Gift from the Gallowgate (11 page)

Being in the Coast Lines sheds meant that one or other of the four storemen was always liable to pop in, but George still managed to make the most of boy being alone with girl. Let me stress,
however, that nothing really out of place happened, just a tentative touch here and there – above the waist, of course – a shy hurried kiss (sort of), and there was always lots of
suggestive remarks made by the storemen. I didn’t complain – I quite liked it – physical and verbal.

Working so much amongst older men extended my vocabulary, and Mum was soon objecting to the more than risqué jokes being bandied around our table. I could give as good as the lodgers, the
jokes . . . and the swearing, I’m sorry to say. Mind you, the words we used would be regarded as pretty mild today.

One of my first duties, repeated daily, was to type out address labels for the deliveries. Each box had to have its destination marked clearly, for the benefit of the carrier,
wherever it was going.

I was getting on well when I came to an order slip for four boxes Stork for Maud Home, Maud. Knowing that Maud was a lady’s name as well as being the name of a village in Aberdeenshire, I
typed out four labels for Miss Maud Home, Maud. How was I to know that Maud Home was a Mental Hospital in Maud? You can imagine the hilarity my labels caused. I was teased about it for months.

It must have been around a year later that a new junior was taken on, and the typing of the labels was no longer my responsibility. All went well for a week or so and then – I could have
kissed her – Peggy made out a whole set to ‘Mr. H. M. Prison, Peterhead.’ Now even I would have got that one right, but I didn’t join in the laughter. I knew how it felt to
be at the receiving end.

While I was still the youngest in Van den Berghs and Jurgens, as in Steel and Co., I was sent to the bank every day. I also had to post the mail at the Post Office at the
corner of Regent’s Quay and Market Street. This dual task entailed a double journey – along Jamieson’s Quay to South Market Street, along the edge of the harbour then crossing
Regent’s Quay to push the letters into the slot in the wall. Then I’d to come back, pass the end of Jamieson’s Quay and carry on along South Market Street to the bank at the
corner of Palmerston Road. It was like completing a rectangle when starting from half-way down one side.

The money to be banked was in cheques and paper money mostly – there was once a £50 note, a real rarity in those days and the only one I’ve ever seen to this day – and
some coins, so they were put safely inside a strong manila envelope.

Oh, no, I hear you thinking, she couldn’t have? But yes, one day I did. My head likely full of the remarks the boys on the coal boats had shouted as I passed, some quite complimentary, I
rammed all the envelopes in my hand well down into the letterbox. Then, realising what I’d done, my blood ran cold and I crept into the Post Office itself to ask if they could give me that
special envelope back.

‘You can’t have it back,’ said one assistant. ‘Once it’s gone through that slot, it belongs to His Majesty’s Mail.’

‘But it wasn’t
meant
to be in His Majesty’s mail,’ I wailed.

‘You put it in the box, so it becomes mail.’

‘Is there no way to get it out again?’

‘No.’

One of the men behind the counter took pity on me, however. ‘If you come back at three, and ask the postie who empties the box, he might look for it and hand it over, but I can’t
promise. It’s really against the law.’

But I needed it before three – that’s when the bank closed – so I trailed back to Jamieson’s Quay and confessed what I’d done. I must have looked pretty woebegone
by this time, so Miss Murray just said, ‘Go and tell the bank you’ll be late with our deposit, then go back to the Post Office and when the postman comes to empty the box, ask him
nicely if he’ll give you our envelope back. If he does, take it to the bank, and if he doesn’t, my head will roll, as well as yours. The deposit slips have to be date stamped with the
correct day, or Head Office will go mad.’

Luckily, when the postie came, he saw the funny side of it, found the big envelope and handed it over with a smile. ‘Keep your mind on your job after this, lass.’

‘I will, and thank you very much.’

Very relieved, I started to retrace my steps once again, but my ordeal did not end there. For a change, I crossed to the other side of the street before heading for Palmerston Road, and having
passed Waterloo Goods Station and a large granite block belonging to A.R.Gray, I came to a row of shops with tenement houses above them. I must explain here that this was long before tights were
invented and because I had discarded the liberty bodices as childish, and refused to wear a corset or a suspender belt no matter how much my mother ranted, I kept my stockings up with wide black
garters.

