I went and saw Rabbie, and he and I had a great carry on, sat the whole night telling stories, cracks and tales. Rabbie had this sheep he’d got from a farmer; it had choked on a turnip. He and I sat with this big outside fire and we were cutting big lumps of mutton, holding it on sticks, roasting this mutton in the fire. So he tellt me his half-brother, Sandy, and Katie were in Fraserburgh. So I made up my mind I was going there.
I left Rabbie and went back to my brother Sandy, tellt him I was going off. And I made my way back into Aberdeenshire. From Aberdeen I went through Ellon right out to Fraserburgh. I got Sandy and Katie camped at a wee place at the roadside. Sandy had been in the town that day and he was mending baskets. This baker whom he’d met gave him a wee house and tellt Sandy he could have it for the wintertime. We moved in. It was a lovely house, oh, we liked it fine. And I got a job on a farm and I went and worked for MacConnachie’s soup kitchen, outside work round about the place. And lo and behold one day we came back. Everything had been grand, when Katie said, ‘I’m movin back tae Aberdeen.’ Now this was January! And it was snowing. She went down to an old woman called Annie Mathieson, and she sellt all her furniture, bought two prams and packed all her things she could get into it. The next day they set on the road with these two prams to Aberdeen.
Now I had to go with them, I had no other choice. So we moved into Bucksburn and we stayed there for a couple of days. A traveller man Sandy knew whose name was Mackay, was one of the first travellers to get a motor. He had a wee Ford lorry He said, ‘Sandy, cove, it’d be better if ye wad gang inta the toon and squatted inta some o the auld hooses.’ In these days houses that were empty travellers could walk in, squat in them. And if you stayed long enough the councils never bothered you. So he took Sandy’s stuff, packed it in his lorry and Sandy, he and I drove into Aberdeen. We drove right down the main street and came to this big building. We burst the door and went in. There were three flats. So Sandy and I picked one, put our stuff in and kindled the fire. The gas was on, we lighted the old gas lamps. Katie and the others came and we moved in. Next day the police came, ‘Oh, yese is squattin?’ ‘Aye,’ we said. ‘Okay then.’ and they took our names and addresses. ‘Behave yirselves.’ That was it.
So we hadn’t been there a couple of days when who moved in but Katie’s sister Jeannie and her laddie Buggie! And he had a horse. Now I was dying for this, it was a beautiful horse, half-blood. He had no place to keep it and he wanted to sell it.
I said, ‘Look, if ye hang ontae it . . .’
He said, ‘I cannae hang ontae it.’
I said, ‘I’ll buy it fae ye if ye jist hang on fir a wee while, gie me a week.’ But he went down the street and gave the whole lot away to a man for twelve pound – horse, harness and cart. That was it. So he squatted in next door. Now the two flats were filled up, but the bottom one down below someone had converted into a boiler room. There was a great big boiler built inside. So a couple of days after this, who comes in but wee Hector Kelby, the very man I’d left in Braemar! And he shakes hands with me, is glad to see me. He says, ‘I’m lookin fir an auld hoose.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s only the boiler room doon there.’
‘But,’ he says, ‘it would dae. It would be a guid place to stay in if we could get that . . .’ So he and I knocked the big boiler out, broke it up in bits. And I built a fire into the space where the boiler was. He got furniture, he papered and painted and made it into the nicest house there.
Now fags were very hard to get, very scarce. So one night I tried all the shops and I couldn’t get a cigarette, no way. I’m walking the street in Old Aberdeen. What was going to happen in the next two or three minutes I didn’t know, but this was about to make a big change in my life. I see this man come walking up. He had plus fours on, brogue shoes and a white woollen sweater. He wouldn’t be very old, about his late thirties. I never noticed, but he had the white minister’s collar under the jersey. He was smoking. And I walked up.
I said, ‘Excuse me, sir, I wonder if you could sell me a couple o cigarettes. I’ve been huntin this village high and low, I’m goin crazy for a smoke!’
