Voices in the Street

by Maureen Reynolds

  Our ration books were registered with George Kidd’s grocer shop. This shop straddled the corner of the Hilltown and Rosebank Street and was so small that if four customers stood side by side it was like being a sardine in a can. Mum had two pleasures in her life: her cigarettes and her cup of tea. The tea ration of a paltry couple of ounces a week was never enough so Mum had an arrangement with the owner, who allowed her to be a bit ahead with her coupons. If the owner’s daughter Rita was behind the counter she would look perplexed at my request.

  ‘A half pound of biscuits, a lippie of tatties, half a pound of marge and our cheese ration,’ I said, rattling off the list that Mum had written out before going to work that morning. (A ‘lippie’ was a Scots measure for dry goods that varied from district to district but was roughly equivalent to one and three-quarter pounds.) ‘Mum also says can she have two ounces of tea. We’ve used up the last four week’s rations but she wonders if we can start on next month’s coupons.’

  Rita held up her hand in despair. ‘Wait a minute! Hold your horses till Eh have a wee peek at your ration book.’

  She departed into the tiny backshop and I could hear her raking through her file of the government-issued coupons. ‘Here we are. Tell your mum that she’s now on week two of next month and that makes her five weeks ahead.’

  I gathered together my small pile of groceries and placed them in Mrs Knight’s voluminous message bag, which had obviously been purchased in the good old days before the war. Now, of course, a whole year’s rations could fit comfortably into it with room to spare. Mrs Knight was a customer at Liptons, the shop almost opposite George Kidd’s. The founder, Sir Thomas Lipton, would have sympathised with Mum’s love of tea and he would have applauded her arrears with her ration because tea was the source of his vast fortune. One of his sayings had been quoted in the newspapers: ‘Tea at a rate of 2000 cups apiece per year has turned us into a nation of optimists.’

  But that had been long before this wartime shortage of everything. Liptons was a roomy shop with three counters but, like all wartime shops, it had the empty look that echoed the shortages.

  ‘A quarter pound of polony sausage and Mrs Knight’s sugar and cheese ration,’ I said, as the assistant hovered into view, ‘… please.’ I remembered to add the last word because Grandad had been most insistent on good manners when he was alive.

  I loved watching her cut the muslin-wrapped chunk of cheese. This would be halved and quartered by a thick wire attached to two pieces of wood. A small section would then be placed on the marble slab and she would proceed to cut a thin yellow sliver of cheese that constituted the measly weekly allowance. This sliver was often so thin that it was possible to see the wrapping paper through it.

  My next port of call was Harry Dick’s butcher shop.

  ‘Half a pound of sausages and a quarter of mince … please.’

  The young butcher, who was Jessie Matthews’ older brother, handed over the tiny parcel. ‘Tell your mother that she’s only got a tanner left on her meat ration,’ he said cheerfully.

  I promised to pass on this important message. Mum may have been able to wheedle her tea ration but she never tried this ploy with the butcher. By now all my errands were safely tucked up in the roomy bag and I was left with the worst task of all: trying to get Mum’s cigarettes.

  I made my way to Lottie Henderson’s newsagent shop, passing the long, straggling queue at Burnett’s bakery as they waited patiently for rolls and bread which were off the ration. Along with potatoes, this bread proved to be a great filler-up for growing families. Yet there were days during these traumatic times when even the bread supplies were scarce. Because of this, Mum would normally nip up to the bakery before going to the mill and buy our supply straight from the bakers, Even at that early time of the morning there would often be a long queue.

  But, to get back to the cigarettes … Lottie was another person with a tiny shop. She was partially hidden behind a huge mound of newspapers that threatened to overflow into the backshop. So high was this paper mini-mountain that often the customer would see only her head. She knew what I wanted before I opened my mouth. ‘Sorry but Eh’ve no fags left. Eh sold my last five Woodbines ten minutes ago.’

  She sounded apologetic and I knew this was genuine. She wasn’t like some retailers who kept all their merchandise, not only tobacco, under the counter for those and such as those.

  Mr McConnachie’s shop at 93 Hilltown was very different from Lottie’s. His counter was not so much bare as spartan. Perhaps in pre-war days he had kept a huge stock of goods but now he seemed only to stock a few newspapers. Still, I could nearly always count on getting Mum’s cigarettes here. ‘Ten Woodbines, please,’ I asked hopefully.

  He was a small and thin middle-aged man with sandy-coloured hair that had started to recede. He had been great friends with Grandad and because of this he was very good to us. With hindsight this helpful attitude was a pity because if he hadn’t been so good in keeping Mum’s cigarettes for her she would maybe have had to give up smoking because of the acute shortage of tobacco. ‘Eh can let you have Turf or Players Weights but Eh’ve no Woodbines,’ he said sadly.

  Sometimes May would accompany me on my shopping trips but merely as a bystander. Her mother did all their shopping while May was at school in St Mary’s Primary in Forebank Road, a leisurely state of affairs that made me grumpy sometimes.

  Once a week, Mum would unhook the accumulator from the back of the wireless so that I could take it over to be recharged at French and Macdonald’s radio shop. I hated this task almost as much as the daily trek for cigarettes. Clutching the accumulator in both hands, I walked slowly down the stairs, carefully watching each step in case I tripped with the heavy, ridged-glass container.

  May enlightened me one afternoon regarding this cargo. ‘That accumulator is full of acid and if it splashes on your hand the skin comes off.’

  I was totally amazed by this statement because I hadn’t given it a great deal of thought. I had always imagined the liquid inside to be something as innocuous as water.

  ‘You mean Eh’ll lose all the skin on my hand?’ I was alarmed and it showed.

  She nodded. ‘Aye, it’s acid and it burns you,’ she replied coolly.