I was nipping along quite smartly – it wasn’t ladylike to run, but it was after three thirty – when horror of horrors, one of my garters snapped, my right stocking slid down my
leg and I grabbed at it with my right hand – the hand that was carrying the bank money. As I’ve already said, there was only a handful of coins inside, but they spewed out on to the
paving slabs like an avalanche and I was just about to gather them together when I saw some trawlermen rolling towards me. There is something very distinctive about the way trawlermen walk, just
like the waves rolling. There would be hell to pay if any money went missing, but I was in an awkward position, bent over with my hand again clamped round the calf of my leg to prevent stocking and
garter from falling out below my skirt. This garment, thankfully, was one I’d made myself and was fairly long . . . if not very elegant.

There was only one thing to do. Opening the nearest tenement door – there were no security entry systems then – I stepped inside and stood with my back against the wall, thankful
that I’d come that way instead of along the side of the harbour where the dock workers and ships’ crews would have been revelling in my predicament . . . and I’d have had nowhere
to hide.

I considered taking off the loose stocking altogether, but I couldn’t walk around with only one stocking on. Apart from looking ridiculous, I’d be frozen. Secure in my isolation, I
lifted my skirt and took hold of the home-made garter. I always bought the elastic and sewed them myself, because the ones in the shops were too fancy, and too expensive. The problem wasn’t
as bad as I had feared. It was just my stitching that had come undone . . . but I had no needle or thread to fix it.

I did have enough sense to think of a solution, though, so I held the two ends together and tied them into a firm knot, took off my shoe and stretched the restored garter over my foot. Then I
pulled up the errant stocking that had reached my ankle, and just as I was about to pull up the garter to secure it, the street door opened. I don’t know who was the most surprised, the two
men or me. My skirt was up round my waist – I was wearing a pair of interlock directoire knickers (not at all sexy but it
was
winter) – and my stocking had descended to my
ankle once more, as if needing the garter for support, which, of course, it did, didn’t it.

It was the older of the men who spoke; the younger was too intent on looking where he shouldn’t. ‘You dropped your money, lass, so we picked it up for you.’ He couldn’t
hide the mischievous glint in his eyes.

‘Thank you.’ I sheepishly accepted the envelope of paper money and the handful of coins.

His eyes went to the floor. ‘That’s the worst o’ wearing garters, but I see you managed to tie it in a knot.’

‘Yes, thank you.’ I didn’t know what else to say.

‘I could tie it flatter than that, if you like?’

‘It’ll be all right the way it is, thank you.’

‘Rightio, then, but maybe you should check the cash is a’ there?’

It was, all the cash and all the notes and cheques, so they went off, both grinning like Cheshire cats.

I didn’t think it was funny, especially when I had to work for another two and a half hours with the garter almost stopping my circulation and a knot digging into my thigh. I wished now
that I’d let that man make his sheepshank or whatever it was; it would have been flatter. But the experience didn’t make me stop wearing garters, nor did my mother’s dire warnings
of, ‘You’ll be as fat as your Auntie Jeannie by the time you’re forty if you don’t wear something to keep you in shape.’

She wasn’t far wrong in that prediction, though. I did start to gain weight in my forties and, try as I would, I never lost the three stones I put on the first time I stopped smoking (for
four years), nor the other two I amassed after the second time (six years). But that was all in the future.

When I reached seventeen, my wages . . . sorry, salary was increased to sixteen shillings weekly, paid through the bank once a month. This wasn’t nearly so handy for me,
but being able to tell my friends that I was now earning a ‘salary’ more than made up for the inconvenience. After attending evening classes over the winter, I had passed the Royal
Society of Arts exams in Shorthand, Typing and Book-keeping at the Elementary stage, and was determined to go on to the Intermediate and Advanced stages, as well. As it happened, circumstances
altered my plans, but more of that later.

