Tales from the Tent

by Jess Smith

  I hadn’t realised it, but my friend and I had fallen in love. It sort of grew on me like ivy round an old fence post. Still, it had to be kept a secret until I found the right time to tell Daddy. He certainly would not want me coming home with news like that.

  Mary meanwhile gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl we’d ever seen, with lots of fluffy hair and the biggest round blue eyes, she was gorgeous and quite a novelty in our home. Perhaps it was her newness—you know that special smell babies have that made me yearn for one of my own.

  Davey was desperate that we marry, and so wanted to ask Daddy for my hand, to do it right and all that. I told Mammy to have a word with him, she did and we set a date. Mammy baked nice cakes, while I cleaned and spruced the caravan. The rest of the family went out to give us privacy. Although I had a feeling that another reason was that they didn’t want to be there when Daddy hit the roof. Davey arrived about seven as planned, hair brushed back with a ton of hair cream through it, clean white shirt with tie, shoes polished spit-sparky clean. But no Daddy. Hour followed hour, until eleven o’clock struck loudly from Crieff’s tower clock, and then he came in from God knows where, ignored Davey and sat down. Still, I have to take off my hat to the lad, because he went right over to Daddy and said, ‘I want to marry Jessie.’

  ‘Oh, now, is that a fact, and what do you do?’

  He knew very well what he did, I’d told him a thousand times.

  ‘I’m an apprentice joiner, Mr Riley,’ he answered proudly.

  ‘Well,’ said my thrawn father, ‘when you’re a time-served one, come back and I’ll think about it.’

  The lad had been far too well brought up to answer my Father back, although by the look on his face I’m damn sure he’d have liked to. The poor man ran from the caravan, with me apologising for my father’s behaviour. I followed him, but Daddy called me back, ‘just a minute, lassie, I want a word with you.’

  I was furious with my father, and for the first time in my entire life let him know. ‘Where have you been all night? Don’t you think it the height of ignorance to leave my boyfriend sitting here? You knew how nervous he must have been.’

  ‘Jessie, I said you were never to marry, remember? Anyway, lassie, you’re too young to be marrying. Now this conversation is over.’

  Mammy smiled and said, ‘why don’t we all go to bed, things will be clearer tomorrow when we can hae a crack about this.’

  Next day I ignored my father, we discussed nothing, while he thought it best to take the car keys just in case I eloped with it. Later I met Davey in our usual spot up town. ‘Let’s get the bus into Perth,’ he said. We did and headed for the first jewellers on our road. It was mid-June and we chose my engagement ring, a twin diamond twist set in a thick gold band. It cost twenty five pounds—every penny of Davey’s saving since he left school. He wanted a quick wedding, a summer one, but I needed my father’s blessing and persuaded him to wait.

  I never got Daddy’s blessing, and I think I’d still be waiting on it. Meanwhile, a home of our own became paramount. A house either to buy or rent was out of the question, so we went over to Arbroath Caravan Park and paid a small deposit on a sixteen foot, four-berth caravan. I was still employed at the mink farm, so we managed to afford the payments. Chrissie let us stance it in her back yard. Mammy helped me to sew curtains and Davey’s mother bought some cushions and carpets to match. There was a cosy wee coal fire, so our first home at least would be warm.

  So on the last day of the year 1966 I became Mrs David Smith, and what a Hogmanay that was. If you like, I’ll tell you about it. You would? Oh, I’m so glad.

  Mary was my bridesmaid, while Davey’s pal Alan Brock was his best man. Our banns had been posted with Perth Registry Office in Tay Street, for the ceremony to take place at twelve noon. Mary and I, for the first time in our lives, had a hairdresser pamper and style our heads. Having long hair, Mary opted for a hairdo that resembled a wind tunnel. Thankfully, mine was short and easy to style.

  I asked Daddy for the car three times that morning, before he set the keys on the table and said, ‘help yourself!’ Mammy had been an absolute angel; she’d ordered a one-tier wedding cake from Campbell’s the Bakers and sent invitations to relatives far and near. She’d also decorated the caravan with balloons and paper flowers, it was so lovely. By the time we set off it was doubtful if we’d be there on time, I began to panic. Any other day of the working week would have been OK, but on Hogmanay in Scotland—what Registry Officer would keep an office open when he’d his Ne’er day bottle to purchase?

