by Jess Smith
It took me a long time to find a different Jesus from the one a sculptor and an artist had fashioned to frighten little children in the convent in Manchester all those years ago. I would further like to say that as an adult I’ve discussed that place with many nuns, priests and convent-educated people, who assured me that my experience was the exception, not the norm.
Before I leave this tale, I would like to add that there was something else in the box-room with me all those years ago, a strong smell. One of urine.
In the meantime the smog became more of a hazard as cars and buses crept along the streets. Mammy worried night after night waiting on the older lassies coming home from the factory.
‘That thick smog had the clippy walking in front of the bus with a torch, showing the driver the way,’ exclaimed Mona, coming home one night from work two hours late.
‘Good God!’ said Daddy, ‘fancy a bus with its powerful lights needing to be guided by a wee torch!’
‘The street names, the driver couldn’t make them out, the poor soul didn’t know where he was going,’ added Chrissie.
‘He must have been new to the job, that’s all I can say,’ answered Dad.
As the month went on, Mammy’s concern for her girls, plus the ragging, then standing for cold hour upon hour selling freshly washed and ironed clothes from the ragbags at the open market, took its toll.
Daddy stayed at home to watch after the wee ones that day. Our Janey was needing a change from babysitting, so she went with Mammy to the market. Two hours into the morning, Mammy asked Janey if she’d fetch some hot tea from the wee café. When she came back a terrible sight made her drop the tea, because Mammy was lying across the stall clutching her stomach.
‘Help, somebody, please!’ she cried out.
‘God sake, Mam, what’s up?’ sobbed Janey, trying to hold her up.
‘Take my lassie home,’ was all she could say, before collapsing in a crumpled heap on the freezing concrete.
By the time an ambulance arrived, a dark pool of blood had formed round her feet, and within minutes she was lying in a Manchester hospital. Her body had had enough. She was at death’s door. Our nightmare had begun!
Chrissie asked first. ‘Is she going to be all right, Daddy, when is she getting home?’
By the pale frightened look etched across his face it was easy to tell things were far from right. He looked round at each of us and said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Influenza with standing all day at the market,’ Mona gave her answer, the one she’d convinced herself of. ‘They’ll keep her a fortnight with that.’
‘Bloody big smoggy town, she’s not used to this way of doing, she needs Scottish air, does my mother.’ Shirley was frightened. She feared ill health, worried for Mammy. ‘No wonder she was always swallowing pills and powders!’ said Janey, before covering her face with her hands, then adding through floods of tears, ‘All that blood, my Mammy’s precious blood. It was pouring from her.’
‘Oh my God, she’s only five feet in height,’ cried Shirley, ‘she needs all the blood she’s got.’
This brought us all to tears. We were frightened, confused and turned to Daddy for the answer. ‘Lassies,’ he said, removing his bunnet and running a hand through his thick black hair. ‘You know I’m not a man for prayer, but if there is a time for it, then this is the time.’
Those few words told us just how sick our mother was. Silently we gathered round our father’s feet, bowed our heads and prayed. I prayed with hands clasped so tightly my wee knuckles went white. But not to Jesus. No, my pleas were to my wee Cumbrian monster Greenwing. He came immediately into my head and sat behind my eyes. I felt instant comfort from his velvety invisible wings. I needed my friend more than ever. I was very afraid.
The Jesus Box with its terror wasn’t a patch on the fear that made its presence felt right inside my very heart. Somehow life without Mammy had never entered my head. At my tender age the possibility that she and I would be parted by death was unimaginable, and unthinkable!
Mammy needed major surgery. For a start her womb was removed. She lost a large part of her stomach. Her right lung was weak with infection. However, she was made of stern stuff, our mother, because against all the odds she slowly began to recover. Each time Daddy came home with the news, ‘She’s a wee bit better’, it brought a warm glow to our hearts.
Christmas came and went, but there was no sign of it in our wee home. No toys or talk of turkey, Santa and his reindeer or fairy lights on pine trees. All we thought of was her getting well and heading home to Scotland, for us to be a whole family again.
