Gift from the Gallowgate (2 page)

I suspect that Mum felt lacking in some way when she was with them. She was oldest in a family of four, her father, James Paul, being a farm ser vant who, like all of that ilk, shifted his place
of employment, if not every six months, fairly frequently. She had one sister, Nell and, eventually two brothers, James and Douglas. It must have been quite a cultural shock to her when her father
got a job at Rubislaw Quarry and they flitted to Aberdeen. I’m not too clear about his job there, I think he was on the crusher, but Maisie was still a shy, naïve country lass, so
naïve, in fact, that at twenty-one, she had an even greater shock when she went home from work one day and found a pram in the kitchen. ‘Whose bairn is it?’ she asked, and
couldn’t believe what she was told. The infant was a new brother and she’d had no idea that her mother had been ‘in the family way’.

My mother was a very clever child even though she’d had to change schools so many times, but there had been no money to allow her to carry on her education, and it ended at Peterhead
Academy when she was fourteen. Her first job was as a kind of maid/nanny to the owners of a ‘Johnnie-a’thing’ shop at Stockbridge, not far from her grandparents’ croft at
Toddlehills, near Longside, which is only a few miles from Peterhead, if you want the exact location. She liked Mrs Duncan, the shopkeeper’s wife, and would have been quite content to stay
there until she met a young man she’d be happy to marry, but her father had found a new job and insisted that she accompany them to the big city. I’m quite sure, however, that she never
had any regrets about being uprooted.

In 1918, when she first saw the ‘butcher’s daughters’, their brother Bob would still have been with the Welsh Fusiliers in France. In the photos we have of
him, he had three different cap badges during his army ser vice, because of the vast numbers killed in the various battles. The remnants of each regiment were amalgamated into one, taking the badge
of whichever had most survivors. Reading a photo/postcard he sent to his sister Jeannie, listing the various places he had been, it is obvious that he was lucky to come through the conflict alive,
yet it was only after my mother’s death that I discovered the Military Medal he’d been awarded for bravery in 1917. I made enquiries about it and was sent a copy of the commanding
officer’s report for the three days in November when the Allies were trying to recapture a wood near Ypres. This certainly explained why the men under him were from so many dif ferent
regiments, but only mentioned that Corporal Robert Forsyth had been commended for outstanding bravery in the field, and gave no details.

Mum and Dad must have met after he was discharged from the army – sadly, I heard nothing about their courtship, but I wish now that I had asked – and they were married in 1920. This
was an eventful year for the Forsyth family. Jane, their mother (a most imposing figure of a woman from her photographs, always wearing huge hats with feathers or some sort of decoration) died
having her gall-bladder removed in a private nursing home, and Annie emigrated to Canada. Billy, Jack, Bob (my Dad) and Jeannie all got married, although their father told Bob Mackay, ‘You
can’t take my housekeeper away from me.’ Fortunately, Jeannie’s husband was quite pleased to move into the house above the butcher’s shop, where they lived until the
property was condemned early in 1939. They were given a council house in the Middlefield area, where hundreds of new square blocks were springing up. With the intervention of a war, all of the
condemned buildings in the Gallowgate would be left standing until well into the fifties.

My parents rented a two-roomed furnished flat in Rosemount Viaduct, an impressive street of granite-built tenements with shops at ground level, that sweeps down to the Central Library, the South
Church (now called St Mark’s) and His Majesty’s Theatre. Aberdonians once knew this trio as Education, Salvation and Damnation, but that’s by the by. Dad paid £50 for the
key to the flat, as was usual in those days, and he built a garage he named Erskine Villa (the make of his car) in a lane off Raeburn Place at the rear of our tenement. We could see it from our
kitchen window. Our parlour looked up the hill towards S. Mount Street, with a big mill-like building as a focal point. This was a canning factory, where, for instance, the Coop sent their oatmeal
to be tinned for exporting. It later became a secondhand (junk) store run by a man nicknamed ‘Cocky Hunter’, why, I don’t know. After the last war, this eyesore of a building was
pulled down and replaced by a circular block of flats, which won the architect some special award. We ordinary mortals, though, look on this, too, as a monstrosity, and there have been whispers
that it will be demolished soon.