  At last the four of us were heading out of Crieff. Butterflies were thronging inside my belly and, like most brides, I was wondering if I was doing the right thing.

  ‘Hang on, you three,’ I warned, ‘because it’s twenty minutes to twelve, I’m going to put the foot down all the way, so hold onto your seats!’ Now, three miles outside Crieff, at Gilmerton, there’s a bend in the road, which if you’re not careful throws you over the road. No, I wasn’t careful and over I went. Flash Fordy spun round several times, before crashing through a wooden gate and bogging down in a field. Thanks be, the night before there had been a hard frost that hardened the ground to the extent that Mary, Davey and Alan were able to get behind the car and push. It took ten precious minutes to get us back on the road again. The lads’ nice blue-grey suits were splashed by the gutters that hadn’t frosted and Mary’s wind-tunnel resembled the leaning Tower of Pisa. We arrived in Tay Street at twelve thirty—half an hour late. Would the Registrar be there? Someone who was, however, was a nasty, limping parking attendant, who with several waves of his arms instructed me to get my stationary car out of the way. Drastic measures were called for, so grabbing my hat, bag and flowers I got out of the car and handed the wee attendant the keys. ‘Come on you lot,’ I shouted at my husband-to-be, his pal and sister Mary, ‘if Limpy here can’t find a spot then I sure as hell won’t.’ The poor man looked at the car keys, then at me, and didn’t have a word to say, which was probably the first time this had happened since he got the job. Now, folks, I swear to you but that Registrar was still there waiting on us. Oh aye, he had the face of anger on him right enough, but there he was, God love him, standing on the steps watching for us, his bunch of office keys jangling from his fingers.

  ‘David, do you take Jessie to be your wife?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Jessie, do you take David to be your husband?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I now pronounce you man and wife,’ said the old Registrar with a smile, and added, ‘you can now congratulate each other.’ I kissed Davey, he shook my hand, big nervous oaf!

  Well, there I was, reader, a married woman. My in-laws had paid for our wedding dinner, which we had in the York Hotel in Perth, and it cost a full ten pounds. We then set off for a walk round the town, where I bought a chicken for our New Year’s Day dinner and my new man purchased his bottle of whisky.

  Back in Tay Street we went looking for my father’s pride and joy with a wee bit apprehension. Did the flustered attendant have it pounded or tipped into the silvery Tay? No worries, because wee Limpy had positioned Flash Fordy in a safe spot opposite the Police Station. A note under the wiper read, ‘Congratulations, but next time don’t be so cheeky!’ (Next time, aye, that’ll be right.)

  A super surprise was waiting back at Arnbro for us; many friends and relatives had arrived in answer to their invitations, which made me feel just that wee bit special. So, after a hearty feed, a lump of wedding cake and a dram we sang, danced and cracked. It mattered not a jot that Jack Frost was attacking every finger and nose, the party went on all night. Davey and I left our guests around three in the morning and headed the two miles home to our wee trailer. He held me tight, because not only was I freezing to death, but I was nearly four months pregnant. Thought I’d keep that little detail out of my wedding day photographs, folks.

  From all of my memories of that day this was to me the most special—when we arrived at our tiny car
avan, much to our surprise, someone had been in and lit the fire and pulled down our bed. It was such a warm and cosy welcome, to this day I can still feel it.

  When I popped into bed there was a present propped beside my pillow, whoever had lit our fire left it. It was a radio loosely wrapped with brown paper and twine. I read the small card—‘From Daddy’. I cried myself to sleep, because at long last he’d accepted my decision to marry.

  Because the family I grew up in consists of eight girls I thought I’d pop this next wee story in for you.

  38

  BRIDGET AND THE SEVEN FAIRIES

  Here is an oldie now for you. One that I always remember because I have seven sisters. I recently read a version of it in a book by my old friend Bob Dawson. He heard it from a travelling man, while they sat sharing a cup of tea round a campfire in Arran in the sixties.

