Uncle Bob was the exception, surviving Jeannie, all her brothers and sisters and their spouses, and living until he was almost ninety. Before he died, he told me that Granda Forsyth had been a bit of a drunkard when he was young, which is probably why his three sons were teetotal. On another visit, Bob surprised me by sighing, ‘I’m the only Forsyth left.’ He was absolutely serious, and I didn’t have the heart to remind him that he never was a Forsyth. I suppose, in a way, it was a compliment to his in-laws that he considered himself born as one of them.
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My earliest memory is of being taken through to Granny’s ‘room’ (the parlour) to see my great-grandfather’s coffin – James Paul, Senior. When his wife died, he had given up his croft at Toddlehills near Longside – not far from Peterhead on the north-east Scottish coast – which was in a sad state of repair and eventually accidentally burned down. This was the house pictured on the cover of my second novel as Rowanbrae, over sixty years later. The fire and the building of a bungalow on the site in the thirties were as near to the truth as the story came; the rest was pure fiction.
Well over eighty, Great-grandfather Paul had been living with his elder son in Aberdeen’s Ord Street for some months before his death. This became Quarry Street when I wrote Time Shall Reap, because Rubislaw Quarry was in close proximity. I was only about four at the time of his departure from this world, but I can still remember looking at the fearsome wooden object with its silent occupant, the bushy white beard resting on the satin lining, and saying, ‘Why’s Grampa sleeping in that big black box?’
*
While I was still a babe-in-arms, we went to Toddlehills in the motorcycle and sidecar on occasional Wednesday afternoons – Dad’s half day. Obviously, I can’t remember anything about those times or the place itself, but snapshots show that the house had a thatched roof and a big stack of peats built against the gable end.
Other photos show the old couple themselves, Greatgrandma in a long black bombazine dress, with her hair dragged severely back off her face . . . but it’s a kindly face. Her husband, on the other hand, looks quite stern, in a tweed jacket and trousers – I can’t tell if it’s an actual suit, probably not – and a snouted cap covering his white locks. They made a perfect Darby and Joan.
Once, when my mother was clearing out, she asked if I’d like to have her grandmother’s hatbox. She had kept it well hidden, but intrigued, I accepted with delight. There was nothing unusual about its slightly oval shape, but it was made of tin and painted black. The lid was hinged at the back and lifted upwards to reveal two mutches, much softer than bonnets, though similar in style. One was plain black, with wide strips of the same cotton material to tie under her chin. The other, also black, was beautifully adorned with loops of black satin ribbon, the extensions at each side becoming the tiers. This was her Sunday-go-to-kirk mutch, and according to my mother, was hardly ever worn on any other occasion.
I treasured that tin for many years, proudly showing the contents at every chance I got, but sadly, it was in a crate that went missing when we moved to our present home. Also lost was a waistcoat belonging to my husband’s great-grandfather – a truly magnificent creation of royal blue satin quilted and embroidered with gold. Willie Davidson must have been a real masher when he put it on, though I can’t for the life of me think of an occasion when he would have been likely to wear it. But he doesn’t belong here.
The visits to Toddlehills ended when the old lady died, of course.
It must have been in the mid 1920s that my Uncle Jim, my mother’s brother, was accepted for the Metropolitan Police and moved to London. As a bachelor, he lived in the Section House with the other unmarried young men, several other Scots amongst them, but soon began courting. Gwen Schaper, his lady friend, was the eldest daughter of an ex-sergeant/cook in the Royal Artillery, I think, who had taken over a hotel in Guilford Street, off Russell Square, when he ended his twenty-five years’ service . . . it may have been longer.
When I was six, we made the long journey to London, but it wasn’t until I mentioned it in the staffroom of the school where I was teaching some fifty years later, that I realised what an undertaking it had been. This was 1928 remember, seven years before driving licences were required, and when there were very few petrol pumps and even less garages on the road; very few proper roads, for that matter, mostly what were known as ‘unmade’, with no tarred surface.