He was very pleasant to me, ‘Oh, they are very scarce, ye know, tae buy. Ah, I won’t sell ye any, but I’ll give ye some cigarettes!’ And he took a packet of Players out and gave me five. ‘Have that packet. I have some more in the house.’ He looked at me for a long, long while and said, ‘Have I not seen you somewhere before?’ Now I thought he was one of the doctors because the college was just down the street a bit. And you had to be kind of leery in these times who you were speaking to. There were some queer folk going about in the world, you know, and you had to keep an open mind!
‘Well, sir,’ I said, ‘no, I just moved in.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘youse are squatterin in the old house, in the old building.’
‘I said, ‘Aye.’
He said, ‘Where are ye workin?’
‘I’m no workin anywhere. I cannae find a job, I’m huntin fir a job.’
‘Where do you come from?’
I tellt him, ‘I come from Argyll.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘ye come from Argyll. Do ye know Inveraray?’
‘Yes sir, I know Inveraray well.’
‘Do ye know Glen Aray?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s the name o the farmer in Glen Aray?’
I said, ‘MacIntyres. John MacIntyre.’
‘Oh yes, I see ye know the district well. And you know the MacIntyres are relations to my mother?’ he said. And I didn’t know who this man was. He was Reverend Iain Begg, the minister of Seton. And he says, ‘Ye’re lookin for a job?’
I said ‘Aye, I could do with a job, sir, tell ye the truth.’
‘Have ye registered for National Service?’
‘No, I never.’
‘What age are ye?’
I said, ‘I’m seventeen past, goin on eighteen.’
‘Oh, I see. And ye haven’t registered for service?’
I said, ‘No.’
‘Well, I prob’ly could give you a few days . . . have you ever done anything in the wood work?’
‘Oh well,’ I said, ‘I’ve swung an axe and I’ve cut plenty sticks in my day. And I’ve done a wee bit o this, a wee bit o that and a bit o everything!’
‘Well, if you report to my house tomorrow morning about eight o’clock, I’ll see if I can find ye a job.’
I go home and tell old Katie and Sandy, ‘I’ve met this man,’ and I explain to them.
Katie says, ‘That’s a doctor, he’s a dodder! He’ll burk ye – a burker. I’ll bet ye it’s some o the young doctors fae the college. If ye go to his hoose, laddie, that’ll be the last ye’ll ever be seen again! Ye’ve tae watch yirsel in Aberdeen because they burk bodies here.’
Sandy said, ‘Awa woman, ye’re auld-fashioned. The’re nae such a thing as burkers here noo-a-days.’
She tried to persuade me not to go, but I said, ‘Aye, I’m goin.’ He had tellt me where to come to, it wasn’t far. There was a big orchard way round the back and this big green door on the main street. So I knocked at the door and he opened it, took me into his office. This old woman came in.
He says, ‘This is my mother.’ And to her, ‘Mother, this is the young man I was tellin ye about from Argyll.’ And she was a good age, a woman in her late sixties.
She says, ‘You are the one that knows the MacIntyres?’
I said, ‘Yes, I know old John MacIntyre, I know him well.’
‘How is old John?’
‘Fine.’ I tellt her all about Glen Aray and all the places, about Dalmally. She was fair taken away with this.
She said, ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been there, ye know.’ So we had a good crack. She brought coffee through, and Reverend Begg and I had a cup.
He says, ‘It’s about time tae get to work. Now, what I want you to do: I’ve got a sawmill and I want you to work in there. I’ll give ye five pound ten a week.’ That was a pound a day
, sister dear! Then that was great money.
I said, ‘What kind o line are ye intae?’
He said, ‘I’m in the firewood business.’ Well, that man was to become one of my greatest friends. That morning he went round the back and came out with an old Alvis car, and he took me down to the sawmill. There was an old man starting up the engine to drive the saw. And Reverend Begg says, ‘The old man’ll put ye to work!’ And he went away. So old Arthur, as he was called, was very nice and he and I got along just like two peas. About twelve o’clock back comes Reverend Begg himself again with a big lunch basket, and he had a big flask of tea and a heap of sandwiches. He gave me something to eat. I worked on. But right where I was at the front of the saw I could see Arthur wasn’t cutting the very good stuff. They had collected all the trees out of folks’ gardens, dug them out. And the Reverend had two men who cut out the trees, loaded them onto a lorry and took them away, dumped them and kept the firewood. He had a big strip of wood at Alford, and he cut out there. But in front of the saw was an awful lot of knots, or blocks of wood, stuff you couldn’t put through a saw. He must have had about four or five ton. And Arthur was cutting all the bits, and his men were filling their bags with this wee stuff.
