Content
Title
The Breadmakers
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
A Baby Might be Crying
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
A Sort of Peace
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
About the Book
About the Author
Copyright
THE BREADMAKERS
In loving memory of my brother
Audley S. Thomson.
Chapter 1
There was still unemployment and empty shops, but Duncan MacNair’s bakery and general store had weathered the Depression and survived.
Women pushed in wearing aprons and slippers, or if they came from the maze of streets further along the riverside they arrived hugging heavy shawls around themselves, often with babies cocooned stiffly inside.
The traveller who shuffled through the open doorway of MacNair’s, however, wore a long blue belted raincoat, underneath which his feet barely showed. The coat, shined smooth with age and years of carrying bulky samples, was topped by a milky-moon face devoid of any expression except resignation.
The shop bulged with people sweat-glistening with heat from the bakehouse at the back. Maisie the shop assistant was working at such a pace between the bakery counter at one side and the general store at the other, she was too breathless to talk.
But old Duncan MacNair, the master baker, ranted into his goatee beard as if all the customers were devils ganged up out of sheer badness to harass him.
The traveller manoeuvred his long raincoat among the hot flesh and, with a sigh, placed his case up on the bakery counter.
Feeling out his order book he began his usual monotone, ‘Abdines, Askits, blades, bleach, Brasso …’
MacNair’s bloodshot eye popped.
‘I’ve no time for you today. Can you not see I’m busy?’
Well used to nobody having any time for him, the traveller went on with his list. ‘Bandages, castor-oil and zinc, cough mixture, notepaper, french letters, pipeclay …’
‘Beat it!’ The womanish voice reached a top note that spurted saliva out.
‘Sanitary towels, safety pins, Snowfire Cream …’
‘It’s the Old Govan Fair today,’ Duncan howled. ‘Did you not even see my horse out the front?’
‘Christ, the Fair, I forgot!’
‘Come on.’ Two blotches of pride warmed old MacNair’s cheeks. ‘Have a look at the best dressed animal in the parade. He’ll lift that prize again. By God, he will!’
Outside in Dessie Street, Sandy McNulty the vanman was chatting to Billy the horse. Sandy was so painfully thin it was as if a mischievous God in a cruel mood had caught him by the nose and feet and stretched him out of all proportion, leaving both nose and feet forever red and tender, and body without enough covering to keep it warm.
‘You’re a smart one, my Billy boy,’ he was assuring the frisky, restless beast. ‘There’ll not be another horse in the whole procession to come near you.’
Old Duncan ignored him and addressed the traveller.
‘Look at that!’ He thumped a gnarled fist against the horse’s rump, making it clatter its hooves on the cobbled street with indignation, and snort and toss its head.
‘What did I tell you!’ Sandy protested, grabbing the bridle.
A little crowd had gathered in Dessie Street to admire the horse. People going down the Main Road which cut across Dessie Street stopped to stare and others in the tramcars, trundling along the Main Road through Clydend to Govan Cross and further on into the centre of Glasgow, craned their necks round to keep staring.
Billy was a splendid sight and, judging by his proud prancing and the tossing of his head, he was well aware of his splendour.
Sandy had brushed and polished him with loving care until his red-tan hide gleamed. Even his hooves had been polished. A large scarlet and silver plume curled royally between his alert twitching ears; rosettes and flowers decorated his bridle; scarlet, silver and purple ribbons were plaited all over his reins and rippled from his tail; but the pièce de résistance was the magnificent saddle-cloth sparkling in the sun. Plush purple velvet was encrusted with silver and a many-jewelled design. The Dessie Street children were convinced that the fiery red and amber and emerald stones were real jewels and not coloured glass because rumour had it that, despite old MacNair’s scraggy appearance and second-hand clothes, he was loaded.
Attempts had even been made to divest him of some of his wealth. The last try had been when a local gangster rushed into the shop brandishing a cut-throat razor and demanding all the money in the till. Old MacNair, outraged at the mere idea, had immediately screamed at him and chased him away down the street with a long butcher’s knife lashing the air like a cutlass.
‘I’ll cut your bloody head off if I catch you, you cheeky big nyaff!’
Now he yelped at the traveller.
‘Look at the float, too. Help me get the covers off, man. Don’t just stand there like an accident looking for somewhere to happen!’
Between them, and to the mounting excitement of the onlookers hastily gathering in the narrow street between the high sooty tenements, they removed the covers from the four-wheeled vehicle standing behind Billy.
The crowd of neighbours - women in wrap-around overalls and slippers, some with masses of steel curlers in their hair, pale-faced men and little boys with skinny thighs in ‘parish’ trousers, girls bouncing up with heads straining - all jostled closer with loud ahs and ohs, inarticulate with admiration.
