by David Leslie
Whatever changes might have occurred in her own feelings, she was railroaded into going along with what her father commanded; however, these new emotions strengthened with each passing day and by the time the baby was born there is no doubt Hannah wished she could have kept the child. By then, it was too late. In any case, her father had laid down the law; to have defied him was unthinkable to a 20-year-old girl, largely alone in life.
As with her silence on the Bible John issue, it is so easy to condemn Hannah, but her options were already severely limited because of the secrecy of her pregnancy. If Malcolm said the household could not cope with a youngster, then that effectively barred her from taking a baby home. She would be homeless and jobless and, while not friendless, who else was there to offer shelter to a young woman some would regard as immoral?
Social workers were hardly likely to want a change of mind at such a late stage either. The process of adopting a child is long and convoluted, and for the adoptive parents to have endured the wait only to be told that the birth mother had changed her mind would be devastating for them. Hence a heavily pregnant woman who has said she does not want to keep her child is encouraged to stick with her decision. Hannah had the added pressure of her father agreeing with the social work team.
By January 1970, it was obvious the arrival of the baby was imminent. Hannah was forced to miss work and a note was sent to the Hoover factory to the effect she was ill. Hannah was taken to the Bellshill Maternity Hospital – a careless mistake, as the hospital was staffed by local people, some of whom would know Hannah and her family. Tongues would wag and the secret would be out.
As soon as the bungle was realised, she was instantly removed and transferred to the posh-sounding Glasgow Royal Maternity Hospital in the north of the city, bizarrely named ‘The Rottenrow’ after the street in which it stood. It is said the name was derived from the area being used in medieval times as a dumping ground for refuse and sewage.
One who entered the world there was Ian Brady, born Ian Duncan Stewart illegitimately at Rottenrow to tearoom waitress Peggy Stewart on 2 January 1938. He would later take the surname of a stepfather. At the time of the Bible John horror, Brady’s was a name recognised and reviled, as was his girlfriend’s, Myra Hindley, for the sickening wave of murders he had orchestrated, the victims being children, four of whom were buried on Saddleworth Moor near Oldham in Lancashire. Hannah felt a shudder of revulsion as she was wheeled through the same doors Brady had arrived through, newly born, just over 30 years earlier.
At least the deaths of these children had been solved and the perpetrators caged forever. As Hannah went into labour, teams of detectives outside in the city were still sifting through even the most tenuous clues in their search for solutions to this latest spate of madness.
The baby arrived in early January 1970. It was a girl, born without complications and evidently healthy, her appearance arousing in her mother the deepest of maternal instincts and the strongest desire to retain what was hers. It is difficult not to share Hannah’s distress at being separated from the child so soon, probably within hours, before the bond between them became too close.
Before entering hospital she had confided to Joan, ‘I know I’m going to have to give my baby away, but I’m not going to send him or her into the world without anything. It’s a bad enough place to begin with. I know I won’t see my own child, but I want to know the baby leaves me looking cared for and knowing when he or she grows up its mother made sure it wasn’t given up with nothing.’ She had bought a tiny woollen outfit for the babe, which had been brought into Rottenrow with her and handed to maternity staff. It was a heart-rending gesture and those who attended the new mother could see the hurt and distress she was suffering.
There would be even worse to come for her. After the baby had been delivered and nurses were preparing to take her away, Hannah begged them, ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’ The rule was that a mother who had agreed to have a baby adopted should be told nothing, the theory being that the less that was known, the less it would hurt. It was impossible not to be moved.
‘A girl,’ she was told.
‘Then I want to give her a name.’
‘OK, Hannah, what are you calling her?’
‘Isobel.’
‘Isobel, what a sweet name. Why Isobel?’
‘Isobel was the name of my sister. I’m keeping a promise.’
