My father John Williamson was born in 1892. He came off the Williamson and Burke families (Nancy Burke was his paternal grandmother) who originally came also from Kintyre, whose forebears came from the Isle of Islay. After my father and my mother were married in 1910, they travelled on foot after that around Scotland in the years before the beginning of the First World War. My father was called up in the Army and joined the war in 1915. After he served his time he came back from the Army, and he had two sons Jock and Sandy by then. And he settled in Furnace on the shores of Loch Fyne.
On Loch Fyne, in Furnace wood, my father raised thirteen children. Sixteen were born, but three died in infancy, one when she was just a newborn baby, and she was born in a hospital. Everyone else was born in a tent, apart from Susan, whom my mother had among the heather! I was born by the shoreside. It was early spring. And he put all of us to school in Furnace and took care of us to the best of his ability. My father didn’t have a regular job because in these days a tinker was looked down upon, as someone that was socially unfit to work among the common folk. But my father being settled in the one part, and putting us to school, the stigma of being a tinker naturally passed by as most of the folk came to know and understand us. We were called and accepted by the local community as ‘the Williamson family’. My father was respected because he’d served his time in the war, and he had come home and registered the marriage to my mother (1916 in Kilmichael Glassary) and had settled down. When a traveller did these things and showed that he tried to make himself part of the community, he gained a little respect from the local folk.
My mother and father ran away together when my mother was only fourteen years old. And my daddy was seventeen. Betsy Townsley was my mother’s full name. And she was born in a cave in Muasdale. My daddy was born in an old mill away up Tangy Glen. And the old mill was owned by two old brothers. One of the brothers was blind and they ran the old mill. They left this shed open with some straw in it for the runaway marriages of Kintyre. It was like Gretna Green! And when two people ran away together and spent a night in the mill they were officially married.
But my mother and father lived in the wood together in Furnace. It was a big oak wood in the middle of the Duke’s estate. And people tried to get us moved on from that wood, but my grandfather was born there, my mother’s father. And of course the old duke, Duncan Campbell in Argyll, my father was a great favourite of his. Because I remember he came with his old car on a Sunday with a big bunch of lollipops, all those different colours you could ever see!
And he said, ‘Well, Mr Williamson, I will pay the doctor’s bill the next time. Are the children around?’ And he wore these plus fours, we call them knickerbockers; and big old brogue shoes, a Balmoral Bonnet and sometimes the kilt. He sat down there and took off his old shoes and we watched him! My daddy strapped the razor on his belt, a big open razor. We wondered what he was going to do. And the old duke took his foot up, put it on my daddy’s knee. And his old foot was full of bunions and corns. He was an old man, in his seventies at that time, when I remember him. And Daddy very carefully shaved the skin of his foot, shaved the bunion and the corn with the open razor. And this took away a lot of pressure from it, at the head, the little corn on his foot. Daddy cut it in with his razor and shaved it all right round, and he clipped the nails of his toes with the razor. The Duke wouldn’t go anywhere else! But he would come once a month or so, drive his car down. And people would say to the Duke, ‘Oh, these tinkers, they’re cutting your trees.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘let them cut my trees. They’re my trees!’
And of course we used to steal a few apples from people’s gardens and we stole a few vegetables. And if we came across a nest of eggs by a hen, we took them! Because the wintertimes were very hard. The summertime was nice because we would run about with our bare feet, and Daddy would take us on a camping trip then. He’d burn the old barricade, the tent we lived in during the winter, and take us on a trip down to Lochgilphead, around Kilmartin among the standing stones. And we would play ourselves there and have fun. We’d thin the turnips on our knees and have a wonderful time because Daddy and Mammy were always there. They would work hard, have a wee dram at the weekends, sing songs and Daddy would play the pipes.
