Gift from the Gallowgate (16 page)

Fast forward again to a little later in 1943. Life went on with Sandy coming home very occasionally and Jimmy putting in an appearance more often; only now, with Granny and
Granda both gone, there was no one to encourage me to go out with him – the exact opposite, in fact. My mother made sure that we were never on our own; she even came to the door with us when
he left.

It was into December before I knew for sure that I was pregnant – legitimately. I had not been unfaithful to my husband and we’d been married for over a year. I was only allowed to
work until the fourth month, then Miss Murray hinted that I ought to leave . . . for my own health, of course. The thing was, in those days, it wasn’t seemly for girls in that condition to be
flaunting themselves in public. Mum, around the same age as Miss Murray, was in full agreement with her, and so I had to leave Van den Berghs. No more firewatching. No more going out with Hazel or
Peggy or . . . anybody else, especially not boys.

I didn’t really need the money, I got quite a decent allowance through the Ben Line, but I did miss the freedom (such as it had been). My only companion when I ventured out now was my
mother.

To hide my broadening figure, I bought a ‘huggy’ coat, a silver grey plush fabric, something like fake fur, but not meant to look realistic. It was perfect in the cold weather, not
too bad through spring, but in June, even warmer than usual, it was absolutely suffocating. In addition to how I felt, I must have looked like an elephant in a sheep’s fleece stretched to its
utmost.

To make things worse, there was no ‘bringing on’ a birth in those days. The infant would come out when it was ready. Well, this infant took a jolly long time to be ready, and it was
three weeks past the given date before Sheila emerged – three long weeks during which I was practically sewn into that huggy coat. I wasn’t even allowed to go into the garden without it
. . . in case the neighbours saw me.

My husband had insisted on booking me into a private nursing home – money no object? – and I was in there for two whole weeks. At that time, women were meant to remain in bed for at
least seven days before being allowed up for short intervals that increased gradually for the next seven days. To be honest, though, I’m not sure if this was general practice or only in that
nursing home. After all, at £100 per week the longer they kept you the better for them. Being treated like a lady was very nice, so I didn’t complain at all.

We were between boarders when I went into hospital, but I was to get quite a surprise when I went home. I had better give you the story of how this came about.

A battalion of the Royal Artillery that had been in Malta all through the siege had been given one week’s leave when it ended. Sergeant Albert Rees, however, felt that one week in
Carmarthan with his wife after being away for so long was not enough, so, when they were posted to our Torry Battery for a respite, he asked his CO if it would be possible for him to take her to
Aberdeen for a couple of weeks. Told that it would be fine as long as he found lodgings for her, Albert asked a man standing next to him in a pub one night if he knew of anyone who might take
her.

He had approached the right person, the postman for our part of Mid Stocket. The man gave him Mum’s name and street number then added, ‘Mrs Forsyth used to take lodgers, but
I’m not sure if she still does.’

Albert told me the next part of the story himself, as he always regarded it as extremely funny. He had rung our doorbell and put his request very politely to the lady of the house (he
was
a proper gentleman), but when she didn’t answer him straightaway, he felt rather apprehensive.

Then she said, somewhat curtly, he thought, ‘Are you English?’

Guessing that she must have had trouble with an Englishman at some point, or more than one, neither of which was the case, he smiled, ‘No, we’re Welsh.’

She obviously relaxed. ‘That’s all right, then.’

Albert and Eiddwen were in the house when I took home my baby, and they practically took her over. They had been longing to start a family, but it was to be many years before we got the ecstatic
letter that their dream was about to come true.

As it happened, Eiddwen didn’t stay with us for two weeks; she stayed for well over a year, although she only saw Albert when he was off duty. She wasn’t much older than I was, and
we became as close as sisters – closer than I was to Bertha at that time, for she was still at school. Eiddwen would come shopping with me in Rosemount, quite a distance to walk with a pram,
and a real struggle coming back up, so it was good to have someone to take turns. We chatted to each other on those outings, although Eiddwen could speak very little English and I knew no Welsh.
Bertha and I did eventually learn one or two Welsh songs from Albert, and a few Welsh phrases, but she remembers more than I do.