I always imagined that because of the closeness of us living in such a tiny space, we became as one body. Let me put it simply for you: our parents were the head. Then, according to the age of my sisters, we were joined into limbs and so forth, one living body! If one took sick, then we all felt the symptoms, so think how we were feeling when the sick part in Manchester was the most important part of all, the one who gave us life!
On New Year’s day we all piled into wee Fordy. We were going to see her. Up till then only Daddy was allowed in. How excited we were. I even took Greenwing, who’d now become a permanent member of the family. But only I saw him.
‘Mr Riley, we’ve a bit of a setback, come with me please.’ The nurse looked concerned.
‘Girls, if you could stay in there, please, Dad won’t be long.’ She pointed to a half-shut door. Without a word, we followed each other into the room and sat close together.
Daddy came in several minutes later, as white as a sheet!
‘Mammy’s taken a turn for the worse, she’s losing blood, the doctor told me she needs a lot more! Without it...’ He stopped himself saying the inevitable in case we became hysterical. Instead he drew in a heavy sigh and said, ‘Let’s leave her sleep.’
But now came the frightening realisation, something he never knew before, that she had a very rare blood group. The only person the hospital had on their list who was a match was a captain in the Merchant Navy.
Would this man come and save her life? Thanks be, he did, all the way from Singapore!
I believe the hospital paid for his flight, plus several weeks’ accommodation while he donated his precious blood, saving our mother’s life. And all that for Jeannie, a simple little traveller woman from Scotland!
Daddy needed to shake this man’s hand, to say thank you, but he wanted anonymity. So not one of us got to meet him, let alone thank him in person. Mammy later told us that sometimes, through hazy eyes, she saw a tall man standing at her bedside, and wondered who he was. Once her sight was clear enough to define a bearded face, but she wasn’t sure. When she began to gather her strength, she asked the doctor if her saviour would visit. He said the good man had left the country, his task complete. So she never did get to thank the tall, bearded navy captain who gave so much.
If you are out there somewhere, sir, know this, that you have the thanks of a very grateful family. With your gift a woman lived to see eight sons-in-law, twenty-one grandchildren, and eight great-grandkids.
It was mid-February before Mammy was finally allowed home. She had lost half her body weight and her hair saw its first grey. Daddy wouldn’t let her lift a finger. Mona and Chrissie were more than pleased to give up the factory work and help at home.
To see her sitting cracking away with the gypsy women was a treat. Just looking at her was a gift for my eyes. She had spent too long away from us. I stroked her hair and simply touched her apron, as if assuring myself she wasn’t a dream.
After she came home my friend Greenwing came less and less to visit me. One night, while everybody slept, he told me there was a sad little girl who needed him more than I did. He said she was a shepherd’s child who’d lost her rag doll, and he had to find it for her. I was sad to let him go, but it didn’t matter all that much. After all, did I not have my precious Mammy back? So we parted, my imagined friend and I.
The middle of March saw little openings in th
e clouds, revealing a blue sky with the odd bird or two. Daddy was becoming restless; if he’d been under the bonnet of the bus checking the engine once then he’d done it a dozen times. A wee touch oil here, a wee bit water there; yes, soon it would be time to go. But who would drive the Fordy?
‘I’ll drive my wee van,’ said Mammy.
‘Never, you’re not well enough,’ said Daddy.
‘If we take our time, say twenty miles a day, maybe a day’s rest here and there, we’ll get home before the summer.’
Mary and I were more than glad to leave school; the older lassies said their farewells to friends made. The gypsies gave us a wee going-away party with promises to come and visit us at the Berries, but as is the case so many times, we never saw them again. The concerns Mammy had for her lassies being courted away by the handsome lads came to nothing, they were all spoken for. It seems they seldom marry outwith their own kind.
Next day we parted with the rosy city of Manchester, the place that saved our Mother’s life. She later told folks that, had it not been for the list of blood donors kept by that particular hospital, she might not have survived.
The journey home was, as Mammy said, ‘slow but easy’. We arrived in Crieff, Perthshire, for the start of June, with another bit mishap to report to our friends.