Motorists had to learn by trial and error how to fix the engine when the car broke down, and I’m quite sure many faults were made worse through ignorance. But that was all part of owning a car, a challenge that most men must have enjoyed. The spare tyre was accommodated on the running board, where also sat a five-gallon can of petrol in case we ran out. I shouldn’t think my Dad was ner vous of making such a lengthy trip – he wasn’t that kind of person – but we did have friends with us, a Mr and Mrs Gammack, neighbours from Rosemount Viaduct, and you never knew what could happen out in the ‘wild blue yonder’. It was best to be prepared for any eventuality.
As usual, the boot was packed with all the necessities for making our own meals, plus a small ‘bivvy’ (bivouac) for Dad and Bill Gammack. I can’t remember the make of the car that made this daunting journey, but the door of the boot was hinged at the bottom, coming down to make a convenient table for our snacks. Whatever the make, it could cover the 508 miles as easily as any Rolls Royce; we just made one overnight stop at a place called Wreay, I think, in the north of England.
After having something to eat, Dad and Bill Gammack set up the ‘bivvy’ for themselves and the two ladies and I were to sleep inside the car. I am practically sure, however, that I was the only one who got any sleep that night. Even in July, it was still quite dark in the dead of night, and I was scared out of my wits to be rudely awakened by unearthly howls coming from somewhere close at hand. It turned out that the tent had been pitched on, or in very close proximity to, a colony of ‘forkytails’ – earwigs, to give them their proper name. They were crawling all over the two demented men, and Mum even had to fish one out of Dad’s ear with a hairpin. Not the best of medical equipment, you may think, but the only thing handy and it did the trick.
All thoughts of a peaceful sleep vanishing, we continued on our way, landing in London much earlier than we had expected. Of course, we took some time to find Guilford Street and Mr Schaper’s hotel, where we were to be staying.
Our host was a huge mass of a man, who did all the cooking sitting on a high stool. (His great belly sort of rested on the long table, and his vast behind overlapped all round the stool, neither of which seemed to bother him, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off him.) He didn’t have to move at all. With three sons and three daughters at his beck and call, he had everything he needed handed to him.
His wife ran everything else in the establishment, the ordering of food, the paying of accounts, dealing with the guests, making sure that her daughters kept the rooms spotless in their role as chambermaids, and were courteous and friendly in the dining room when they were waitresses – not too friendly, of course. She kept a strict lookout for any fraternising and quickly put her foot down if there was even the slightest hint of it. Mrs Schaper was no dragon, however. She was a small, slim woman, always laughing, always bustling about but never too busy to answer questions or to have a wee chat, if that seemed called for.
(I used the man, his wife and family, and his hotel, as models in the London-based part of The Back of Beyond, giving them different names.)
After we were given a lovely meal we were shown to our rooms, where we decided to unpack before venturing out into the great ‘metrollops’ (as I mis-repeated what my Dad said). We had another nasty shock. Our suitcases were moving with forkytails. They were inside everything, the feet of socks and stockings and even inside the ladies’ knickers – a rude word in those days and which were worn only under ladies’ skirts; men wore short underpants or drawers (long johns).
We never came across Wreay again in any of our travels
over the years, although I recently found it in a large-scale map, but it remained in our memories as ‘Forkytail Hotel’. Ah, happy days!
On that holiday, we saw quite a lot of London’s attractions – Madame Tussaud’s, where Auntie Gwen was sent into hysterics by a young boy swinging a hanging body round in the Chamber of Horrors (the huge hook was through her stomach and blood was much in evidence . . . well, red paint) – the Tower, Nelson’s Column, and so on. We also found time to go shopping in some of the big stores. I can remember Mum buying me a lovely straw sunhat in Selfridges in Oxford Street – I even had my photo taken wearing it but I lost it before we even got home.