Eiddwen learned a bit of English and Scots, but there was one word that she could never get right. When my Auntie Ina was visiting, she often said, ‘Give me the bairn for a wee
while’, and the Welsh lass was determined to air her knowledge. Her attempt misfired, delighting everybody, and Sheila was henceforth known as the ‘brain’.

One day, Eiddwen asked me why my mother didn’t like English people, and I had to tell her about the failing that many Scots had. There was no special reason for it, it seemed to be an
inborn dislike, especially in older people, maybe a hark back to the countless battles between the two countries, culminating in our defeat by the English at Flodden, and followed long afterwards
by their victory over Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites at Culloden.

Albert amazed Mum and me on the first Sunday morning he was in the house by volunteering to take the baby out for a walk. When I started to make the carriage-hung pram ready, he said, ‘No,
no, just give me her shawl.’

This was a product of my mother’s knitting, beautifully lacy, done on fine needles with two-ply Shetland Floss, and was large enough to wrap round his shoulders as well as the infant. Thus
adorned, he sallied forth in his shirt sleeves, into an area where such a thing was unheard of, was actually looked upon as something only the hoi polloi would do. It was also something that the
child’s own father would never have done. He never as much as took her out in the pram when he was at home, come to think of it.

Albert was a beautiful pianist – he played the organ back home in the Bethesda Chapel – and both he and his wife had lovely singing voices, so we had many musical evenings, which
were repeated when they returned three years after the war for a holiday.

I may as well relate a far more recent little incident here that made a great impression on me. We hadn’t seen Albert and Eiddwen for well over twenty years when we paid them an overnight
visit in Cross Hands one July on our way to see Sheila and her husband in Surrey. The next morning, a Sunday, Albert, Eiddwen, their daughter Anne and Albert’s brother (who turned up
unexpectedly after breakfast) gathered round the piano to sing for us, hymns, anthems, operatic pieces, changing from one to the other with hardly a break. What made this even more enjoyable was
that they each sang a different part – tenor, baritone, soprano and contralto, and we were surrounded by the soaring sound of a whole wonderful choir. It was truly a marvellous experience and
we could have listened to them all day. As it was, we had to leave after two hours. We had promised Sheila that we’d be there in the afternoon – and we didn’t want to miss her
birthday.

We kept in touch with the Rees family by mail, and sometimes by phone but we didn’t see them again for more than another twenty years, when we flew to Cardiff (via Belfast, would you
believe, on a 29-seater) to celebrate Albert’s eightieth birthday. We were accompanied by Bertha and her husband, Bill Jamieson, who had gone to see them several times, by motorcycle in the
early years, later by car. It was quite an emotional reunion, reminiscing about their time in Aberdeen when we were all young. Next day, they took us to the house they shared then with Anne and her
family. On that Sunday, it was only Albert who sang to us, as Eiddwen was not in very great health. Sadly both have both passed on since then.

I seem to jump back and forth like a flech (a flea with a kilt), or, as my Granny might have said, ‘Like a hen on a hot girdle’, and now I must return to 1944,
again. Sheila didn’t see her father often – he was on several long dangerous missions, and Jimmy had gone across the Channel on D Day plus 4 (I didn’t know the exact day until
years later), so I couldn’t help worrying quite a bit about both.

This was made all the worse by receiving no mail. Sandy had never been a prolific letter writer – I took it for granted that he’d been kept too busy while they were at sea –
but Jimmy’s letters had come regularly when he was in Shetland, Yorkshire and even Brighton, where they trained for the invasion. He had often said he wished he could be sent abroad, and now
he’d got his wish and he was in the heart of the fighting. When would he have time to write?

I occupied the long days by keeping my two rooms clean. After Albert and Eiddwen left, Mum had let Sandy and me have the lounge as a sitting room and the back bedroom, which was like having our
own little flat. That worked very well when Sandy was away. I paid a rent for the two rooms, and board for my meals. When Sandy came home, of course, I wanted to make our meals, and as is often the
way, two women in one scullery (as we called a kitchen then) spelled constant strife. And there was constant bickering between Mum and me. I realise now that I was selfish, expecting everything to
be done for my convenience. I can’t remember ever taking a turn at cleaning the bathroom or the scullery, which I really should have done, and I was annoyed when my mother nagged at me about
niggly little things. The resentment built up between us until I decided I’d have to move out altogether.