I was given two weeks off with pay in August, and having saved a few bob, I decided to accept Auntie Gwen’s offer of a free holiday with her. The last holiday I’d had was my week in
London with the school, but this was something in a different category. My aunt was far more modern in her views than my mother, and she wouldn’t stop me from doing whatever I wanted.

I made the trip myself by train; I knew about travelling, I’d been in London before. This was, of course, 1939, and there were already barrage balloons flying overhead, Air Raid
Precautions stations built, trenches being dug. It astonished me that London was preparing for war, when there no sign of anything in Aberdeen. But on one of my solo outings in Lee Green something
else intrigued me and I went running back to tell Auntie Gwen what I had seen.

‘There was a big box in one of the shop windows, and it had pictures on it that moved. Like a film, but not a film, and a crowd of people were standing watching. It was a lady singing into
a microphone, and when the manager of the shop came out, he told us this was called television and soon there would be one in every home.’

I was so excited that Auntie Gwen left the pastry she was making and ran with me to see what this new invention looked like. She was equally as impressed as I was, saying, ‘I hope
it’s not too expensive when it’s on sale. I’d love to have one, but your Uncle Jim’s a proper Scrooge. Won’t let me buy half of what I want.’

Aware that my mother thought Gwen was a wasteful housewife, I always regarded her with deep affection. She was fun, she didn’t worry about tomorrow like most women.
‘Tomorrow’ll take care of itself,’ she was wont to say. Maybe she shouldn’t have married Uncle Jim. On the other hand, maybe it was a good thing she had him to keep her from
being a spendthrift.

The war, of course, put paid to the introduction of television for some time, but I’ll always remember the preparations for war and the entertainment from a box.

On the first Sunday in September, listening to Neville Chamberlain on the radio, we learned that Britain was now at war with Germany. Mum was quite shocked – hadn’t
he assured us only a year before that there would be peace in our time? – but it didn’t worry me unduly. Aberdeen was much too far north for German bombers to reach – and we could
carry on as usual.

There were changes, however. With petrol and diesel in short supply, all buses became mere shuttles, and we had to transfer to a tramcar at the bottom of Mid Stocket, a staggered junction where
four streets met. It was a windy corner, and there seemed to be a competition between the drivers of the two kinds of transport as to which would arrive at the crucial stop first. Our bus service
(for the duration) consisted of only one vehicle that went to the crest of the hill then turned and went back, generally in time to see the tail end of a tram sailing down Rosemount Place. With
sometimes almost twenty minutes to wait for the next one, this left the passengers going to work in rather a nasty mood.

Soon after the outbreak of war, all the docks were cordoned off by high railings, and those who worked within the area, or had some message there, had to show a pass to get
through the gates. This involved inventing some ingenious excuses for not having it with you, but this applied more to the female sex than to the men. Let me explain.

Women and girls are prone to changing their handbag to match their outfit, so if we had been out somewhere the evening before, it would be ten to one that we grabbed the bag we had been using
then . . . but our permit was inside another. The harbour police were very efficient, but I discovered, after weeks of passing the two men who took alternate shifts, that it was quite safe to flip
any old envelope at whichever was on duty that day, and he would let me past because he recognised me.

This was a bad practice, of course, and encourage me to be quite careless. Standing at the gate one morning, inevitably, was a strange policeman, who demanded a proper look at my pass.

The lie came automatically to my lips as I looked down at the envelope I was holding out. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. This is a letter from my cousin, and I thought it was the envelope I keep my
pass in.’

‘You’d better find the right envelope, then,’ he said, sharply, ‘and be quick about it. I haven’t got all day.’

I glanced along at the clock on one of the buildings on Regent’s Quay. Five to nine! Time for desperate tactics. ‘I left it in my other handbag,’ I pleaded, ‘but
you’ll have to let me in or I’ll be late for work.’

‘That’s your lookout,’ he . . . snarled, I think, would be the best description.

‘Please, I’ll get into trouble.’

‘You can’t come in till I see your pass.’

‘I told you . . . it’s at home.’

‘So? The quicker you go and get it, the quicker I’ll let you through.’