She clearly wanted to talk more, but her fatigue was evident. She would need every ounce of strength in order to cope with the ordeal that lay ahead. As for Isobel, she would remain at Rottenrow until doctors were satisfied she was free from illness and ready to face life in the outside world.
The couple she would in the future call her parents were waiting anxiously. They had simply been told a baby could be theirs, without anything more specific. It would have been a bitter blow for them should their hopes have been raised only for something to change the plans at the last moment. The slighter the expectation, the easier would disappointment be to bear should it come. The legal documents that accompanied Isobel on her way out of hospital stated that the baby’s mother had been prevented by her own father from keeping it and that it was in the child’s best interests to be given a future with another family.
The birth would be registered in due course, although the space marked ‘Name, surname, and rank or profession of father’ would remain blank. Hannah would maintain that in all honesty she did not know who he was. But was it a name that would ultimately be provided by the police? Had Bible John become a father?
A few days after the birth, Hannah left Rottenrow alone and returned home to Bellshill, outwardly as though nothing had happened. Inside, she felt wretched, racked with questions. What colour were her baby’s eyes? What colour was her hair? Who was to comfort her when she began teething? When would she begin to crawl? When would she take her first steps? Who would be there to see her first laugh? When would she begin to form her first words? Would she cry on her first day at school? Who would take her there? What is in store for her when she grows up? Would they ever meet? What would her new parents be like? She was inconsolable with grief but knew the clock could not be turned back.
The next day she was back at work. Colleagues sympathised with her over her illness but were aware that their queries as to what had been wrong were met with vague looks and not really answered. That first night, lying in bed, Hannah found it impossible to sleep, as she restlessly tossed and turned before abandoning any hope of relief from the torment. Her uncertainties were dominated by the future, but it was the past and its memories that took over.
A month later, in February, Hannah read that a man named Thomas Ross Young, a lorry driver, had been jailed for eight years. He had offered to give a girl aged 15 a lift but stopped at Abington, 35 miles south of Glasgow, on the main west coast route into England, where she was savagely attacked and raped. Hannah hardly needed reminding of that terrible night nearly a year ago when someone had offered her a lift, but seeing the newspaper article brought it flooding back.
‘I know what that girl must feel,’ she thought to herself. ‘I wonder if she’s pregnant?’ But there were few with whom she could share her thoughts.
TEN
TEA IN THE GRASS
Malcolm’s insistence that Hannah give up her daughter for fear of the shame her existence would bring on him was puzzling. His own father had been adopted and so the family had come to know what it was like to feel unwanted. It was strange that he should be so unsympathetic to a woman, particularly one formed from his own flesh and blood, who found herself in the family way before tying the knot.
The relationship between father and daughter was close and loving, as good as either could have hoped for. When Hannah was a youngster, Malcolm had fought her corner and his protective attitude towards her provoked envy in many of her school friends.
He and Jessie had married at the end of December 1945, when he was aged twenty-three and she three years younger, exchanging their vows
knowing she was already pregnant. Just seven and a half months later, on 14 July 1946, Isobel, their first child, was born.
Fortunately for the couple, such a relatively short pregnancy and early arrival was not uncommon at this time. The end of the Second World War had seen many thousands of young men sent home, some of whom had neither seen their girlfriends nor slept with a woman for years. It was hardly surprising therefore that, after such long periods of enforced separation, many young men and women discovered they were about to become parents and so hastily arranged marriages followed. If a baby arrived before the ensuing nine months were over, the excuse would be made that the baby was the result of a premature birth.
After Isobel, Jessie had fallen pregnant again. She and her husband had desperately hoped for a son and their prayers were answered with a chubby boy with red curls for hair whom they named Richard. But it was soon obvious something was wrong with the baby. The child’s body began developing at an abnormal rate. It is possible he was a victim of the rare Proteus syndrome. The result was tragic and Richard died before he reached his first birthday. His parents were shattered by the youngster’s death, but the effect on Jessie was devastating. She had pinned her hopes on having a boy and now he had gone. A doctor called in to comfort her and gave her the best advice he could offer. ‘Have another baby, and have it right away.’