  Once there lived an old tinker man who had six beautiful daughters and one not so pretty. They lived in a tent and were always poor and hungry. ‘I am sick of this poverty,’ said the eldest lassie, ‘I think it time for me to go and seek my fortune.’

  Saying her farewells to the family she set off, however she had not been long on the road when she came upon a fairy caught in a gin trap. ‘My, fairy, you’re the most horrible creature I’ve ever seen,’ she told it.

  ‘Dear tinker girl, let me out I beg you,’ pleaded the fairy.

  She looked at the fairy and said, ‘Ugh, you are too ugly to be rescued,’ so she picked up a stone and threw it at the trapped fairy.

  ‘For that evil act you shall lose your beauty and become ugly, I’ll send you home with a donkey’s tail.’ No sooner said than done, she grew an ass’s tail. Terrified to be seen, she turned and ran home. When her father asked how such a thing had happened she told him about the ugly fairy.

  Soon the second daughter went out to seek a new life, and she too came upon the ugly fairy trapped in the gin trap. The same thing happened—when the poor creature asked for help it was refused, and this sister ran home to hide with a pair of large donkey ears sticking prominently from her head.

  The third sister went, and so did the fourth, the fifth and the sixth. All refused to help the fairy and came home with ass’s hoofs and hindquarters and hair all over the body. Into the tent they went and hid beside the others.

  Now it was the turn of Bridget, the seventh daughter, who wasn’t pretty, in fact she was a dowdy girl.

  When her father asked her why she had to go, she said, ‘to find the fairy and plead with her to forgive my sisters.’

  Her father told her not to go near the ugly fairy, because it would put an even worse curse on her, but she went anyway.

  She searched for days before she found the ugly little fairy that gave her sisters the body parts of a donkey. When she saw just how awful the fairy was to the eye she could see why her sisters threw rocks at it. ‘Please help me, tinker girl,’ it said, ‘I’ve been stuck here for years.’

  ‘I certainly don’t want to become a donkey,’ she thought, so leaned down and set the fairy free, then pleaded that she break the spell on her sisters. ‘Your sisters were devilish to me, but you were kind. For this act I will present you with a gift. Your sisters were beautiful, but you will be the most lovely of them all, so be on your way.’ As soon as this was said, Bridget’s dark hair turned golden yellow and shone like the brightest sun.

  Next day she came across another ugly fairy in a gin trap. She released this one also, which in turn gifted her with skin as white as milk.

  Next day the same happened, with this fairy gifting Bridget with beautiful, slender, flawless legs. The next gave her perfect breasts, and the next sea-blue eyes.

  So in all she’d saved the lives of five fairies who were forever grateful.

  Next day, as she skipped happily along, she came upon a sixth fairy. This one however had horns and red jaggy teeth. Its face glowed fiery red, and Bridget was very afraid. She thought, ‘she is far too ugly to let out, I’ll hurry past and ignore her.’

  The fairy was hopping mad within the gin trap; so hard did she jump her leg became very sore, and she screamed at Bridget, ‘for not releasing me you will surely die!’

  Bridget ran off, frightened and in tears. She didn’t see another tiny fairy in a gin trap until she’d tripped over her. ‘Oh, forgive me, little fairy, I was running away from a nasty fairy who cursed me with death.’

  ‘That’s my sister, and she has a powerful magic, but although I can’t lift her spell I’ll change death to sleep. You’ll sleep for a hundred years. Go home, and there it shall come to pass.’ So Bridget went home, went into her tent and fell fast asleep. At the same time her father and donkey sisters froze solid in ice, and they all stayed that way for a hundred years.

  One day, after the time had elapsed, an ugly, long-legged, three-nosed, four-eyed man came down the road and saw the small tent all rotted and rain-leaking. When he looked inside he saw Bridget, and thinking her dead he leaned down and kissed her. Immediately she opened her eyes, and he covered his ugly face in case she was afraid to look upon him. ‘Oh thank you,’ she said. ‘You have released me from a terrible spell.’