*
Uncle Jim and Gwen Schaper became engaged shortly after we’d been there, but their cosy, happy world was soon to be shattered. I don’t know the ins and outs of the operation he had to remove his tonsils, but from various accounts of it, I’ve gathered that a swab was inadvertently left inside. All I do know for certain is that it infected one of his lungs and by the time the trouble was diagnosed and that lung had been removed, the other lung was also badly affected. Both lungs, of course, could not be removed – there were no such miracles as transplants then – and his condition was so critical that his parents were sent for. Gwen insisted on marrying him although the doctors held out no hope for him, and the marriage ceremony was performed at his bedside.
He did sur vive, however, and was given enough compensation to buy a small grocery shop in Stoke Newington. But it was no real compensation. For the rest of his life he had a hole in his back about two inches in diameter, from which a rubber tube protruded. This was so that the poison from his one remaining lung could be drained out every day. Repugnant as this task must have been to her, Auntie Gwen carried it out manfully until he died, roughly forty years later. He had still not reached retirement age.
One incident comes to mind regarding Auntie Gwen. While her new husband was recuperating in hospital, she and her friend, Alice, came to Aberdeen by boat to see her in-laws (my Granny and Granda). This would have been about 1930 or ’31, and their cabin cost them £1 each. I was not much more than eight, but that was when I discovered how little the English knew about the Scots.
They were both pretty girls, dark and vivacious, but it was Alice who made their visit so memorable, stunning everybody as she came down the gangway, by saying, in a disappointed voice as she looked around the people waiting on the quay, ‘Oh, I thought all Scotsmen wore kilts and had red hair.’
This at a time when very few Scotsmen could afford a kilt and a redheaded man was not altogether common. My Dad had red hair though, as had his father, as had I, but then I wasn’t a man. Granda used to tell us we weren’t proper Forsyths if we didn’t have red hair, which upset those of my cousins who didn’t. Of those who did, only one actually had Forsyth as his surname. The others were either daughters of the sons, or children of the daughters, who, of course, bore different surnames.
Back to Alice. Her other gaffe came on the Sunday night when Granny set out home-baked oatcakes and a huge lump of Crowdie cheese on the table for tea, plus, of course, scones, pancakes, shortbread, strawberry and raspberry jam, all home-made. This was the usual Sunday tea, because dinner (lunch nowadays) had consisted of broth or some kind of soup, boiled beef, carrots and tatties, and maybe a jelly or semolina pudding or tapioca. There was no need for another three-course meal, but the tea-table was also laden with food . . . always.
Alice helped herself to a quarter of oatcakes – a triangle six inches at least at its widest because Granny wasn’t into elegance – and bit into it without spreading it with butter or having anything to drink. After swallowing what must have been a bone-dry mouthful, she exclaimed, ‘Oh, I know what this is. It’s porridge in the raw.’
I’ll draw the curtain there. If they had stayed for much longer, my poor Granda would have had apoplexy from trying to hold back his laughter.
Some years later, we visited the Paul family in Stoke Newington, in the house above the shop. Auntie Gwen had a wicked sense of humour and one morning, while the Italians in the ice cream shop in the street behind were all talking at the same time and flinging their hands about, my Dad said, quite innocently, ‘I wonder what they’re saying to each other?’
‘Would you like to say good morning to them?’ Auntie Gwen smiled, and proceeded to teach him a short phrase in Italian.
He was about to stick his head through the open window and repeat it, when Uncle Jim put his hand on his shoulder. ‘No, Bob, you’d better not. She’s taught you a string of swear words.’
There was laughter all round, but to this day, that phrase still comes to my mind occasionally. I hope I never meet any Italians, otherwise I might feel like airing my linguistic ability and end up with a broken nose.
On one of our holidays there, we went to Brooklands to the motorcycle racing, but got lost before we ever got out of London. Spotting a bobby on point duty at a junction, Dad stopped and asked for directions – in his very best English. To his surprise and our amusement, the policeman answered in the Doric, the broad Aberdeenshire dialect. ‘Weel, weel, laddie, you’re a lang wye fae hame.’
After a second, Dad joined in the laughter, and I was told to write down where the bobby was directing us.