Before he acquired the Erskine, Dad had a motorcycle/combination, and early snaps show me as a tightly wrapped bundle in my mother’s arms in the sidecar. Most of the men in the family,
Dad’s brothers and brothers-in-law, owned a vehicle of some kind, from humble one-stroke motorbikes to the impressive Lagonda that was Uncle Billy’s pride and joy. Every Sunday, there
was a mass exodus of Forsyths from the city – it’s strange that they all thought of themselves as Forsyths, even those who had just married into the family – looking for
interesting places to have our picnics. I can’t remember bad summers in the late twenties and early thirties; it always seemed to be sunny, cold perhaps even in June, but still sunny. Ah, the
rose-coloured memories of youth.

No buying sandwiches and ready-made pies or quiches from Marks and Sparks in those days, though. This was a time when wives were expected to cook everything themselves, long before Aberdeen at
least had ever heard of Mr Marks and Mr Spencer. It was a case of each family carting potatoes, a basin to peel them in (water to come from the burns and rivers we parked alongside), salt, sausages
and bacon, an ordinary pan, a frying pan, two Primus stoves, cutlery and dishes, not forgetting matches, because not one of the brood smoked. None of the men drank or swore, either, so although
they were a somewhat raucous crew, there was no harm in them and they certainly knew how to enjoy life . . . which was just as well. Most of them died quite young.

Uncle Bob was the exception, surviving Jeannie, all her brothers and sisters and their spouses, and living until he was almost ninety. Before he died, he told me that Granda Forsyth had been a
bit of a drunkard when he was young, which is probably why his three sons were teetotal. On another visit, Bob surprised me by sighing, ‘I’m the only Forsyth left.’ He was
absolutely serious, and I didn’t have the heart to remind him that he never
was
a Forsyth. I suppose, in a way, it was a compliment to his in-laws that he considered himself born as
one of them.

My earliest memory is of being taken through to Granny’s ‘room’ (the parlour) to see my great-grandfather’s coffin – James Paul, Senior. When his
wife died, he had given up his croft at Toddlehills near Longside – not far from Peterhead on the north-east Scottish coast – which was in a sad state of repair and eventually
accidentally burned down. This was the house pictured on the cover of my second novel as Rowanbrae, over sixty years later. The fire and the building of a bungalow on the site in the thirties were
as near to the truth as the story came; the rest was pure fiction.

Well over eighty, Great-grandfather Paul had been living with his elder son in Aberdeen’s Ord Street for some months before his death. This became Quarry Street when I wrote
Time Shall
Reap,
because Rubislaw Quarry was in close proximity. I was only about four at the time of his departure from this world, but I can still remember looking at the fearsome wooden object with
its silent occupant, the bushy white beard resting on the satin lining, and saying, ‘Why’s Grampa sleeping in that big black box?’

While I was still a babe-in-arms, we went to Toddlehills in the motorcycle and sidecar on occasional Wednesday afternoons – Dad’s half day. Obviously, I can’t
remember anything about those times or the place itself, but snapshots show that the house had a thatched roof and a big stack of peats built against the gable end.

Other photos show the old couple themselves, Greatgrandma in a long black bombazine dress, with her hair dragged severely back off her face . . . but it’s a kindly face. Her husband, on
the other hand, looks quite stern, in a tweed jacket and trousers – I can’t tell if it’s an actual suit, probably not – and a snouted cap covering his white locks. They made
a perfect Darby and Joan.

Once, when my mother was clearing out, she asked if I’d like to have her grandmother’s hatbox. She had kept it well hidden, but intrigued, I accepted with delight. There was nothing
unusual about its slightly oval shape, but it was made of tin and painted black. The lid was hinged at the back and lifted upwards to reveal two mutches, much softer than bonnets, though similar in
style. One was plain black, with wide strips of the same cotton material to tie under her chin. The other, also black, was beautifully adorned with loops of black satin ribbon, the extensions at
each side becoming the tiers. This was her Sunday-go-to-kirk mutch, and according to my mother, was hardly ever worn on any other occasion.

I treasured that tin for many years, proudly showing the contents at every chance I got, but sadly, it was in a crate that went missing when we moved to our present home. Also lost was a
waistcoat belonging to my husband’s great-grandfather – a truly magnificent creation of royal blue satin quilted and embroidered with gold. Willie Davidson must have been a real masher
when he put it on, though I can’t for the life of me think of an occasion when he would have been likely to wear it. But he doesn’t belong here.

