And the farmer said, ‘Come on, Duncan, you can dae this.’ He was a Gaelic speaker with a real Highland accent. ‘Come on now, Duncan, I’ll show you what to do. You pull a wee handful of the corn out like this, and see it is straight.’
I said, ‘Aye, I’m watching.’
‘Now lift your sheaf of corn and put it in below and bring it up and give it a wee twist and shove it in the back.’ But he showed me three or four times. And I tried it myself. But the first row was a mistake. I couldn’t do it. The second one was worse! The third one was bad. It only took my father about three seconds to tie a sheaf of corn. But I was to get good at this in later years. I could nick a row myself in minutes. You took a band of corn, twisted it round, and you shoved one end in below. Tight. And you threw the sheaf off, so’s it would let the reaper pass the next time. But I went up the row. For the full row of corn I still couldn’t succeed. I never what you call ‘bund’ the sheaf. I never bund one single sheaf in that row!
So they turned the horses and I followed behind the reaper again. Back down again, bhrrrrrrr. And I loved this noise. I’m watching these horses. They were walking that slow with their big broad feet. And now and again they were leaning over and having a wee snap of corn with their teeth. But it was the inside one. The one next to the corn could ay get a mouthful, but the outside one never. But I made sure he got these when he went into the field, because I always pulled these corns from the root. I was ay sure he got a handful. I’ve seen him walking up, and these corn straws hanging down his chin, and he was chewing all the way. The farmer never bothered me. He knew it wouldn’t do him any harm. Because it was ripe. The sun was hot and the corn was rattling dry.
We came to this dip and it was a big mess. The corn was all knocked down. My father stopped the horses. And the farmer got up. He pulled the corn up with his hand, because it was flattened.
And I said, ‘How did this happen?’
My father tellt me, ‘The deer. The deer were in here last night and they flattened the corn.’ The machine couldn’t cut it.
‘Well,’ old Duncan said, ‘if the bugger comes back tonight, he’ll get a surprise!’ I didn’t know a thing about this. I was only a wee boy. They lifted the corn up with their hands, and the heads were all eaten off it. It was a wild mess. But we managed to get it up so’s the machine could catch it. But they did another row, and I’m trying again. But no, still no success. But by the fourth row I began to get into the idea. And I tied some, and then they loosened again. My father tied them over again. But that wasn’t all the idea! Once it was tied and bund, you had to put it in stooks! They cut away all day and they stopped about three o’clock. They lowsed the horses out. Then they started. But this was my favourite part.
You picked up four or five sheaves and you put them together, built a wee hut with them, like the three pigs’ house. This was my glory! I could run and give them the sheaves, and they would put six together. Two each side, six in a row, and they built the wee stooks of corn. After it was up it looked beautiful. And you could creep in – I used to creep in between them, you know, see if I could knock them down!
Father said, ‘Watch it noo, laddie, dinnae knock the sheaves doon.’ But it took us through the next day before we’d finished this field of corn and it was all stooked. Before we went home my father said, ‘I’m gaun roond to the back of the fairm. The man’s gaun to gie me a bit deer.’
I said, ‘What?’
He said, ‘He’s giein me a bit venison. Ye mind that bit corn yesterday? He got him last night!’ Unknown to me, the farmer had sat all night with a shotgun. And a big stag came down. It was knocking down the corn. And he shot the big stag with the gun and killed it. And he cut it up. He gave my father this big lump of venison, a big deer’s leg. And we carried it home with us. But first I bade goodbye to the horses.
We had only worked the two days. They wouldn’t give you more than one or two days. And it was the same thing again – I wanted to see the horses before we left, pet them. Now I was well acquainted with them. But I went home with my father that night and the same rigmarole started again. Oh, I was good, I was with my daddy working all day. I was respected. I was better than everyone. And he gave me a penny. I mind, God rest his soul, he gave me a penny. And he said, ‘Ye can go wi your mother to the shop.’ I was in his good books. He came in and he had this big lump of stuff wapped up in this paper, and it was wet in below his oxter. It was the deer, venison.