The butcher’s shop closed early on Wednesdays, and in the summers we mostly visited Mum’s sister Nell at the various places where her farm-ser vant husband was cottared. Like so many farm workers, he only worked at each farm for the obligatory six-month period before going to the feeing market in Aberdeen to sign up with another farmer. They moved around a lot, mainly in Aberdeenshire, and I liked going to see them because there were plenty of cousins to play with, nine at the final count.
Eventually, however, they settled in Ellon, Auntie Nell’s husband taking up the life of a peddler in preference to the hard work on a farm. This was, perhaps, a good move for him, but not for his wife and family, for they only saw him occasionally, at longer and longer intervals until his visits stopped altogether. He never supported his children from the time he abandoned them, and Auntie Nell had a hard struggle to feed and clothe them, but she was a hardy woman, fit for anything.
On one occasion, the minister came to ask why she didn’t send her family to Sunday School and she answered him snappily, and completely honestly, by saying they didn’t have anything decent to wear – a sentiment probably sprinkled with an oath or two. Maybe swearing was the only way she could cope with the worry of where the next meal was coming from, or new shoes for the bairns, or clothes for school, and her colourful language didn’t seem to bother anybody – neighbours or friends alike came to her for advice in their troubles.
Our playground in Ellon was the north bank of the River Ythan – not a huge river by any means, but certainly deep and treacherous enough to carry off a child who fell in. No warnings were displayed, and although Auntie Nell generally said, ‘Keep awa’ fae the edge, mind’, we didn’t heed her. We could look after ourselves.
If the ball went into the water when we were playing football or rounders, or whatever, and got wedged in the weeds, one of the older boys would shin up a tree, inch along a low branch until he was over the water, and use a stick to try to fish it out. The rest of us watched with no idea of the danger involved, carrying on with the game as if nothing had happened when the ball was retrieved. Sometimes, sad to say, the ball dislodged itself and was carried away altogether, which meant the end of the game . . . unless we could rope in somebody else who could provide one. Looking back on the exploits we got up to then, I’m sure we must have had a guardian angel looking after us.
The only trouble we ever had came from people – men to be precise. Auntie Nell’s upstairs flat could only be reached by going through a close that also led to the back entrance to the Buchan Hotel, and quite often, we were verbally accosted (no physical abuse, I can assure you) by one or more drunks. They could hardly stand, so we called them names back, safe in the knowledge that they couldn’t chase us – Ba
ldie, Fatty, Bandy, Baldy, Specky. My oldest cousin once tried Buggerlugs, but the cursing, fist-waving recipient wasn’t as drunk as he looked, and we had to run for our lives. A whole crowd of us tore across the quadrangle, up the outside stairs and burst into the house, many more of us than actually belonged there. Auntie Nell strode to her door and, looking over the top rail, she let rip with a mouthful of oaths of her own. She ended the exchange by shouting, ‘Awa’ an’ bile yer heid, ye drunken bugger!’
Her four sons all grew to around six feet, her five daughters all married with no scandals attached to them beforehand, so all in all, and even taking her linguisitic failing into account, she did a pretty good job of bringing them up.
Occasionally, we went to Peterhead on a Wednesday to visit a Mrs Lawrence, some sort of distant relative but I never found out exactly what the connection was – on my Granny’s side, I think. Over ninety, she was bedridden, and it amazed me to watch her propped up on what looked like dozens of pillows, knitting socks, wearing a ‘busk’ round her middle. This was a leather pad with holes in it where she stuck in her four knitting needles (wires, she called them) to keep them steady, or maybe because she hadn’t the strength to support their weight, I don’t know, but by Jove, she could fairly click on. This is the house I describe in The Three Kings, although I couldn’t have been much more than eight or nine when she died and I was writing about it sixty-five years later.
On winter Wednesdays, my father played football in the Shopkeepers’ League (none of them available for Saturday games). He was a very athletic man; a photograph shows him to be in the Porthill Gymnastic Club Session 1912–13, and another in the Excelsior Football Club 1919–20. When he was not so engaged, however, he took his wife and small daughter to the Cinema House, just along from where we lived in Rosemount Viaduct.
Gift from the Gallowgate Page 2