So Jessie fell pregnant for a third time. She suffered from heart disease and carrying a baby and giving birth could place huge strains on that vital organ; nevertheless, there was no reason to suspect anything was wrong when Hannah was born three and a half years after Isobel. And there wasn’t. Not physically at least. But the child was not the boy the mother had so wanted to replace Richard. She already had a girl and felt cheated. Hannah’s mother would always find it difficult to overcome these emotions.
‘Hannah was resented from the word go by her mother,’ said a friend. ‘Isobel was now aged three and a half and the apple of Jessie’s eye. There was no room in her heart for a second girl and so Hannah was doomed to take second place throughout her life. The result was that she had a terrible relationship with her mother, turning instead for love to Malcolm, a quiet, thoughtful man who said little but was popular with a lot of the other children because he was not the strict Victorian type their fathers were.
‘Jessie loved to go out partying, dressing up and having a good time, and as a result Hannah was often left in the care of her dad. He had a kindness about him and a tolerance for other children who used to play with Hannah.’
At the time of her birth, the family lived in Blackburn, midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, but they would move to Clyde Place, Bothwellhaugh, where the young girl would spend most of her formative years. Bothwellhaugh, a mile from Bellshill, was known locally as the Pailis, a play on the title of the local mine, Hamilton Palace Colliery. Built up in the late nineteenth century, the village was made up of long rows of terraced homes, with outside shared toilets where bath night involved taking it in turn to climb into a massive metal bucket in front of the coal fire, cleanest first, muckiest last. Up to 2,000 people lived in the Pailis in its heyday, but the closure of the pit in 1959, when Hannah was approaching ten years of age, took away the reason for its existence. Sadly, the move to a new home in Bellshill made no difference to the manner in which Jessie looked upon her youngest daughter.
For reasons that will become apparent, other parents living in the Pailis were not so keen on having their offspring visit the Martin home, but the children themselves were envious of Isobel and her sister. Each week they had something to look forward to that the vast majority of the others did not. It was called the Family Day.
Saturdays, barring some serious occurrence such as a wedding or illness, were reserved for the family. Nowadays, with a car at the disposal of most families, travel is taken for granted; it is even looked upon as a chore. However, for the majority in the early 1950s it was something of an adventure, especially if the family had access to a motor. The Martins were lucky in this respect.
Family Day meant an outing from the Pailis to the nearby town of Hamilton. As this was an outside treat, from time to time Hannah would beg for a friend to be allowed to join her. The sisters and their parents would take a bus and tour the town’s shops, gazing in windows, looking enviously at rows of jars filled with every taste and colour of sweet, at gay dresses and shiny shoes, and then, as a special treat for the children, head for stores where the wide-eyed youngsters could eye up toys and dolls.
The supermarket era had not arrived; instead, Jessie and her band of followers would visit the butcher, baker and general dealer, perhaps get the girls new clothing and, come late afternoon, they’d pile into a restaurant for a sit-down meal. Around six o’clock, lugging packed shopping bags, all would pile into a bus for the journey home. But, alighting, Malcolm would disappear and head off in the direction of one of the local bars, returning sometime between nine and ten in the evening with fish suppers for all. This weekly treat might not sound like much, but it was utopia to the children and well within the family budget. The average weekly wage at this time was £5 2s 3d, while Malcolm’s pint would have set him back 1s 2d.
About once a month, the wider Martin family – Malcolm, Jessie, Isobel, Hannah, Malcolm’s parents, Richard and Hannah, plus various uncles, aunts and friends – would meet up, usually on a Sunday, for what became known as Tea in the Grass. This was in essence a grand picnic. The contingent would frequently head in the direction of the Trossachs, and the favoured destinations included Loch Lomond, Balloch, Helensburgh and Arrochar, and the appropriately named Rest and Be Thankful, a stopping point with spectacular views.