He said to my mother, ‘Betsy . . .’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that’s good. That’ll make a lovely meal to the weans.’ She went to the shop and I went with her.
My mother used to wear an open apron, a braty, tied round her waist, with a bit in the front and a bit in the back. She had two pockets in the front and she put the money in one. I’m following with her. I took off my shoes and was in my bare feet. There was a wee shortcut across through the woods. She went through the path. But I had my penny in my hand. And she bought her messages. I went in and got one of those cakes of McCowan’s toffee, with a big Highland cow on it. A penny for a bar of McCowan’s Highland Toffee. There were eight blocks in the bar.
She said, ‘Noo, dinnae eat it aa yirsel, bring a wee bit back and gie yir brithers and sisters a wee bit.’
I said, ‘I’ll gie them a wee bit when I go back.’ It was hard, you could break it like glass. And if you chewed a block, you could chew for ever.
So Mammy got the messages and back we go. Daddy had to go for sticks for the fire. Oh, I had to go with him, because I had been with him all day. I gathered all the wee sticks and put them in a heap. And I had my own bundle of sticks on my back. He got his bundle, and we came home. But it was happy times in those years.
THE OLD SOLDERING BOLT
O I was a piece of copper
As shiny as a star
A lovely piece of copper
Cut from a copper bar.
I was taken and battered
Battered and hammered and rolled
And made by the hands of an old tinkerman
Into a soldering bolt.
O he was a fine old tinsmith
He knew all the tricks of the trade
He knew how to solder a skillet
And how a toaster was made.
O happy were the days I spent
With my head shiny with tin
And handsome was the little bag
He always kept me in.
I remember the happy days I had
With a cruisie burning overhead
While beside me sat the good old wife
A-baking oatmeal bread.
Then as we wandered the old cart roads
After doing a job or two
From a little hole in his bag
I tumbled and fell through.
Now here I lie upon the grass
I am getting green with mould
My handle’s getting rusty
I am no more the colour of gold.
Will ever I see another fire
Or mend another pot?
Or must I lie here for ever
Among the grass to rot?
But I hope some day in the future
I will be found again
And hung in a place of honour
In somebody’s but and ben.8
Duncan Williamson
CHAPTER THREE
MY MOTHER’S PENSION
No later than the end of March, the beginning of April, and every year until 1940, when the war was under way, my father burned our winter tent and we all went travelling on foot round the villages and farms along Loch Fyne. Minard, Lochgilphead, Ardrishaig, Kilmartin, Tarbert, down Kilberry side, Tayvallich, up to Ford, Kilmichael Glen and up to Inveraray, round by Cairndow and Strachur. We worked gathering stones off fields, thinning turnips, helping with the hay and the corn harvest. My father built us a simple bow tent to sleep in, and my mother cooked over an open camp fire. The bow tent was a traditional construction for the summer and my father carried
eight camp, or tent, sticks with him, usually hazel, five foot each and peeled of their bark. He also carried the riggin stick, which was bored with holes to hold the camp sticks in place at the top of the tent.
The snottum, home-made from iron, was probably the most important piece of camping equipment. It was used to hold kettles and pots with handles over the fire, for cooking or boiling the tea; and it was used to bore holes in the ground for the tent sticks. It was also a deadly weapon, kept by the door of the tent at night-time. The tent was covered with canvas or other waterproof materials, and held down with stones around the bottom.
At the end of September we always returned to Furnace wood where my father built a large barricade and tents for the winter. It was huge by comparison with the bow tent, but we had to live inside it during the long winter nights. The most important difference from the bow tent was the inside fire, built right on the ground inside the door of the tent. There was no chimney to contain the reek, or smoke. But the main compartment of this barricade was peaked, to draw the smoke.
