Tears for a Tinker (32 page)

One councillor said that the Highland clansmen could only communicate in Gaelic, and anyway, there was not enough money to pay them even if the work was completed.

Lord Kames said if they gave the clansmen the pardons he was asking for, he would see to their wellbeing. So that was settled, permission was given and the destitute highlanders began the
reclamation of Blair Drummond Moss. At long last they had work, a useful occupation for the strong and hardy men of the Highlands. It would prove a difficult task, and one for which they received
no wage, but Lord Kames fed them and allowed many to lease the land. This proved a sound plan, because each section of the land being leased had to be cleared by its holder. There was no payment in
money, but they were allowed to build small houses made of dried peat, and for a hard and successful year’s work, they earned a pig or a cow or some fowl.

A channel was cut from north to south through the moss and down to the clay below. At the north end a stream of water that had been used to drive a mill was diverted into it, and was thus led
for a distance of about a mile to the Forth. The men would throw the peat into the stream, and the water had a powerful enough current to carry it down to the river. The underlying clay of the
canal bed was as slippery as soap, so the thick stream of water and peat was well lubricated as it moved slowly down to the river.

This act of clearing the central belt of her peat bogs began with the clearing of Blairdrummond Moss. The Highlanders called this the First Famous Old Labour Colony.

When they and their families began to populate the cleared moss grounds, they built schools and chapels and set priests and teachers to work teaching their children and keeping their Sabbaths
holy. If one takes a stroll throughout the Carse of Stirling, it is interesting to note how many places have Gaelic names.

As mile upon mile of moss were cleared, secrets held within its boggy depths were revealed. Whalebones along with other aquatic skeletons proved that indeed the ocean had covered that area many
thousands of years ago. Something else was discovered—hundreds of Roman artefacts, including swords, knives, shields and helmets, pots of clay and some remnants of jewellery, proving that the
Romans had been there during their occupation.

Another thing that may be of interest to you was that up until the beginning of the twentieth century, tinker women used sphagnum moss for nappies; this antiseptic plant had so many antibiotic
properties that babies never suffered sore bottoms. The using of cloth brought with it that plague of babies, nappy rash, but this was never Mother Nature’s gift.

I hope you liked those wee snippets of moss stories. I think we’ll head back to Crieff now, and see how this scaldie fared in our flat at the bottom of Gallowhill.

31

FAMILY LIFE

T
ravelling people hate to part with their weans, even for a visit to relatives, and I was no exception. If for one day my wee boys were not under
my wing I was unable to get on with everyday routine for worrying about my children. Johnnie had reached the age I dreaded; he was going to school. When I think back to those years I can still see
his wee face all lit up with excitement. He wore grey trousers, shirt and jersey, black shiny shoes, satchel over his shoulder, ready to face a bigger world than the tiny storytelling one I’d
cocooned him in.

Stephen whinged that first Monday morning because he wanted to go with his brother, but when I promised him a lollipop he sat quiet and watched his big brother, all five years of him, leave to
take his place on the first rung of society’s ladder.

We left early to visit Davie’s parents first, because Margaret needed to see the new schoolboy in his uniform. I remember the way she fussed over him before slipping a folded handkerchief
into the breast pocket of his blazer. That made me blush red, because I should have remembered a hanky, but she smiled, obviously aware of my embarrassment, and said, ‘that was his
father’s first hanky, I’ve kept it for his wee boy.’

I felt unwell that morning, and put it down to leaving my child in the hands of complete strangers, but when I saw those other mums, some crying their eyes out, I thought mothers are the same
the world over, be they scaldies or travellers. Stephen got his lolly, and for a while we walked about Crieff chatting to folk. Crieff folks love to blether, and even today when you wander through
the town you’ll see them just standing about the place chatting away, forgetting the time, just enjoying a crack. Stephen and I had a coffee in Rugi’s Café, which was a favourite
spot for women taking a break from shopping before either heading downhill to collect school kids, or in the case of older women, going home. Crieff’s High Street splits the town, with half
uphill and the other down. So the folks going down needed a break before returning, and the ones climbing uphill needed refreshment when arriving.

When it was time to collect Johnnie, it couldn’t come fast enough. My God, how I missed my wean, and him only out of my sight for three hours. Lining up with all the other mums at the
school railings, I watched as one by one the little primary children filed out like soldiers. He saw us first and came running towards me, eyes filled with tears. ‘Mammy, I done school and
dinna like it, so I winna be going back!’

Well, as it happened he’d been in the middle of a lesson when the teacher gave a child a row. Her loud voice and stern face frightened him, so with half a tinker in his blood, he told the
teacher she was a ‘Banshee’. That resulted in him getting a row and being made to sit at the back of the classroom. I tell you it took some powerful amount of persuading to see my
laddie don that uniform the next day and walk back to face the ‘Banshee’.

My feeling unwell soon resolved itself in another pregnancy. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, because after having Stephen the doctor warned my health might suffer if I became
pregnant again, and he tried to convince me to have a sterilisation. However I wanted a girl, and if one didn’t come, only then would I get the operation; one way or the other, I needed to
try.