  He turned and left the tent, only to meet the nice seventh little fairy, who thereupon changed him into a handsome tinker lad with a sharpening stone and bag of good tools. Bridget and he married, while the rest of the good fairies changed the scraggy tent into a grand house. As for the donkey sisters, well, it was thought they’d learned their lesson and they were made proper again, not into beautiful girls but into strong-backed donkeys. Bridget gave them away one by one to weary travellers who came by in need of an animal to carry their bundles.

  I remember when at school, a teacher told the story of ‘Sleeping Beauty.’

  I defiantly told my teacher it wasn’t called that, but rather, ‘Bridget and the Seven Fairies’.

  39

  THE PROMISE KEPT

  Two months passed and we moved down to join my parents in Arnbro. Davey continued to work out his apprenticeship with a local firm called Dodd’s. However his skin began to react to sawdust, leaving him with a severe skin condition. On his doctor’s advice he was forced to give up his job. This was quite a blow, because he’d only a year left to serve before qualifying as a joiner. I too had to stop work, on account of my pregnancy, and money was scarce. So scarce that our instalments on the caravan couldn’t be met.

  Now, far be it from me to encourage gambling, but one night Mammy asked me to go bingo-ing. I only had a ten bob note to my name. With it I bought one book.

  One hundred and seventy pounds had been accumulating over several weeks, ‘a jackpot’ folks called it. I smiled, watching all the wives biting their nails as the caller called out number upon number. Suddenly I was waiting on a seven, my tiny baby was turning somersaults in my abdomen as I sweated, then it happened—‘beautiful seven’. It meant the end of the caravan payments—I had won the jackpot on my first time there! Those ladies with five and six books were not amused, I can tell you, but when they saw my pregnant state and knew how young and hard up I was, they smiled and wished me well with applause. So I went off to Arbroath with one hundred and ten pounds, and the caravan was ours. I had enough money left to buy a pram for the wee junior he or she, and a second-hand car. One of Davey’s pals sold us a 1954 green Standard Eight car, which had a 1964 souped up Triumph Herald engine, for twenty pounds. It went like a rocket, however with me having such a monstrous lump Davey drove, even though I was the one with the driving licence.

  One morning in April I rose feeling awfy sorry for myself. Davey said, ‘what you need is a wee drive around Loch Earn, that’ll pick ye up, ma lassie.’

  When I had finally eased myself into the small passenger seat we headed up to take in the touristy delights of our countryside. I even packed a picnic basket. And I must say, by the time we were on our way home my earlier feelings of despondency had drifted off, but as we approached the north side of the loch we met an almighty ‘gowk storm.’ Now for t
hose of you who have never felt the fury of mother nature’s spring blizzards then you’ll not be aware of their ferocity, but for those who have, then imagine what I now share with you, reader. Our window wipers refused to budge! Torrents of thick heavy snow blasted our view, it was horrendous. ‘What will we do?’ I asked.

  Davey, being in charge of the vehicle, said, ‘If you run alongside the car, I’ll drive real slow while you wipe the snow off the window so I can see where I’m going.’

  I bet you’re thinking, ‘what a thoughtless young man, and his poor wife pregnant too.’

  Yes, no doubting that, but hey, do you know what I did?

  I got out and ran alongside the car, wiping the snow off so he could see.

  We arrived home and I slept for two solid days.

  At long last, on 25 May 1967, I was rushed into Perth Maternity, where doctors discovered my pelvic area was unable to allow a natural birth (I don’t know the medical terminology). By early evening our tiny infant was being strangled by its own cord, so the only thing to do was a Caesarian section. So there I was—Jess, who had planned to flood the world with enough bairns to side a football team—being told that all my births, if I had any more, would have to be sections. Poor Davey, was my last thought as I drifted under the anaesthetic, he so wanted a big family.

  Poor Davey indeed, there was I giving him a seven-pound, seven-ounce son, and he was across the road in a pub listening to Celtic win the European Cup.

  I slept for the next three days, hardly aware of the stream of grandparents and relatives who came and went. It was after day three I was able to fully take in my beautiful son. We decided on calling him Johnnie, after my father’s friend who saved his life during the war. Mammy always said if she had a boy that would be his name. I had the boy and gave him the name.