For light we had a wee cruisie, a home-made lamp. My father used to screw a bit cloth into it, make a wick out of a bit cotton. It had a wee handle on it and he hung it up inside the tent. It just burned the open flame, but it made a good light. On either side of the fire were smaller, lower tented compartments. These were the sleeping areas. My mother and father had one tent, and the older lassies had theirs. The younger children had another one. The central area was like a big chamber. This was the kitchen, the living room. We had no carpets. The floor was like concrete, swept for years! Hard packed. It was stourie, but very dry. The fire in the centre was built with stones and a hole in the top of the tent drew the smoke. My mother kept a box on one side for her dishes and things. The cases for the weans’ claes, the school claes were right at the back of her tent. Oh, it was tidy enough!
During the war years 1939–45 my father could not take us away for the summer months, because of the restrictions on camp fires at night. So we lived all year round in the barricade. My own story starts now, when I was about ten or twelve years old. By this time my brother Sandy, the oldest, had got married. But Jack, he had joined the Territorials, and went into the Army. Sandy was two years older and he joined the Navy.
I wasn’t much interested in school and I started to look for bits of work to myself. From the time I was nine years old, I was awfae clever round the houses. If I got four pence working gathering sticks along the shore or washing and gathering jeelie jars, selling them for pennies, or helping an old woman dig her garden, I never forgot my father. If I had four pence to spend, before I would spend it on myself, I would always buy my father a bit tobacco. When I was nine years old, there was no such thing as me buying sweeties. It was tuppence for a wee tin of Nestle’s Milk, because some of the weans at home might be needing a wee taste milk. If I went for a message or helped an old woman by digging her garden, if I got a penny, I always made sure I spent it on something that was essential. And my father and mother knew this. If there was anything on the go, I was the favourite. Till the day my mother went to her grave, I was her favourite. She never seemed to have the same respect for the rest of my brothers and sisters, even the youngest of them. Because if I went to the town and a woman gave me a job, I always got my mother shoes and I got overalls for her and I got everything . . . these were begged or swapped for my doing errands and odd jobs. All the wee bits of work along the way I would take. I always had a burning ambition to get something for my mother, to help her out. That was my idea. My ownself I had no feelings for.
Mother and I used to walk to Minard and she hawked the houses. I walked along the shore and I went to the farm cowps and the cowps of the houses. And I collected jeelie jars. I had this wee go-chair, a wee pram. And I gathered all these jars, some of them were green with fog, grass growing in them! Now this old grocer, he gave you a penny for four wee anes, the half-pound jars. And if you got the big anes, they were two for a penny. My mother called the houses, sellt her scrubbers, begged a puckle tea and sugar and a puckle tatties, maybe some herring or anything. But she always depended on me for tobacco and paraffin, because these were the main essentials – a light and a smoke for my father.
Now she could beg, or sprach, or get tea and sugar. And she got our clothes for us, things from the houses. But they wouldn’t give her any money. You couldn’t expect the folk to give her money, because the non-traveller men were only working for a wee wage themselves, maybe some men only getting two pounds a week. She never asked them for money. But I always could get money for her, oh, little as it was. I would gather these jeelie jars. Sometimes I had two dozen. Sometimes I had three. And I used to take them, we always stopped at the burn right at the doctor’s before the grocer’s. I used to go in there – I suffered some cold days – I had to wash them all, you see. And be careful I didn’t break them. Get the green mould out of them, some lying for months and years! What I couldn’t beg, and I’d never steal them, I would find some jars on the shore. I found them in the middens, I found them at the backs of houses. Anybody could gather jeelie jars. There was a great demand. And I would maybe get her ten pence, eight pence, a shilling, one and tuppence, eleven pence, whatever, for my jars ! Now she could go to a shop, get half an ounce of tobacco for my father, or a bottle of paraffin. It was tuppence. For our wee cruisie, a teapot made into a lamp. Maybe she was short, didn’t have enough bread for the night. She would buy, spend tuppence for a half-loaf or maybe four pence for a tin of condensed milk. I didn’t smoke then. And I was her pension. I was a pension every day she went with me. It didn’t matter what direction we went, I had to get these jars.