4
I CAN FLY!
Before leaving Manchester, Mammy had written to Granny Power and Granny Riley, letting them know all about her illness and her saviour, adding that we were coming back to Scotland, so to look out for us in Crieff, Perthshire, round about apple-blossom time. The two Grannies had no idea she’d been so ill. The news was spread, and when we arrived in Crieff they were eagerly awaiting to pamper her. Not only them, but most of our relatives as well. Enough to fill the green!
It was great seeing my cousins. We played in the woods, swam in the river Earn and built a wee hidey-hole in the yellow broom with sticks and branches. This is where I told them all about the English gypsies, Sister Alice and the Jesus Box, and, most important of all, my Mammy’s illness and how she nearly died. I was the ‘most important person’, for I had heaps of things to tell.
Soon though, apart from Anna, the rest of my relatives went on the road, but because Mammy was still weak we stayed in Crieff awhiles longer. The site we were on had been, during the War years, a prisoner-of-war camp. Crieff had hundreds of war prisoners, and Cultybraggan outside Comrie had at one time over six thousand of them.
The concrete bases of the huts made a fine solid stance for the bus and caravans. This meant no guttery feet in and out the bus, mucking up the Axminster runner. It also meant the wash-basin didn’t get knocked over on uneven ground. Mammy would often say, ‘Would it not be braw if all the sites were like this one. Oh, and a great luxury into the bargain, toilets!’ (I’ll bring this wee house to your attention quite soon.) Today the caravan site no longer exists. In its place is a chicken hatchery.
Years before, Mammy, when in Crieff, would visit with certain women. She told their fortunes, you see. One of them saw my sister Chrissie up town and recognised her; she asked if Mammy might return to see her. My sister told the woman that she’d had been ill and she didn’t think she could come. On hearing that, the woman decided to visit her instead. She took some friends with her.
So there, in the shade of a large elm tree, my dear mother told their fortunes. To this day I can picture her tenderly holding one of their hands and reading from the palm that which was pleasing to the ear. To watch the look of worry turn to a smile of quiet relief was indeed worth the seeing.
‘Do you really see into the future in the folks’ hands?’ I once asked of her.
‘Now, pet, what I think you’re asking is, do I see bad news for them.’
I nodded, awaiting enlightenment. Knowing my mother as I do, her answer did not surprise me. ‘When you’ve enough worries to fill the days, a wee bit good news goes a long way, lassie. These people know fine what worries have went by them. Thinking the future will be better does no harm, none at all, now does it?’
‘Jeannie, dear, you’re far too nice for this world.’ I’d heard Granny say that to her many times. And never a truer word was spoken. She had a heart of gold, did my Mam.
If there’s one thing Crieff had plenty of in those days, it was ‘characters’. Let me tell you about two of them. Jenny Ford and her giant of a brother, Wull. ‘Midden-rakers’ of the finest first class!
In my young life you’ll see, if you read on, how I gained the ability to determine the value in scrap metal. It is not to dealers or travellers that I owe this skill, but to my very own ‘coupies’, Jenny and Wull. No fancy lorry or horse and cart contributed to the wealth this duo amassed. Wull wielded a bogey, while his sister wouldn’t see past her big green pram.
As soon as the bin cart finished tipping, the pair of them were at its back. Pulling and tearing, routing out among the week’s rubbish, keeping this, keeping that. Laying aside old bits of wood, iron, wheels; endless useless-looking bits were thrust into the bogey and pram, then wheeled away to be added to piles already filling their yard. This fine yard was situated along the aptly named Ford Road.
I remember Jenny once let me see round the place. A privilege, believe me, because this honour wasn’t bestowed on just anybody. To the left of their yard was the river Earn, to the right the graveyard. Jenny would point down to the burial ground and say, ‘Do you see those craturs lying beneath the ground? Well, lassie, they are all dead. Useless! Not like the stuff folks throw away as rubbish. That, to them is dead. But we take it, Wull and me, and bring it back to life! Our yard’s full of life, lassie.’ I hadn’t a clue what she meant, but it made a lot of sense to her.