I said to him, ‘Reverend Begg—’
He said, ‘Don’t call me Reverend Begg anymore, call me Iain.’
I said, ‘Right, Iain, look, I can see ye’re kind o hard up fir stuff.’
He said, ‘We are very short o stuff right now.’
‘What’s about that stuff lyin there?’ There were about five ton of this beautiful ash, but it was full of knots. ‘That’s great firewood. That’s the kind o firewood ye want.’
He said, ‘We can never cut that.’
‘Iain, ye can cut that! Why don’t you split it?’
‘You couldna split that!’ he says to me.
‘Ye can split that – that’ll cut and split as good as anything.
‘You split that, and you’ll have about six or seven loads o stuff.’
He said, ‘Dae ye think ye could do anything with it?’
‘Certainly, I could dae something with it. Have ye got a hammer? A fourteen-pound hammer?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And some wedges, iron wedges?’
He went and got me this fourteen-pound hammer, and these iron wedges and a big axe. And I turned them over. It was like splitting ribbon. They didn’t have an idea. So I got stripped to the waist and by night-time I had about three ton split, split right in four. And the men just carried them up to the saw and made these beautiful, big ash logs. He came and was so pleased!
He said to me, ‘You have done a great job there, a great job! Man, I never gave it a thought that that could be done. Are you willin—’
‘I’ll do every single bit that was there.’
‘Would you need some help? Have you not some o your pals could gie ye a bit help?’
Now Buggie was knocking about the house doing nothing. I said to him the next day, ‘Buggie, ye wantin a job? The Reverend had said he would pay a pound a day. I’ll gie ye a couple days work.’ He was courting his future wife. They were just ready to get married. ‘I’ll gie ye a job.’ He came down with me for one day. But night-time he went and drew his pay, drew his pound.
‘No,’ he tellt the minister, I was a slave-driver. He couldn’t work with me. So I split every single thing that was in the place myself, never left a bit. Iain was so pleased that one night he came up to the house and he brought me jerseys, shirt and trousers. He handed them in to me. And fags, I never wanted for fags. I got kind o shan after that he gave me so many packets. He wouldn’t take money for them. He had loads of fags, wherever he was getting them.
So one day he came for me and said, ‘Duncan, we’re goin downtown today. It’s kind o queer, but we’re goin to demolish a church.’
I said, ‘No a church, Reverend, you bein a minister!’
He said, ‘Yes, we’re goin to demolish a church.’ There were these big old-fashioned beams in the church, and the wood was good. He wanted them. So Arthur, Iain and I were stripping these big beams. And there were lumps of lead piping. I was gathering all this. And he said to me, ‘What are you gaunna do wi this?’
‘I’m gaunna take it home wi me, Reverend. I’m gaunna keep it, save it up and sell it.’
And every time he came across a bit – ‘Duncan, another bit o lead?’ He worked with us. So a couple of hundred yards down the road from where I stayed there was a wee scrap store, and I was nicking in every weekend. I was getting four pound, five pound extra with these pieces of lead out of the church.
But round the back of the church there were about fifty panes of glass, beautiful glass. ‘Oh,’ Iain said, ‘I could do with some o that!’
I said, ‘Take it!’
‘Oh no, I couldna take that.’
I said, ‘What are ye wantin it fir?’
‘It’s fir ma mother’s lettuce. To make cold frames, put the panes o glass together and grow the lettuces in between them. No, I could never do that . . .’
I said, ‘I’m no a minister!’ So I packed every single pane o glass into the boot of his car. He never said a word to me. Right back to the house with them, I carried them all out, went into his mother’s garden. I set up all these panes making a hothouse among the rows of lettuce. And he was so excited and so glad.