But this old man, his name was Dan MacDonald. And he had this wee shed next to the shop. This is a pantomime! There was a chain on the door, a cleek on the door, and he had a big staple and padlock onto it. It was a wooden shed. Dan used to set all these jeelie jars on the floor, right back to the wall. And one day I was stuck. I had nothing. Cleaned up with jars, couldn’t get a single one. And my mother was at home.
She says to me, ‘Laddie, do you no think, mebbe, you could get a couple of jars, and get yir father a wee bit tobacco? He hasnae got a smoke.’
I said, ‘Mammy, I’ll go and look for the price of tobacco to my father.’ But I said to myself, ‘I wonder if there are any jars . . .’
Now, there’s a high dyke round the back of old Dan MacDonald’s shed. I said to myself, ‘Maybe somebody forgot about it.’ I went round the back of the shed. I touched this board . . . and the board was loose. I pulled the board back and I keeked in! There the jars were sitting in dozens, see! It was a klondike! It was like going into the back of Fort Knox. I pulled this board back and gasped for breath. See, the man used to come and collect them from Dan once a month with a van from Glasgow. And they were all sitting on top of each other in there, clean. And I only pulled back the board. The hand in – they were sittin in hundreds! I said, ‘I’m made!’ So I said, ‘In the name of creation o God, how am I gaunna get this many at once?’ Now I tried to fill my jersey. I put them up my jersey . . . I said, ‘That’s nae good.’ I couldn’t cut my jacket. So I took my jacket off. It wasn’t much of a jacket, a wee blazer. And I put my blazer down. Now there was a high dyke at the back, and nobody could see me. I started taking the jars out through the loose board. Two dozen. I got them in my jacket. The ones I went for were, you ken, the old clay jars, the ones that weren’t easily broken, the Kellar Watt jars. He gave you a penny for them! I picked two dozen and I got them in my wee jacket. I tied them, put the board back and went down to Dan MacDonald.
He’s busy cutting ham. I come in. I had my jacket full of clay jars, big Kellar Watt ones. He liked them best! There was an awful demand for these jars.
I said, ‘Dan, I’ve some jars.’ Oh, they were all bonnie and clean. He put his hand down round the mouth of a jar, looking for dust, see! I put them all on the table. He counted them out, twenty-four. Oh, twenty-four, penny for two. He gave me a two-shilling
bit in my hand. That was fine.
I said, ‘Dan, ye’ll no manage. Come on, I’ll help ye, I’ll carry them oot.’
‘All right,’ he says. He was old, you know, about sixty.
I said, ‘I’ll gie ye a wee carry wi them.’ I wanted to oblige him. He had an old sister cried Leezie. She was as mean as a church mouse and she was bent like that – nose touched her chin.
‘Wait till I get the key!’ he said.
So he got the key. I took a dozen in my oxter and he took some. He could catch – big hands he had. The way he catcht them he could take four or five in each hand. He put his fingers in the jars like a waiter carries so many glasses. But I had to pack them all this way in my oxter to get a dozen. Big clay jars. My brother Jack used to keep them for his tea for years and years and years. Kellar Watt jars. They’re antiques now. And he got the big old-fashioned iron key and he turned the lock. He opened the padlock. He opened the shed, and there’s all these jars lying on the floor, see!
And I said, ‘Dan, there’s no much room. We’ll put them at the back.’
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘put them at the back.’
What did I do? I built them back in the same place where I took them out! So’s there’d be easy access to get them again, ken! I didn’t want to put them in front of the door, because if I pulled the board back I couldn’t reach them.
So I said, ‘Here! There’s bings o room here, Dan. I’ll put them at the back.’
‘That’s fine, laddie,’ he said, ‘That’s fine, a bhalaich.’9 He turned one upside down and put one on top of it; turned the other one upside down, put one on top of it. So they would sit. And I put them right back close to the board. He never kent the board was slack. I built them to the back, the clay jars.
I said, ‘That’s fine.’
‘Thanks very much,’ he said. ‘These are good anes.’
The Horsieman Page 6