Folks were used to their coming and goings and never batted an eyelid, in fact many looked upon the pair as quite handy! If someone needed a piece of wood to finish building a shed, or a spare wheel for a pram, ten to a penny a visit round the backyard of the pair would prove useful (for a small fee, of course). Had they been active in this present day, my pair would have taken on the title of ‘recyclers’.
Jenny and Wull stay firmly in my mind as two of the old Crieffites, who as I write have passed over to the other side. Well, to the lower right-hand side of the old scrapyard along Ford Road, to be precise. The peaceful graveyard.
Mammy never felt comfortable wasting a bonny frock on Sundays, she much preferred putting me out in dungarees. For there was nothing surer than that I would find my way down to rake among the midden rubbish with my two pals.
Now, believe this if you like, but I heard it said more than once, that Wull and Jenny were worth a fortune! Sad to say, though, my midden-raking only ever netted me a few pounds from whatever scrappy was the most generous. Nevertheless, it was immense fun!
Every Saturday afternoon found us queuing up alongside the local children at the door of the Ritz Cinema. This was just the best entertainment a wee bairn could ask for. To sit in front of the big screen and be part of the fantastic film acted out before our very eyes was, as the female half of the Krankies sings, fan-dabby-dozy!
Cowboys riding with the wind on palomino horses, either chasing after or fleeing from painted Red Indians. Tarzan swinging through the trees, adventure upon exciting adventure. I used to float from that matinee cinema all the way home, in a daze.
This brings me to my very first injury! Remember I mentioned toilets? Well, listen to what this silly wee youngster went and did.
‘Mammy, Daddy, there was a big man in the pictures yesterday who flew!’ I was referring to none other than the great Batman.
‘Away, you don’t say!’ said Daddy, tossing another lump of butter followed by lashings of black pepper into the tatties, then plunging the masher through the fluffy contents of the big pot.
‘Aye, Dad, he was dressed in black, every bit of him, only his eyes were showing. And he had a great spread of bat’s wings on himself!’ I was almost breathless with excitement.
‘Did the gadgy hang upside down, Jessie, m
y wee lamb, like the bat?’ smiled my mother, counting the plates for supper.
‘No, Mammy, but you should have seen the way he ran up buildings and jumped off the roofs!’
‘God bless us and save us the day, imagine that, eh,’ laughed my father, stifling a peppery sneeze.
‘Aye, Daddy, he spread out his shiny black wings and flew. Oh my, it was rare to watch.’
‘Here lass, sit down and eat your food,’ said Mammy, adding, ‘It was only make-believe—people can’t fly. Tell her, Charlie.’
‘Jess, your mother’s right. It’s called tricks of the camera, he didn’t really fly.’
I felt angry; my parents seemed to be mocking me. ‘Yes he did, for I seen him with my own two eyes, nobody could make that up, the big bat gadgy flew!’
Mammy would hear no more about my fantasy and told me so, adding, ‘Go and play, the floor needs a wash and I don’t want you running in and out, so away with you!’
I went off towards the broom, where my cousin Anna and other travelling bairns were playing, but I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. Did he fly or not?
I asked my clever cousin who always seemed to know more about the world than I did. ‘Anna, that Batman we saw in the cinema, he was really flying, wasn’t he?’
‘Of course he was,’ she said, then added, ‘He fairly knew his stuff. See how he tied all the baddies up with his bat rope!’
‘I never knew people flew, did you?’ I asked her, ‘The folks said it was tricks; camera ones.’
‘Well, maybe someone sewed the bat wings onto his back,’ she said, not wanting to go against adult knowledge.
‘Or maybe he really did have wings like a bird,’ I answered.
‘Jessie, what if everybody could fly?’ Thoughts of flying above the ground made Anna laugh. She continued, ‘Instead of shooting the grouse you could stick yer hand out and grab it.’
I added my fantasies: ‘Think on hazelnut time, all we’d need do is to flutter round about a tree and empty the whole thing.’