The visits to Toddlehills ended when the old lady died, of course.

It must have been in the mid 1920s that my Uncle Jim, my mother’s brother, was accepted for the Metropolitan Police and moved to London. As a bachelor, he lived in the
Section House with the other unmarried young men, several other Scots amongst them, but soon began courting. Gwen Schaper, his lady friend, was the eldest daughter of an ex-sergeant/cook in the
Royal Artillery, I think, who had taken over a hotel in Guilford Street, off Russell Square, when he ended his twenty-five years’ service . . . it may have been longer.

When I was six, we made the long journey to London, but it wasn’t until I mentioned it in the staffroom of the school where I was teaching some fifty years later, that I realised what an
undertaking it had been. This was 1928 remember, seven years before driving licences were required, and when there were very few petrol pumps and even less garages on the road; very few proper
roads, for that matter, mostly what were known as ‘unmade’, with no tarred surface.

Motorists had to learn by trial and error how to fix the engine when the car broke down, and I’m quite sure many faults were made worse through ignorance. But that was all part of owning a
car, a challenge that most men must have enjoyed. The spare tyre was accommodated on the running board, where also sat a five-gallon can of petrol in case we ran out. I shouldn’t think my Dad
was ner vous of making such a lengthy trip – he wasn’t that kind of person – but we did have friends with us, a Mr and Mrs Gammack, neighbours from Rosemount Viaduct, and you
never knew what could happen out in the ‘wild blue yonder’. It was best to be prepared for any eventuality.

As usual, the boot was packed with all the necessities for making our own meals, plus a small ‘bivvy’ (bivouac) for Dad and Bill Gammack. I can’t remember the make of the car
that made this daunting journey, but the door of the boot was hinged at the bottom, coming down to make a convenient table for our snacks. Whatever the make, it could cover the 508 miles as easily
as any Rolls Royce; we just made one overnight stop at a place called Wreay, I think, in the north of England.

After having something to eat, Dad and Bill Gammack set up the ‘bivvy’ for themselves and the two ladies and I were to sleep inside the car. I am practically sure, however, that I
was the only one who got any sleep that night. Even in July, it was still quite dark in the dead of night, and I was scared out of my wits to be rudely awakened by unearthly howls coming from
somewhere close at hand. It turned out that the tent had been pitched on, or in very close proximity to, a colony of ‘forkytails’ – earwigs, to give them their proper name. They
were crawling all over the two demented men, and Mum even had to fish one out of Dad’s ear with a hairpin. Not the best of medical equipment, you may think, but the only thing handy and it
did the trick.

All thoughts of a peaceful sleep vanishing, we continued on our way, landing in London much earlier than we had expected. Of course, we took some time to find Guilford Street and Mr
Schaper’s hotel, where we were to be staying.

Our host was a huge mass of a man, who did all the cooking sitting on a high stool. (His great belly sort of rested on the long table, and his vast behind overlapped all round the stool, neither
of which seemed to bother him, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off him.) He didn’t have to move at all. With three sons and three daughters at his beck and call, he had everything he needed
handed to him.

His wife ran everything else in the establishment, the ordering of food, the paying of accounts, dealing with the guests, making sure that her daughters kept the rooms spotless in their role as
chambermaids, and were courteous and friendly in the dining room when they were waitresses – not too friendly, of course. She kept a strict lookout for any fraternising and quickly put her
foot down if there was even the slightest hint of it. Mrs Schaper was no dragon, however. She was a small, slim woman, always laughing, always bustling about but never too busy to answer questions
or to have a wee chat, if that seemed called for.

(I used the man, his wife and family, and his hotel, as models in the London-based part of
The Back of Beyond,
giving them different names.)

After we were given a lovely meal we were shown to our rooms, where we decided to unpack before venturing out into the great ‘metrollops’ (as I mis-repeated what my
Dad said). We had another nasty shock. Our suitcases were moving with forkytails. They were inside everything, the feet of socks and stockings and even inside the ladies’ knickers – a
rude word in those days and which were worn only under ladies’ skirts; men wore short underpants or drawers (long johns).