mammy went back to Glenrothes to mourn. I told Davey that Daddy had chosen me to be her keeper if she ever needed one. She certainly was as healthy a specimen as ever she was, but we said any time she wanted to come to Crieff then she only had to ask. After three months we received a phone-call, it was Mammy, she was ready to move in with us. For two years she shared her life with us, Davey, me and our three teenage kids.
However I began to see signs of strain on her face, and although she’d never say so, I knew a sink of her own was what was needed and a little peace and quiet.
My sister Renie’s man, who adored Mammy, bought her a picturesque cottage in Crieff. She was in seventh heaven, it was beautiful. With a little secluded garden, that one-bedroom home was all she desired. After it was decorated and furnished, she held my hands and said, ‘Jessie, this’ll dae me till I die.’ And it did.
Eleven years Mammy stayed in her wee cottage. Every single day I popped in to keep an eye on her. Mary had brought her a wee dog called Laddie, and if ever a jugal was ruined then he was, he even slept at the feet of her bed. Sometimes we’d walk and talk about when the end came, this was quite natural for her although I would quickly change the subject. ‘Lassie, I’m seventy-odds, don’t ye think me and yer faither have been apart far too long?’ (On reflection I remembered the faraway look she’d sometimes have and I could see she was drifting back to the old days with him at her side.)
I’d laugh, but inside my heart was breaking so I’d pick up a stick and throw it to Laddie just to avoid the conversation. However her eyesight was failing, and once or twice she’d had a heart scare. So one night while she suffered a wee turn we lay in bed and she told me what her wishes were. ‘All the gifts your sisters have given me through the years, I want them to have them back. There will just be enough money in my piggy bank to pay for the funeral. I want it paid in cash, mind, nane o’ yon cheques, OK. And most important, make sure my knickers aren’t showing if I crumple down. God, it’s a red face I have when thinking of my clothes up over my knees.’
I cuddled into her and said, ‘Mammy, dear, you’ll be here a while yet.’
It was mid-June when Renie phoned to see if Mammy was all right, she’d spoken with her and thought her voice sounded weak. I said she and I had shared a baked tattie with chicken mayonnaise for lunch and she seemed fine, although she had complained of a sore stomach in the night.
That evening as usual I called her on the phone to see if her blanket was on and if the dog was in, but there was no answer. I froze and Davey had to prise the phone from my fingers.
We rushed down the few hundred yards from our house to hers.
My Mammy lay dead on the paisley-carpeted floor. Only a tiny inch of petticoat peeped out from beneath her Black Watch tartan skirt. Arms were crossed over her chest. Everything was just as she wished but I had taken no part in this. No one can convince me that the Ancient Ones hadn’t prepared her for my eyes, my last sight before she was laid.
I called the doctor who pronounced her dead, and before putting her into bed to await the undertaker I held her eight times, a cuddle from us all, her precious daughters.
My promise kept.
So now, my dear friends, we come to the end. My travelling days never found the way back onto the road, because I travelled a different one. One with a husband and children. However, as I said before, ‘you can take the traveller out of the road but never take the road out of the traveller.’ I believe my road is still there, finding new bends and new campsites. Yes, of course they are all in my mind, but that’s okay. As a storyteller and singer I share them with everyone. When people ask me as they always do, ‘where do you belong?’ I still say ‘wherever the feather falls.’
Where do you belong?
I belong
Wherever the wind blows.
I am the feather
That soars above the billow’s crest,
That wheels above the moorland crags,
That lines the nest in far places.
I am the seed
That is borne aloft on the breeze,
That lights down on distant pastures,
That is the life of my people.
I have the strength of the tempest,
The gentleness of the zephyr.
I’m the spirit of the whole land.
I am within the unbroken circle
That has no beginning and no ending.
Around I go like the story of life.
Michael G. Kidd
Reader, you have been fine company as we travelled together through these memory-filled pages. Thank you.
GLOSSARY OF UNFAMILIAR WORDS
Abune—above
ahent—behind
barry—fine, smart
bent-backit—bent-backed
bidey-in—live-in
bint—woman
bitty—a little bit
boking—retching, vomiting
braw—good
cant—traveller dialect
catty—catapult
chats—earrings
chavie—young man
chittie—iron tripod positioned over an open fire
chuckit—useless
clootie dumpling— rich pudding, steamed in a cloth
cobble—short, flat-bottomed rowing boat
courie doon—snuggle down
couried—hidden, snuggled
crabbit—peevish, irritable
deek—see, look
een—eyes
gadgie—man, fellow
gan-about—traveller, gypsy
gouries—young girls
graip—pitchfork
guffy—pig
guid—good
hantel—group or crowd of people; country hantel, non-travellers
haun—hand
heechy—mad moment
hoolit—owl
hornies—police
jugal—dog
kushtie—great
leric—blackbird
Lorne sausage—square sliced sausage
louped—leaped
lowie—money, wealth
luggie—container with one or two handles (used for collecting berries)
lunzie—tramp’s bag or pouch
lurcher—a dog crossed between a collie or sheepdog and a greyhound, often used by poachers
menses—food
merl—blackbird
muckle—a lot, big
pagger—a beating
puckle—a few, small
purn—bobbin
quine—girl, young person
roused—angry
ruggle stane—natur
al river stone used to sharpen knives
scadded—rubbed, chafed
scaldy—settled, i.e. non-traveller
schnell—sharp, biting
scunner—nuisance, annoyance
shan—frighten; shan chories, stolen goods; shan gadgie, an untrustworthy man
shanning—scaring, frightening
shaw—stalk
siller—silver, money
skelp—hit, beat
smir—fine drizzle
sookit—sucked
stapped full—jammed full
stardy—jail, police station
stushie—fight, commotion
tank—to skin
thrawn—stubborn, contrary
tottie—small
washie—washhouse
wayn—large amount, cartload
wean—child
weel kent—well known
yin—one
ENDNOTE
1. The remains of Toshach Castle were dismantled as late as the early nineteenth century under the supervision of the Murrays of Ochtertyre.
Jessie’s father (right) aged 15 with his boyhood friend, Wullie Donaldson
Jessie’s mother and father in 1942 (Pitlochry)
Jessie’s mother holding Babsy (Aberfeldy)
Jessie (right) and her sister, Renie
Jessie aged 14 with her mother, Jeannie, in Kirkcaldy
Jessie aged 14 with her father, Charlie, in Kirkcaldy
Jessie’s mother fooling around in Lennie’s Yard, Kirkcaldy
Jessie’s sister, Janey, in front of the bus
Sandy Stewart, the ‘Cock o’ the North’ (Picture reproduced by kind permission of David Cowan)
Tiny the dog
Jessie and Davey on their wedding day in Perth, Hogmanay 1966