Of Different Times

by Agnes Kirkwood

  It must sound as if I hated my sister, which I probably did then because to me she was very bossy, I suppose that was the age gap then but as the years went by and I got older and able to stick up for myself things got better, and I must empathise that when I finally grew up, I happily worked with her, and better still she was my bridesmaid at my wedding, not to mention some of my children’s god mum. That doesn’t mean we’ve never argued through life, that’s things siblings do best I suppose.

  Another time strong in my memory was when we went to Edinburgh Zoo. My Auntie Kate was there as well with five of my cousins, and counting the five of us that made ten children. We were well warned about asking for money, or anything else for that matter, I suppose it was a lot of children to look after all at once and money must have been tight.

  Seeing all the animals for the first time was magic to us kids then, the only time we ever saw them before was in pictures and books. I liked the monkey house best, it always stays in my mind, especially when my sister got too near the monkey’s cage, and one of them got a grip of her long hair which happened to be in ringlets, we were all hysterical, it wouldn’t let go; in the end the keeper had to cut her hair and leave the monkey with the long hair ringlet which it immediately put it in its mouth. Another child who was not with our trip shouted,

  ‘Oh, look at the monkey with the long curly beard.’ I quick as a flash slapped her on the face, which I immediately got a clout for.

  Mum and Auntie Kate must have saved up for weeks for that day out, but they enjoyed themselves as much as we did, after all, we never seemed to go anywhere, apart from visiting my Granny, who only lived ten minutes away on the bus. I tell a lie; we went to my uncle in Gateshead for a week, it was the only holiday I remember as a child.

  The day we were going I wore my new kilt that my mum got specially made for me from one of our neighbours that did dressmaking, because I was due to start Highland dancing after we came back from our holidays, just like my older sister and cousins who had won loads of medals for dancing at the Highland Games. I never won or received any in the four years I attended. My big sister was right when she said I had too much carry on in my head, every week she carried tales of what I had been up to at the dancing. I was not as dedicated to dancing for medals like they were, I just liked going to dance; whilst they treated dancing very competitive. Anyway, there I was all ready with my new kilt on and a ribbon in my hair tied in the usual bow like a giant butterfly sitting on the top of my head. Mum told me to sit down and not move in case I got dirty, while she got my little sister ready, but then she asked me to nip to the neighbour and ask her if she had a spare nappy pin as the one she had slipped down the edge of the armchair and she could not retrieve it. So off I went on my errand. I skipped down the path until I came to the gate. Instead of opening the gate, I did what I had done hundreds of times before, I climbed over it, but as I jumped down the other side my new kilt caught on one of the pointed wooden slats of the gate and was waving about like a flag. My mum went absolutely berserk, I just coward away as she went on with her usual bawling and shouting, all I heard was, ‘You can sit there till your da gets in, and let him deal with you, because I give up.’

  I just closed my ears then and let her go on and on. When dad came home from work he was expecting to see me wearing my new kilt and us all ready to go. Instead he saw me cringing on the chair with my eyes all puffed up from crying minus my new kilt. ‘Are you not ready? We have to leave in an hour,’ he shouted in agitation.

  Of course mum had to get her little bit in, making the situation worse.

  ‘She’s as ready as she’ll ever be,’ she said then turned to me and added, ‘Tell your da where your new kilt is.’

  I won’t repeat what he said. My brother sniggered in the background with his usual finger pinching nose trick to try and make me laugh when I was being told off, but I was too upset to fall for that trap, I just sat there and took my verbal punishment. Nevertheless after all that, we were on our way within an hour as planned.

  The visit to my uncle was the longest journey I had ever been on. There were no motorways then, only two way ordinary roads. We caught a bus at the Stirling bus station to Edinburgh, then a train to Newcastle. We went across the Forth Bridge and as we crossed we threw a penny into the water for luck then closed our eyes to make a wish.

  ‘What’d you wish for?’ my brother asked. ‘Not telling you, cos it’ll not come true, will it da?’ I asked

  ‘Don’t you two start, or we go straight back home,’ was the reply. Then silence.

  It felt like we were travelling all around the world. When we finally arrived, it was late so we had something to eat which my auntie had ready for us, then it was bedtime for us children. I was sent to sleep with my cousin Eliza, who was two years older than me and a good foot taller. I was terrified to go to sleep that first night in case I wet the bed, which I occasionally did. It was something I couldn’t control. Mum tried everything with me, from not letting me drink three hours before bed, to being lifted through the night and placed on the toilet. Which nine out of ten I had already peed the bed before she got to me anyway so, nothing she tried worked. It would really be embarrassing if I wet the bed, especially in my cousin’s whom I had only met for the first time. So there I was, terrified to go to sleep, and as soon as my cousin fell asleep, I would sneak out and sit on the chair frightened in case I fell asleep and wet the chair. In fear of nodding off, I would regularly make my way to the bathroom and have another wee. This went on for three nights, until I fell asleep one night on the couch and was carried to bed. I slept like a log, and was so pleased because I never wet the bed; in fact I never ever wet the bed again, seems that my penny wish going over the bridge had come true. From then on I enjoyed my holiday. My cousin Eliza was asked to take me with her when out playing with her friends, and was told to look after me. We explored all around the waterways, and visited a huge market that ran all alongside the river next to a huge iron bridge, where I bought a couple of second-hand puppets for sixpence.