Bristly sheaves of corn hugged round the float. At the nearest end to Billy, a huge, flat wooden loaf stuck up displaying the words
MACNAI
R AND SON
BREADMAKERS
‘I’m going to sit up front with Sandy. Melvin will be in the back with the rest of them. They’re going to be tossing pancakes as we go along and I’ve got hundreds of wee loaves packed in there to throw to the crowds. Christ!’ The old man’s excitement suddenly fizzled out and he nearly burst into tears. ‘That bloody show-off of a son of mine’ll be the ruination of me yet. You’d think I was made of money. This was all Melvin’s idea. Hundreds of good wee loaves. Could you beat it?’
The traveller said nothing but looked vaguely impressed.
‘He’ll be wanting to pelt folk with my pancakes next. I’d better go and see him. He’s through the back helping with the pancakes now.’
Knees lifting and cracking, he hustled back into the double-windowed corner-shop, punching customers roughly out of his way, and made for a piece of sacking that served as a curtain between the shop and the ill-lit lobby. The left-hand side of the lobby housed the lavatory and wash-hand basin. Next to the lavatory the side door led out to the close, and directly across from the curtain was the entrance into the white floury heat-haze of the bakehouse.
Melvin stood, tree-trunk legs well apart, one shovel-hand gripping white-aproned hip, bushy moustache bristling with concentration, neck muscles knotted, shoulder muscles bunched, arm bulging as he strained—ever-faithful to the rules of dynamic tension—to lift a Scotch pancake and imagine with all his might that it weighed half a ton.
All Melvin’s fellow night workers, except Rab Munro who lived over in Farmbank, had been upstairs to their respective flats for a sleep and had returned to the bakehouse to help get everything ready for the Old Govan Fair.
A bald giant of a man, looking like an all-in wrestler with sweat splashing over his face, was bringing new batches of miniature loaves from the oven with the long handled pole or ‘peel’ and roaring in song.
The ‘halfer’, or apprentice, was over at the pie machine ‘lifting’ the pies.
Tam, another baker, his feathery white hair standing up on end, was swaggering along with more pancake batter for Jimmy the confectioner and Melvin, who, because of the special occasion, was helping him. Unlike Melvin and the other men, Jimmy always worked days along with his female assistant, Lexy.
Lexy nudged Melvin and laughed, making her own well-developed but softer flesh bounce and wobble.
‘I bet you’re dreaming about your new lady love. I’ve been hearing rumours!’
‘She’s got nothing on you, darlin.’ Melvin’s free hand suddenly shot up and twitched over Lexy’s full melon breasts, making her squeal.
Suddenly old MacNair’s high nasal tones snipped through the hilarity.
‘Stop your messing about, you randy nyuck! And what the hell are you playing at with that pancake? Anybody would think it was as heavy as an elephant, or you’d glued the bloody thing down. If it wasn’t for Jimmy here, where would we all be?’
Jimmy cast a long-suffering glance towards the ceiling as he continued rapidly flipping over the pancakes. Only the other day MacNair had insisted he was a ‘good-for-nothing young Dago’.
Tam the white-haired baker smacked and rubbed his hands then gave Melvin’s back a punch.
‘You were awful concerned about Rab that last time he was off work, eh? How many times was it that you went over to Farmbank? We’ve heard about Rabs daughter. We’ve heard she’s a beauty. Young, too. Sweet seventeen and never been kissed! Or is it sixteen? And a blonde as well. You’d better watch out for Baldy. He’s a devil for blondes.’
Melvin scratched his moustache. ‘She’s a queer one but I’ll soon knock her into shape.’
‘You keep your hands off the girl or there’ll be trouble. You’re old enough to be her father. Where is Rab anyway?’ grumbled old Duncan. ‘He’d better be on that float tonight with the rest of us. I don’t care if the big sod’s dying.’
‘One thing’s for sure, I’m a damned sight fitter than her father,’ Melvin said. Then, shoulder and arm muscles bulging, he went back to his tussle with the pancakes.
Chapter 2
The Old Govan Fair was always held on the first Friday in June and dated back to the fifteenth century, when Govan itself was barely a village and Clydend had no existence at all.
It had been originally granted by ecclesiastical rescript and at one time was the occasion of annual festival and holiday when the local deacon was elected.
The village band turned out to play for the retiring deacon at his residence, and it was also the custom for the band to halt at each public house en route in order to serenade the landlord. He, in return, was expected to come out into the street with a bottle of ‘the cratur’ with which he regaled all the bandsmen. The result was that although the music had been distinct and lively at the beginning of the march it deteriorated into a mere confusion of hiccoughing sounds long before the journey ended.
The main function, however, was not to pay court to the retiring deacon but to elect a new one. After the solemn business of the election was over, the proceedings quickly gave way to jovial rejoicings. A procession formed and marched to the boundaries of the village carrying the famous ‘sheep’s head’ hoisted aloft on a pole and gaily decorated.