Then he would say, ‘Well, children, you’ve had your holiday. It’s time to go home.’ And then we would go back to Furnace again, back to the same place. There’d be nothing there, just a piece of ground, hard baked. We built a new barricade tent every autumn in the same place. No grass would ever grow there. Father even used the same holes in the ground, where he’d put the sapling sticks in with the snottum. And he was thirty-seven years in that one little camping place! All his family grew up there. He put them all to the little school in Furnace, so they could learn to read and write.
These summers in the 1920s started early. You got beautiful weather in the month of April. On the tenth of April this year Daddy burned the big barricade and packed all the things he would need for the summer. He got the weans ready, there were six by that time. And my mother was busy expecting. She must have been nine months on the way.
He said, ‘Well, Betsy, we’ll get the length of Lochgilphead, which is sixteen miles. And if you take ill with the baby down there, maybe they can get you into hospital or something.’ She had never been in hospital in her life. Old Granny used to do this, be her midwife. That was my mother’s old mother, Bella MacDonald, the old storyteller and fortune teller. But father never went far that day, only about three-quarters of a mile on the first day of the journey. He pitched three little tents, one for the girls, one for the boys and one for himself and my mother just at Furnace shore. And the next morning Mother took ill. That was the eleventh of April, 1928. I was born in the little tent, and Daddy took the other children along the shore for a walk while my granny took me to the world.
I always tell people, ‘I was born before my granny!’ And my mother took me wrapped in a shawl later that day, for she wanted to show her new baby to all her old friends. And some of the old people kept a diary of my mother.
They said, ‘Betsy, which one is this?’ Some of the old ladies in the village, maybe old spinsters she visited who never had any children of their own, or maybe some with their children grown up, said, ‘Well, Betsy, which is this one?’ My mother was only a young woman at that time.
‘This is my seventh,’ she said.
Now the villagers of Furnace knew the time had come, that Daddy had burned his barricade and we were going for our summer’s trip. ‘Oh,’ they said, ‘there’ll no be many eggs stolen again for a while!’ And of course, every one of my mother’s friends knew my mother was pregnant. And they probably wished the baby would be born in Furnace, like some of the other ones.
But this particular day a dear friend of my mother’s died, the same day in 1928 I was born. Duncan MacCallum. He died with TB, tuberculosis. He was a great shinty player. His brother Archie had heard that my mother had had a wee baby. And his mother and my mother were great friends. He cycled from Furnace down nearly a mile to the shore to the tents. And he told my mammy and daddy that young Duncan had died. Somebody had spread the word, somebody was out on the road that morning and had said, ‘What’s wrong? Johnie’s walking with the weans. Oh, Betsy’s haein a wean.’ And the word spread back to the village. Betsy had never got to Lochgilphead. Betsy had the baby at the shore, at Furnace shore. And Archie took his old bicycle and cycled down. My granny by this time had tidied me up and rolled me up in a bit of cloth or something, whatever it was, and had tidied up my mother. And Archie came to the fire at the front of the tent. Father had a wee fire there with the door of the tent pulled down for my mother to have a little privacy.
He said, ‘Duncan has died.’ Duncan was only twenty-four.
And my mother said, ‘What’s that? Duncan has died!’ Because she knew Duncan had been ill.
And he said, ‘Have you a boy or a girl?’
She said, ‘It’s a wee boy.’ And my mother cried
out, ‘Well, I’m going to call him Duncan!’ And she called me Duncan MacCallum Williamson. And Duncan MacCallum had died two hours before I was born. And she said, ‘Well, we’re going to call him Duncan after Duncan MacCallum.’ And of course Archie was really chuffed, really proud. And they were good people. Soon my mother was up and she walked to old Katie MacCallum, young Duncan’s mother and showed her the baby – me! And Mother told her she was going to call it after Duncan. They were quarry workers who stayed in Furnace. And of course they were so pleased that Duncan’s name would be carried on for years.
My father stayed for a week at the shore after I was born. By then my mother was a little stronger – she was a strong woman after having all these children. And we shifted. She took me and showed me off to all her friends, all round Minard. My father stayed there for a few days. Oh, that was the idea! Handsel the baby, give the baby a silver coin, a sixpence or threepenny piece or a shilling. My mother would collect several shillings, a lot of money! She’d say, ‘Oh, Mrs such-and-such, this is my new baby!’