  I soon got my money back because I put on a show behind the couch that night for the family which they laughed all the way through. There was me seriously thinking they were laughing at the show I put on, but no they were in fits laughing at me, but what the hell, I wasn’t a bit upset I had more interest in the collection they did for me, a handful of coppers in a collection that came to a couple of bob. Good to know they enjoyed it.

  I joined up with Eliza and her pals and became one of the gang. We went everywhere together, thinking back we were up to no good. One day we were chased by the local policeman for catching us taking an apple each from a fruit display outside a shop, we all scattered and managed to escape down all the alleyways.

  Another day we went to the pictures armed with an egg each which we sneaked out of a little corner shop that had a large bowl of eggs on the counter. I was nominated to go to the counter and ask for a couple of Oxo cubes that were situated on the back shelf, as she turned round to get them they all grabbed an egg out of the bowl. We arrived at the pictures and sat in the front row seats up on the gallery. I still remember it was a cowboy film and when it got to the part where the cavalry came to the rescue, all the kids stamped their feet shouting hurray, that was the time that we all threw our eggs on top of the kids below then quickly sat back as if butter wouldn’t melt in our mouths. It wasn’t long before we could see the man with a torch shining it all around our row, but we sat back like little angels pretending to be engrossed in watching the last part of the film. My heart was pounding, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

  My cousin and her friends were truly adventurist compared to us back home, and I loved that, today you’d call them streetwise I suppose, I was sad when it was time to come home. So that was my one and only holiday with my family in all my school days that involved going away from home overnight. To this day I have never seen my cousin. I often wonder how she is, and what she’s doing.

  One day my pal and
I decided to have our own little adventure, by going camping for a day. I told mum I was going on a picnic with my pal and got the usual response.

  ‘Hope you’re not going near that pit pond, or anywhere you’re not supposed to be, and if ever find you up to no good I’ll break your neck when you get back here,’ she yelled.

  ‘No mammy were only going to the park’ Same old story I sighed, which went in one ear and out the other, so I lied, what else could I say in that situation?

  We filled a lemonade bottle with water, made some jam sandwiches, and I sneaked a tin of beans out of the cupboard with the vision of having beans cowboy style around our campfire. We didn’t have a tent, so it had to be the same as we did when we camped in the garden, the old sheet slung over the line. I pretended to go upstairs to the bathroom and stuffed a large sheet out of the airing cupboard into a bag and dropped it out of the window to my pal who was waiting down below.

  The hardest thing to get was the rope we needed to pitch up our tent. I remembered there was a lot of rope rolled up on the pole at the end of the wash line, which mum only used when she had a lot of bedding to wash. That was awkward to get as mum seemed to spend a lot of time at the kitchen window overlooking the wash line in the garden. I hid behind the shed with a knife at the ready and as soon as mum moved from the window I ran over and cut off a length of rope. The last task was to sneak some matches which was easy as the matchbox always sat on the mantelpiece.

  Packing done, we went on our camping expedition to a little wood at the back of the pit. First thing we did was to tie the rope from one tree to another, then put the sheet over and pegged it at the bottom to create our own little tent. We then gathered some twigs and made a fire inside a circle made from stones, even though it was a scorching hot day, it wouldn’t be camping if we didn’t have a fire to heat our beans. We sat around the fire eating our jam sandwiches and beans, drinking water. We spent hours there just collecting twigs and making a little house in our tent. Yes it was a very exciting day, until the loose piece of rope from our tent caught fire. I noticed it travelling up the rope towards our sheet, and knowing I would get a hiding if the sheet got burned I grabbed it and squeezed it in my hand to put it out. That was the end of our camping expedition; we packed up and headed for home. The rest of the day I was in complete agony, with a big blister on the palm of my hand the size of an old penny.

  Another great thing we loved to do was slide down the Drossy Bing, that’s where the pit used to tip all the dust from the coal. We’d take a shovel, or anything flat and metal like the old tin hearth sheets that were discarded from the empty houses of the Blocks we would bend them over like a sledge, the only thing about them was they were too awkward to carry up the Drossy Bing, but if you didn’t have a shovel you had to make do with whatever you found. We’d climb to the top and slide down on the shovel; it was like sledging down black snow. If you fell off your shovel you ripped your knickers to bits and got a very painful Chinese burn that made your bum turn navy blue from the coal dust. Whenever that happened to me mum knew exactly where I’d been, and I’d get a good hiding for going there. Did it ever stop me? No.

  I shudder when I think of the things I got up to, apart from knocking at doors and running away, or picking flowers out of peoples garden and selling them, the thing that sticks in my mind is bird egg collecting, I just can’t believe I was so cruel, when I look at nature films on tv today at how hard little birds have to forage for materials to build their nest in the first place before they can lay their eggs. It was idiots like me coming along, stealing their eggs and blowing the unborn chicks into oblivion, as if they had no right to live. We then had no thought to the birds feeling at discovering their offspring gone. They must have been heartbroken. I often wonder if they ever lay again, or were they too scared to in case the same thing happened. What was it all for, bragging who had the most variety?