‘As we drove along, Granny Martin would turn to her husband and say, “I think this is a good spot for Tea in the Grass. What do you think?” He’d always reply, “Whatever you think.” He never argued or disputed her choice. Her word was law,’ recalled an old friend. ‘The car would stop at the side of some road, everyone would pile out of the motor and from the boot they would start producing chairs, but first one for Granny, blankets for everybody else to sit on and then the food. It must have involved some considerable preparation because Granny Hannah could put on a full dinner, meat and a variety of vegetables on a plate, and when that had been eaten open tins of custard, which would be poured over cakes or some other delicacy she had baked. You would see others passing and know they would be eating sandwiches while we felt as though we were seated in a restaurant having a full Sunday lunch.
‘The meal over, we’d sit around or go play until it came time to have tea, a sandwich, some biscuits and a cuppa. While we were having Tea in the Grass, the menfolk would drift away in the direction of the nearest pub or hotel for a pint and a natter, about the previous day’s football probably, or gossip about what was in the newspapers. The invitation to take alcohol did not include the women, and Granny would say, “You let the men do men’s things and the women do women’s things.” A couple of hours later, by which time we’d have had tea and cleared up, the men would return. They always came back cheerier than when they went.’
Family snapshots, taken during Tea in the Grass outings, reveal how seriously these occasions were taken. They show Richard Martin dressed in a formal dark suit, his shirt buttoned to the neck and wearing a tie; his wife in a patterned dress, a cardigan around her shoulders, before a portable table heaped with cups and plates; Malcolm, clearly relaxed, eating as he lies in the grass then squatting on the edge of Loch Lomond to wash his plate; Jessie, dark haired, upright and attractive in a flowing white dress pulled up to her knees to reveal long, shapely legs; and the children, playful and conscious of the camera, eating and drinking with relish.
Buddhists are taught the law of karma, which states that everything that happens is caused by something done previously; that we are responsible through our own actions for the course of our lives. Do good and good follows, evil and evil will result. In these terms, it is impossible to look at the faces of these little girls
and understand why the events that would determine the course of their lives occurred. Their expressions suggest innocence and joy. Some suggest our karma is influenced by the thoughts and deeds of others, which might provide a solution, but the photographs give no hint of what lay in store for the sisters.
Granny Hannah was raised during an age when a woman’s home was her castle, filled with starched linens, leaded fireplaces and a kettle always near boiling point. The pictures demonstrate the formality along which the lines of her life ran. She was solid, dependable, respectful and respectable, decrying changes in the world that had brought a relaxation in moral standards. For her to have discovered Hannah’s later pregnancy would have been a shattering blow and she would have found it difficult to forgive her granddaughter. She was, in short, of the old school. Visitors to her home, expected or unannounced, regardless of who they were or what their purpose, would have been received with the same deference shown by Arab sheiks. Tea would have been offered and to refuse would have been considered rude. It would not have arrived in a mug but in a delicate china cup, accompanied by a saucer and a plate filled with home baking.
The sisters’ granny seemed to them to exist around her stove. Hannah especially would talk fondly and proudly to anyone willing to listen about her granny’s soup, her granny’s stew, her granny’s baking. The truth was, she felt happier, safer and more wanted at her grandparents’ home than she did in her own.
All children feel the urge sometime to run away. A mild rebuke, a stern ticking-off, a chastisement for being selfish: the reasons for deciding to flee are myriad. There follows the brief packing of a bag with a favourite comic and toy, and a handkerchief containing a handful of coins. Next, slipping out of the door vowing never to return. So it was with Hannah. She would regularly take to her heels in her younger years, fleeing, often with tears streaming down her face, through the Pailis, determining to walk to Granny Martin’s in Cambuslang. A toy would never be found in her pack: she would just take her weekly comic and maybe even a change of clothing.