‘Oh, I’ll have to give the wee baby something.’ And she collected seven or eight shillings in a day. In 1928 that was worth a fortune to you. And they made their way to Lochgilphead. And he had friends there, and this was Betsy with her new baby! I was a kind of pension to her for the first three months of my life. And Father cut a little hay, tied a little corn, and worked on a few farms till the days got shorter. Then he made his way back to Furnace again, put up the barricade once again and sent the children to school – Sandy, Jock, Bella, Betty, Willie and Rachel. My mother took care of the baby, walked back to Furnace and showed me to the rest of the old friends who had never seen me yet.
And then the cold winter nights, Granny went into her little compartment, tent, in the barricade, and it was storytelling. I was very young then, but I remember my granny well. There were wonderful stories told round the little fire. I remember my daddy sitting around the fire in the middle of the floor, just a stick fire in the middle of the tent, a hole in the roof and the smoke going straight up through the hole. A little paraffin lamp, the cruisie turned down, home-made by my father.
Granny would tell a story, Father would tell a story. Maybe a few travellers passing by would stop and put their tent over in the ‘Tinker’s Turn’, a place across the burn from the wood where we stayed. My father’s cousin Willie Williamson, old Rabbie Townsley and some of the old travellers, Sandy Reid and others would come in. They would also tell stories and have a little get-together. Our tent was a stopping place for travellers who came down to Argyll, and there was always time for a story.
Now Granny would stay with us all winter in that big barricade with her little compartment. Her son Duncan was there as well. He helped my father to get firewood, and they’d go fishing together, catch a few salmon and snare a few rabbits. Granny went hawking with my mother through the houses in Furnace and Minard. But also some days Granny took off on her own and it was our love to go with her. Granny was wonderfully good to us. Whatever she got, something tasty, she would always share it with us. In the summertime when the days got warm, my father would dismantle the tent, the big barricade; and Granny would move her little tent away from our big one to have some privacy of her own. Just because it was so warm.
Now Granny was an old lady, and every old traveller woman in these bygone days never carried a handbag. But around their waist they carried a big pocket. I remember Granny’s – she made it herself, a tartan pocket. It was like a large purse with a strap, and she tied it around her waist. It had three pearl buttons down the middle, no zip in these days. Granny carried all her worldly possessions in this pocket.
Now, Granny smoked a little clay pipe. And when she needed tobacco, she would say, ‘Weans, I want you to run to the village for tobacco for my pipe.’ And she’d give us a threepenny bit, a penny for each of us and a penny for tobacco. The old man used to have a roll of it on the counter, and he cut off a little bit for Granny for her penny. We came back and our reward was, ‘Granny, tell us a story!’
She sat there in front of her little tent, and she had a little billy-can and a little fire. We collected sticks for her, and she’d boil this strong, black tea. She lifted the can off, placed it by the side of the fire and said, ‘Well, weans, I’ll see what I have in my pocket for you this time!’ She opened up that big pocket by her side with the three pearl buttons. I remember them well, and she said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you this story.’ Maybe it was one she’d told three nights before. Maybe it was one she had never told for weeks. Sometimes she would tell us a story three-four times; sometimes she told us a story we’d never heard.
So, one day my sister and I came back from the village. We were playing and we came up to Granny’s little tent. The sun was shining warm. Granny’s little can of tea was by the fire: it was cold, the fire had burned out. The sun was warm. Granny was lying, she had her two hands under her head like an old woman, and her little bed was in front of the tent. By her side was the pocket. That was the very first time we’d ever seen that pocket off Granny’s waist. She probably took it off when she went to bed at night-time. But never during the day!