  Same with little insects we would collect ladybirds and keep them in a matchbox, and nine out of ten they would die overnight. We’d have a phase of catching bees and wasps in jars to see who could collect the most. Same with frogs pawn and tadpoles. When I think how cruel we kids were then it makes me shudder.

  I wasn’t afraid of any kind of creepy crawlies then, not like now. One of my worst fears in life are spiders, and that was due to our Wilma because one night as she was babysitting with her friend, I was playing with the biggest spider you’ve ever seen letting it run from hand to hand, when all of a sudden my sister took it and put it down my jumper, I could feel it crawling about my back whilst they stood there laughing. So since then I have been terrified from them coming near me. It wasn’t until later in life that an old man told me it’s good to have spiders in the house, and never to kill them because they are keeping the house free from insects that are more harmful. It made sense to me so now although I won’t let them come near me. I can watch them from afar and if they get too close I will drop a book or something on the floor and it will disappear back to where it hides, which according to the old man is usually in the cavity wall somewhere.

  I also did some good deeds when I was young, I loved animals and took some of the older neighbours’ dogs for a walk, there was one dog in particular I fell in love with called Bruce, he was a springer spaniel and loved playing in the circle of grass on our street with me, he followed me like Mary’s lamb. Bruce’s owner told me it used to look out of the window all day long, and as soon as it saw me playing outside he’d go wild until she let him out, and he’d make a beeline for me. One day when I came home from school there was a commotion going on outside her gate, and being curious I ran over thinking the dog was there. It certainly was. The farmer brought it and dumped it in her garden and told her it was worrying the sheep and would not stop, so he shot it. I was shocked, I ran and cuddled him but he didn’t move, his owner was crying and gently pulled me off him, I ran home devastated. My dad could see that I was heartbroken because I never went out to play for days, just sat looking out of the window. He came home one day with a little golden Labrador pup and said if I look after it I could have it. I fell in love with him straight away we called him Dusty, it seemed to match the colour of his fur. Sadly he died with distemper when he was only six months old.

  Our next dog was a miniature Shepherd Collie, Bernie, it looked like Lassie only smaller it belonged to my Gran. She lived on the main road and it ran out of the house and nearly got killed by a car, so she gave it to my little brother who happened to be with mum visiting. I fell in love with him, and it took to me more than anyone else, but my brother kept saying it was his dog, so being a greedy child he sold it to me for my bar of chocolate which dad bought us on his way back from a meeting one Saturday. It was a good job the deal was done in front of dad who laughed at the time, because the next time he said it was his dog my dad soon reminded him he had sold it to me for a bar of chocolate. He was a great little dog, a bit of a roamer, and had a mind of his own.

  One day my big brother was playing footy in the circle with the lad next door. The lad’s dad shouted on him and gave him sixpence to go to the shop for a newspaper. On the way back my brother spotted Bernie down the road and shouted on him, as soon as he noticed my brother he ran to him wagging his tail waiting as if he had something for him. My brother said to his pal, ‘Give the paper to Bernie; he’ll carry it for you.’

  His pal looked at the dog with distrust written all over his face.

  ‘Oh I don’t know, if he tears it my dad will kill me, it’s his last tanner.’

  ‘Don’t worry he takes ours out of the letterbox every morning. Trust me, you’ll see.’

  So his pal folded up the paper and put it in Bernie’s mouth, which the dog received gladly, then ran off shaking it profoundly until he reached the circle of grass at the front of the houses and shredded it into nothing. What a liar my brother was, he took the paper out of the letterbox alright, only when we weren’t quick enough, otherwise if Bernie got there first the paper ended up confetti.

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nbsp; Another brotherly tale to tell. We were playing in the back garden one day with catapults we’d just made, and hung a tin can on the washing line to have a contest to see who could hit it the most. One of my shots hit the shed window and smashed it, so we both ran. Later that day we were arguing over something and I called him a pig. He looked at me and shouted

  ‘I’m telling my da about the shed window, and about you swearing so you’re bound to get a sore skin when you get hame.’

  Remembering what mum always said if you swear God turns children’s tongues black. Was I worried mine would turn black through the night, definitely not. That was one thing my mum hated, kids swearing, she always said it showed that they came from a bad family. Adults used these words when they were really angry, but there was no excuse for kids to swear, and she threatened us that she would wash our mouth out with carbolic soap if she ever caught us even saying the word pig as it was a substitute for a swear word.

  I answered my brother in anger,

  ‘Well I may as well make it worthwhile getting a good hiding for,’ so I used every swear word I had ever heard of B… C… F… and shouted them all at him. That night at the dinner table he tried to blackmail me into giving him half my pudding or he would tell dad about the shed window, ‘No chance,’ I said getting stuck into my favourite pudding. Then he started off by saying ‘Da?’ Quick as a flash I halved my apple crumble and custard onto his plate before he could say another word, stating I’d had enough.

  ‘What do ye want?’ my dad asked him,