So he said to me, ‘Duncan, I’ll hev tae get ye a card, a broo card.’23 He wanted me to work steady with him now, he began to like me so much. I wasn’t registered. I was only working casual with him, but he wanted to take me on full time. And he had to pay my National Insurance stamp. So the next day he drove me down to Aberdeen, took me into the broo office and got me a card. Three weeks after that I got a letter, a summons to register for National Service. Now I’d tried to avoid this for about a year. I should have signed on when I was seventeen, and I was over the age. I was getting kind of fed up because the police stopped me wherever I went and wondered, ‘Were ye registered wi National Service? Why are ye no in the Army?’ The war was finished but you still had to do two years’ National Service and I was always getting pulled up.
So I told Iain this same story, ‘Iain, I’ve finally made up my mind. I want tae go into the Air Force.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to lose ye. Ye’re a great worker.’
‘I have to go to register tomorrow.’
He said, ‘I’ll take ye doon.’ So there was nothing to it. I just registered. About three weeks after this, another form arrived – a medical. He took me down to the office again. He said, ‘Ye’ll no pass.’
I said, ‘How no?’ But I had told him about my hand.
He said, ‘That hand’s finished, damaged. Ye’ll no pass wi that. You’ll be back home. I’ve got a job fir you. You’ll be back!’
I said, ‘I dinna want to be back, I want tae get intae the Air Force!’ So I went in, signed on, stripped off and went through these doctors, got my medical examination. I came to the last old colonel at the end. I sat down and he talked to me a long, long while.
‘What would ye like tae go into?’
‘The Air Force,’ I tellt him. He asked me, could I read and write and that. I tellt him, ‘Aye.’
He said, ‘Show me yir trigger finger. Put it against my finger. Now, push.’ And I pushed. There was no force. He went away and came back in a wee while. ‘You can go and put yir clothes on.’ I put my clothes on. He went in his office and flung me a green card – Grade Four – unfit for National Service.
I came back. Iain was sitting in the car. ‘How’d you get on?’ I told him. ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘I knew you wouldna make it. In fact I’m glad!’
Well, I was with Iain for nine months after that. I made a few pound then and I had a good job. I wouldn’t have left him, but he was going to get married. I even went back, when I went to Aberdeen in 1968, to his bungalow. I went round the back and there was an engine and some old wheels sitting by his car. He was still dabbli
ng among old cars and things. But he wasn’t in. I’d just missed him that time. So this was the minister who had taught me so many things and put me on my feet. I’d made some money with him. And we’d had some fantastic times together. He told me some great tales and some great stories, you know. We had a lovely time.
But to make a long story short, I began to get restless for the road again. I was kind o wearying. Now I was safe and I knew fine I could go anywhere I wanted to, I wouldn’t be picked up by the police for the Army or anything. It was summertime again. This is why I wanted to get on the move. So I made my way back and I had a trip through Fife. I saw all the travellers there. I stayed in the Coaltown of Balgonie, moved down to The Firs24 and from there I went to work on a farm on Kinglassie Moor. I worked there for a month digging drains and got some money, bought myself some clothes and took the bus to Glasgow. I walked right through Glasgow, right up to Arrochar and over the Rest and Be Thankful, walked the whole way.
When I came to the top of the Rest it started to snow. And it snowed and it snowed and it snowed. And I was very hungry. I was wet with snow. I came to the top of the Butter Bridge, and there were a lot of navvies’ camps there, huts. They were building a new road. I swore to myself, what I suffered coming over that hill in among that snow, I said, ‘This is the end. This is the end o my wanderings. My wanderings is finished. Frae this time on there’s no more wanderings fir me! I’ve seen it aa noo. It’s about time I was tightenin my belt and tryin tae dae something better than what I’m daein.’ I walked into the hut, went into the office. There wasn’t a soul there. And I saw a light in one of the huts. I walked down and there was an old gaffer, and I told him I was looking for work.
He said, ‘The’re nobody here, everybody’s away, jist masel. But come in. Where are ye makin fir?’
The Horsieman Page 22