Finding a house was absolutely impossible, but I eventually heard of a room to let in a house not very far from Mid Stocket. It was empty, so I had the pleasurable task of furnishing it.
Furniture wasn’t rationed but it was cheaply made and marked with a double, blocked-in ‘C’, the ‘Utility’ mark. Everything was ‘Utility’ then, even the
sheets and blankets, everything you could think of. Having plenty of money at my disposal now, I didn’t even think of buying anything secondhand. Limited for space, I purchased two chunky
armchairs covered in brown Rexine, a small dining table, two upright chairs, a double bed and a small bed for Sheila.

Next to my room at the top of the stairs was a fair-sized walk-in cupboard that I was allowed to use. It served as a scullery (I’d to fetch the water from a tap outside), as a larder, as a
sideboard to keep my dishes and cutlery, as a place to keep towels and spare bedding. It was also where I had to cook, on a double gas ring. When I think back on it, it was a dangerous set-up in
such a confined space.

Although Mum hadn’t been too happy about me moving out, we were still on friendly enough terms, so I went to visit her quite often. Two of her prewar lodgers had come back by this time,
Johnny Elphinstone and . . . Jimmy Davidson, and I was quite glad that I wasn’t living there any longer. It would have been awkward to see him every day.

Sandy was still in the Merchant Navy, his peacetime job as well as wartime, and we only saw him between trips. I should have realised that this was building up to another dangerous
situation.

If I thought that living with my mother was bad, I found that living in a strange woman’s house was much worse. I don’t suppose Mrs Campbell (I’ll call her
that) was actually picking on me – it could have just been her way – but she seemed to be constantly reprimanding me for something. I would need to remember that she needed to use the
washing line sometimes, as well as me. She didn’t need her afternoon rest disturbed by my daughter making a noise. Would I please be careful of her linoleum when I was carrying heavy things
up or down the stairs? And so on.

I couldn’t really see what she had to complain about. I had to wash quite a lot; children could get dirty in five minutes, especially when they were outside making sand pies in the plot of
earth she was allowed to play in. My daughter was very well behaved . . . as a rule. I was always careful of her linoleum, and her wallpaper when I was going up and down the stairs. Of course, I
was still in my early twenties, and it wasn’t until I was much older and had a house of my own that I could see her point . . . and my mother’s. At that time, however, I took Sheila out
as much as I could, for there were many lovely walks in the vicinity.

I often landed up at Mid Stocket. I didn’t admit to my mother that I didn’t enjoy living away from home, but it was good to have two young men to talk to. Both Johnny and Jimmy must
have realised how unhappy I was. Johnny had bought a motorbike and came across one night to take me for a spin. Sheila was sleeping and she never woke up in the evenings, so I asked Mrs Campbell if
she would mind listening for her. To my astonishment, she gave a smiling nod.

I believe now that this was actually the start of my slide downhill. Tearing along the country roads at 50 or 60 miles per hour, with my hair streaming out behind me and my skirts blowing up
over my knees – I hadn’t yet taken to wearing trousers – was a taste of freedom I’d never experienced before. It never entered my head that I shouldn’t be doing such a
thing, that my husband probably wouldn’t like it . . . or if it did, I ignored it.

I rode on the pillion several times before Sandy came home for almost two months and unknowingly stopped that pleasure . . . any pleasure I had in the little nest I’d made. He wasn’t
happy with the room, he wasn’t happy if I asked him to look after Sheila while I went to the shops, or did a washing. This was a most complicated business anyway. I’d to bring up a pail
of water, boil it on the Primus and rub the dirtier items between my knuckles until I was satisfied that they were clean. Then it was a case of wringing by hands, going down to empty the basin in
the outside drain and filling it with clean cold water for the rinsing.