The sheep’s head with its shaggy hair and big curling horns had always been the emblem of the Burgh. Legend had it that, long ago before ships were built in Govan, a pretty girl had come to serve in the manse and a young man had begun to court her and eventually asked for her hand. The cleric put his veto on the alliance and refused the youth permission to continue seeing the girl. The young man nevertheless succeeded in carrying her off and, in celebration, or revenge, he cut off the heads of the sheep in the glebe lands of the manse and left these grim relics lying on the ground.
The villagers, siding with the young couple, took the choicest specimen of the sheeps’ heads and did it honour publicly by carrying it on the Fair Day all along the village street to the ancient ‘Ferrie Bot’ hostel at Water Row, where they all got ‘roarin’ fou and unco’ happy’ drinking the health of the happy couple.
The traditional sheep’s head was still carried but the procession had grown with the place. Govan had at one time been a village on the banks of the River Clyde, but over the years increasing industrialization exploded the once-peaceful water’s edge with the endless clamour of the shipyards and the giant cranes crowding to reach the sky. Now, there were high honeycombs of tenement buildings behind the yards. Bustling shops with fruit and vegetables spilling out on to the pavements, draperies with dense doorways of hangers bulging with clothes. Dark brown, sawdust-floored pubs at every corner where money could be spent when men were working. When they were not, gloomy, dusty caverns of pawn shops with brass balls above where precious possessions might fetch a few shillings.
The roads of Govan formed the shape of a ladder, with the long, straight Govan Road nearest the Clyde and the more pliant Langlands Road further back. The rungs of the ladder joining these two main roads, from Clydend in the south to past Govan Cross at the City of Glasgow end, were - first - Burghead Drive, Holmfauldhead Road and Drive Road. At this point the ladder widened to encompass Elder Park with the public library at the corner. Then the rungs continued towards the Cross with Elderpark Street, Elder Street and Golspie Street. Next came Harmony Row with Burleigh Street angling off it into Govan Cross. Helen Street went into the Cross too, like Robert Street which arched from it.
Splintering back from the Cross, right on the river bank in the space between Fairfield’s yard and Harland and Wolff’s, there was a huddle of short, narrow, dark and very ancient streets, like Water Row, clustering around the Govan Ferry and the Govan Wharf.
Like Clydend they, with their rich tapestries of characters, were part of Govan and the Bacchanalian mother city of Glasgow, yet communities on their own with their own city-sized hearts, their own fierce loyalties.
The Old Govan Fair procession started at the marshalling point in Burghead Drive. All the floats gathered there prior
to their triumphal progress from Langlands Road to Pirie Park, along Langlands Road and through the old Burgh.
Burghead Drive was electrified by noise and colour.
A huge crowd clamoured, laughed, chattered, squealed, heaved this way and that by desperate boiling-faced marshals fighting to make order out of chaos.
Spilling from both ends of the Drive were close on eighty decorated floats, motorvans and carts, unrecognizable in their gay dress. Horses were stampering, with whinnies and snorts, rearing at the excitement. Flags were fluttering; the noise of revving motor-bikes mixed with the ting-a-linging bells of flower-cycles. The Boys’ Brigade, cheeky pill-box hats strapped tight under chins, were tippering drums. Heavy-jowled mustachioed police pipers were concentrating, tartan pipes wailing, screeching, squeezing under iron arms. Jarring jazz bands, with bearded wild-eyed maestros, thumped a bouncy New Orleans beat.
Further along in Elder Park another swarm of people waited impatiently, heads craning for the Govan Fair Queen.
A wooden platform had been erected and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (Clyde Division) Band was playing with great energy and enthusiasm.
The first car to arrive carried the convener of the Fair, and he welcomed the guests and ushered them to the dais. The guests included Govan’s member of Parliament and other local dignitaries. There were also representatives from the local hospitals to whom all the money collected at the Fair was to be given.
As each succeeding car approached, the crowd, agog to see whom it contained, leaned forward expectantly, on tiptoe to get a better view.
At last the clop of horses heralded the mounted policemen who were preceding the ‘royal’ landau. Thousands of lusty cheers welcomed the policemen and the car.
The sleek black landau drew up and out stepped the Govan girl who was to be crowned this year’s Queen, resplendent in white organdie lace and purple robes trimmed with ermine. She was followed to the throne by her four maids.
The convener gave a little speech reminding everyone of the unlucky ones who could not be here to enjoy the festivities - the patients in the Farmbank Infirmary, the Elder Cottage, Southern General, David Elder, Shieldhall and Hawkhead Hospitals.
‘We would like,’ he shouted from the roof of his voice to make sure he could be heard in every corner of the park, ‘to bring as much comfort as we possibly can to these unfortunates and we are looking to the big-hearted people of Govan to rally round and give every penny they can manage.’
The Breadmakers Saga Page 1