I kept on working as long as I could, and what with seeing to my husband and ever-growing laddies, plus a baby on the way, all thoughts of my past and the ancient history of my people was, like
a family heirloom, folded and put away in a cold linen drawer. No more did I cling to the memory of my dear old bus, or those wild remote places I so cleaved to in the olden days. Gone were the
berry fields o’ Blair, and bracken-cutting in Inverary. Filed away in the further reaches of my mind were the bowed tents filled with dirty-faced weans laughing and dashing from yellow broom
to knotty oak. The clan system maintaining ancient feuds, which had me loving some tribes and terrified of others, was just a lost memory. I was now the property of mainstream society. My life was
insured through a red-faced collector for the Co-operative, who came every Friday at tea time. I was registered with the local health practice; even the mole on my back and the scar above my
forehead was noted on a record held along with thousands of others in a doctor’s surgery. Even my teeth were counted, and unwillingly filled each time I visited the dentist—and if I
failed to go he warned me that rotting teeth would poison my blood. Well, if I had bettered myself then it certainly didn’t feel like it; yet how easily one slips into the way of life that is
dependent on others. I’d never wanted to be a link in that chain of settled, controlled members of society. I remember seeing a film about Dracula, and in a strange way I envied him because
he changed at night into a bat and flew over cities and people. Lucky sod, was all I thought when I left the cinema.

I hated other people knowing my business, poking eyes and ears into my affairs. Yet everybody was centred in the same small community. However, I knew the importance of my past, at least what it
meant to me, and I allowed the farmer to close the gate but not to lock it. One day, when my role as mother was no longer needed, this old cow would bolt through that gate and run free onto her
familiar pastures.

A lovely, dark-haired, beautiful baby girl, born on 14 June 1972 when the summer was at its height, completed our family. Because of my contracted pelvis the sterilisation took place immediately
after the caesarean birth. The pregnancy wasn’t as simple an affair as the other two; sickness and painful backache plagued me for the whole nine months. My baby, who we named Barbara after
my youngest sister, weighed only five pounds five ounces, but she was perfectly healthy. I could hardly believe how tiny she was. Davie was frightened to pick her up.

My stay in hospital could have been easier, though, had I not taken an infection. Let me tell you about it. I had been in for seven days when the nurse who removed my stitches thought two of
them looked a bit red. She said that before going off duty she’d check my scar. I was to be going home next day. That evening, at visiting time, Mammy came in and said, ‘what’s
the matter with you, lassie, your skin’s yella!’

‘Mammy, I’m fine, I got ma stitches out nae mair than four hours ago, see.’ I pulled back the covers to let her examine the scar. ‘That’s alright, but I still think
you’re a funny colour.’

Well, the visiting hour passed, but my mother knew something wasn’t right, and when she left me she headed off to speak to a nurse. When she voiced her concerns, staff assured her that I
was fine. Mammy, however hard the staff tried to convince her, would not leave until a proper doctor listened to her woes. ‘Doctor, I ken these things, now that wee lassie lying in thon bed
has the poison in her. Please give her another check, because I’m never wrong.’

This kind doctor had Mammy brought a cup of tea and said he’d do a check on my blood himself, but it would take several hours for results. However my nurse, the one who had promised to
look at my scar before she went off duty, was to change the ward’s plans that night. She smiled and said as she lifted the thin piece of gauze from my scar, ‘well, Jessie, I’m off
duty now, but let’s see this...’ Whatever she planned to say never came from her lips, as immediately her fingers were covered in red and yellow gunge. Infected fluid oozed from my scar
like a hot volcano as the stitched area split open. I don’t remember much from then on, only my mother screaming—‘I telt ye, now. Ma bairn, ma bairn!’

Well, as it turned out I did have blood poisoning, and did that not half put the dampeners on me getting home. Back into the theatre I went to have all the rotting tissue cut out, and then for
another seven days I laid on my back while tons of antiseptic gauze was packed into the open wound. Before each meal I was given a great big injection of penicillin.

What concerned me more than anything else was my sons; I hadn’t seen them for the whole time I spent in the Maternity ward, and boy did I miss my laddies. Davie’s parents looked
after them well enough. I remember when Margaret sent them to visit. She didn’t come herself, as she hated hospitals, but Sandy brought my wee boys to see me. They weren’t allowed in
because I was in a room on my own due to infection. What a shock I got, because when they walked round to the French windows to look in, all I could see were two wee Lipton’s orphans.
Margaret had dressed them in belted tweed coats, and they’d had their hair cut in the shape of a bowl. If you have ever seen photos of war refugees, then that’s what they were like.

I’d dressed my boys in trendy gear and let their hair grow longish; like wee hippies they were until my mother-in-law got her hands on them.

Still, that was the least of my problems. I had to be restitched, but that didn’t bother me, it was getting the buggers out that worried me. Because of the severity of my failure to heal,
massive deep tension sowing was done on my wee belly. I couldn’t get a minute’s peace from worrying about these new stitches rupturing again—would I never heal? This certainly
became an obsession with me, so a bit of diversion therapy was applied by the staff. Every four hours my wound was cleaned and checked. On the seventh day a stern-faced nurse came in to do the
duty. I’d never met her before, and wondered where the other nurses were. She didn’t answer me, just got on with what she was doing. I tried several times to converse with this
guffy-faced mort, but nothing doing. Still, I’m not one to give up, and told her that on the previous night I’d seen from my window a new father enter the main ward all the worst for
drink, probably he’d be celebrating. Well, she sank me a look that would have scuttled the Bismarck and called me an interfering busybody, with nothing better to do than laugh at
others’ misfortunes. I can tell you here and now that nurse was lucky I didn’t burst the nose on her flat face. I told her to clear off and send another more civil nurse. It was then
she pulled off her rubber gloves and plumped the pillows behind me saying, ‘you can get up now, lass.’ I told her I could not move until the stitches were removed. Her answer was,
‘what stitches?’ That nurse had been sent to get my mind off the removal of those deep tension stitches, and by talking about the drunken father I had given her the chance to get my
mind onto something else—hating her.