So my sister and I crept up quietly and we said, ‘Granny is asleep! There’s her pocket. Let’s go and see how many stories are in Granny’s pocket.’ So very gently we picked the pocket up, we took it behind the tree where we lived in the forest and opened up the three pearl buttons. And in that pocket was like Aladdin’s Cave! There were clay pipes, threepenny pieces, rings, halfpennies, pennies, farthings, brooches, pins, needles, everything an old woman carried with her, thimbles . . . but not one single story could we find! So we never touched anything. We put everything back inside, closed it and put it back, left it by her side. We said, ‘We’ll go and play and we’ll get Granny when she gets up.’ So we went off to play again, came back about an hour later and Granny was up. Her little fire was kindling. She was heating up her cold tea. And we sat down by her side. She began to light her pipe after she drank this black, strong tea. We said, ‘Granny, are you going to tell us a story?’
‘Aye, weans,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you a story.’ She loved telling us stories because it was company for us, forbyes it was good company for her to sit there beside us weans. She said. ‘Wait a minute noo, wait till I see what I have for you tonight.’ And she opened up that pocket. She looked at me and my little sister for a while, for a long time with her blue eyes. She said, ‘Ye ken something, weans?’
We said, ‘No, Granny.’
She said, ‘Somebody opened my pocket when I was asleep and all my stories are gone. I cannae tell ye a story the nicht, weans.’ And she never told us a story that night. And she never told us another story. And I was seventeen when my granny died, but eleven when that happened. Granny never told me another story, and that’s a true story!
Life was very hard for us as a travelling family living on the Duke of Argyll’s estate in Furnace in Argyll, because it was hard to feed a large family when times were so hard. We ran through the village and we stole a few carrots, stole a few apples from the people. Some of the local people respected us, some didn’t want their children to play with us. We were local people too, but we were tinkers living in a tent in the wood of Argyll. And of course we did a lot of good things forbyes, because we helped the old folk. My brothers and I sawed sticks and we collected blocks along the shore for their fires and we dug a few gardens. If there was a little job for a penny or two, we would do it for them. We did things for the people that the other children would not do. And we gained a good respect from some of the older folk where we lived. As the evening was over boys would get together, and we’d climb trees and do things, but we never caused any trouble or damage. But some of the people in the village actually hated us.
I went to the little primary school in Furnace when I was six years old. It was hard coming from a travelling family. You went to school with your bare feet wearing cast-off clothes from the local children that your mother had co
llected around the doors. And of course you sat there in the classroom and the parents of the children who were your little friends and your little pals in school had warned them, ‘Oh, don’t play with the tinker children. You might get beasts off them, you might get lice.’ You were hungry, very, very hungry in school. You couldn’t even listen to your school teacher talking to you, listen to her giving you lessons you were so hungry. But you knew after the school was over you had a great consolation. You were looking forward to one particular thing: you would go home, have any kind of little meal that your mother had to share with you, which was very small and meagre, but she shared it among the kids. Then you had the evening together with your granny and your parents. The stories sitting by the fire, Granny lighting her pipe and telling you all those wonderful stories. This was the most important thing, the highlight of your whole life.
We were the healthiest children in the whole village. We ran around with our bare feet. We lived on shellfish. We didn’t have the meals the village children had, no puddings or sweet things. We were lucky if we saw one single sweet in a week. But we hunted. If we didn’t have food, we had to look for it. And looking for food was stealing somebody’s vegetables from somebody’s garden or guddling trout in the river or getting shellfish from the sea. We had to provide for ourselves. Because we knew our parents couldn’t do it for us. Mammy tried her best to hawk the doors, but you couldn’t expect your mother to go to the hillside and kill you a hare or a rabbit. And you couldn’t expect your mammy to go and guddle trout. So, from the age of five-six-seven year old you became a person, you matured before you were even ten years old. And therefore you were qualified to help raise the rest of the little ones in the family circle. You could contribute. Because you knew otherwise you wouldn’t have it. You didn’t want to see your little brothers and sisters go hungry, so you went to gather sticks along the shore, sell them to an old woman and bring a shilling back to your mother.
The Horsieman Page 2