  Her equanimity was fully justified because she wasn’t the one holding the dangerous object. I couldn’t tell if this revelation was true or not but I was always more careful afterwards than ever before. Sometimes, when crossing the road I would spot the rag-and-bone man with his tiny cart and pony. On these occasions I would have this terrible vision of the animal rearing up and bringing his hooves down on the accumulator, charging around like the horses we saw every week in cowboy films at the Plaza cinema matinee. Fortunately, and much to my relief, the wee pony plodded along with a hangdog expression. This little horse obviously had all the worries of the equine world on his flanks.

  When Mum arrived home from the mill, I passed on the butcher’s message.

  ‘Heavens! If it’s no one thing, it’s the other,’ she sighed. ‘Down to our last bit of beef and no wireless tae cheer us up.’

  From the way she emphasised her words I got the impression she was more depressed about being without her beloved wireless than having only a measly sixpence-worth of beef rations left.

  This state of mind was understandable because there was little the housewives could do about the amount of food allocated weekly and they were growing tired of this unending situation. At least with the wireless people could forget their daily worries for a short time and laugh and sing along with programmes such as ITMA or Music While You Work or listen to the rich, treacly voice of Wilfred Pickles sliding down the airwaves. Wilfred hosted a quiz programme with his wife Mabel. On this show, one correct answer earned the contestant two shillings and sixpence and two correct were rewarded with five shillings. Successful contestants would hear Wilfred advising Mabel to ‘give them the money’. As it was, it was only well-heeled people who could afford to own two accumulators and hav
e their entertainment non-stop.

  While Mum was grumbling I was busy reading the evening paper. I liked the ‘Aunt Joan’ children’s column and ‘Button’s Biography’. It was then I spotted ‘Mona’s Topical Tips’ and her recipe for a meatless dish.

  ‘Here you are, Mum. You don’t need to worry about beef because Mona says you can make a pie with just two pounds of root vegetables, three bottled tomatoes or tomato sauce plus dried egg, marge and flour for the pastry.’

  Mum was amazed. ‘Bottled tomatoes or sauce? Where does that woman think we all live – Pasadena, California?’

  Now Pasadena was the favourite word for Utopia, made famous no doubt by the popular song ‘Home in Pasadena’ which everyone whistled. Anything glamorous or unobtainable in wartime Britain was no doubt in plentiful supply in far-off Pasadena. Lucky them! Still, there was no doubt about that wonderful commodity, dried egg. It had arrived on Britain’s shores during the early part of the war as part of the American Lease-Lend pact and it proved to be the mainstay of many a diet.

  A few days later, May appeared with half an orange while Jessie Matthews had a whole one. Later that evening, Mrs Doyle told Mum a story of outright greed. Apparently, the fruit shop in Ann Street had received a consignment of oranges and word of this had spread, as it always did, at the speed of light. Within a half-hour a large queue had formed, with people arriving from almost a mile away.

  ‘You wouldn’t credit it,’ said Mrs Doyle, ‘everybody was tae get two oranges each, on a first come, first served basis. Well, everything went well to start with until a couple of women got greedy and rejoined the queue. They managed to get six oranges each before they were twigged. So, of course the owner stopped selling them. You aye get some folk spoiling everything for the others.’

  Mum was annoyed at this practice. ‘You would think it would be a better policy for the shop to sell oranges on a Saturday afternoon when the mill workers are no working, instead of the same greedy folk getting everything. It’s just no fair.’

  But, fair or not, that was the way it was. Food on the ration was fairly distributed but anything off the ration was a different matter. As Mrs Doyle said, there would always be greedy people. While the unfair method of selling oranges annoyed Mum intensely, the new policy of selling cigarettes left her incensed.

  Mr McConnachie broke the bad news. ‘You’ll find that every packet of fags now has tae include two Pasha cigarettes in it.’ He shook his head sadly as if this state of affairs had been dreamed up by him. He pointed out the alien tobacco to me.

  ‘These two oval ones are Turkish. That’s why they’re called Pasha.’

  Lizzie, our neighbour, was in the house when I broke this latest bit of news on the tobacco front. Mum surveyed the cigarettes with suspicion before venturing to light one. A slightly sweet and sickly smoke rose in the air with a strange blue haze. It made us all feel queasy.

  ‘Och, for heaven’s sake!’ spluttered Mum, ‘Eh’ve never smoked anything as revolting as this. It’s like being in a harem in the Casbah.’ As Mum rarely visited North Fife, let alone North Africa or Turkey, this was pure supposition. Nevertheless, these oval cigarettes were relegated to the sideboard drawer to be used only in the direst of emergencies.

  Lizzie, being a non-smoker, couldn’t understand this passion. ‘Do you no think this would be a good time to give them up, Molly?’ she suggested.

  Mum agreed with her but admitted that it wasn’t easy to give up. She did say she wasn’t as bad as some people she knew who saved all their fag ends in a tin before making a new cigarette out of them. Mum shuddered. ‘They must be smoking pure nicotine.’

  Meanwhile May had discovered a shop in Ann Street, that catered for the Catholic community, had received a supply of angel scraps. We all loved playing with our scraps but they were nearly as non-existent as everything else. As luck would have it, I almost jeopardised my chances of buying these desirable scraps because of an unfortunate episode in St Mary’s chapel in Forebank Road.

  Like all calamities it began innocently enough when I went with May one day to the chapel as she said she had to see the priest. She left me outside and warned me to stay there until she returned but I got bored and wandered inside. It was beautiful with its high, vaulted ceiling, its vast, roomy interior lined with cool stone walls and the lovely statuettes of Jesus and the Madonna and Child. The glorious altar was enclosed with a fretted wooden fenced structure and the entire place was filled with the fragrant scent of old wood and a potpourri perfume from thousands of floral displays over the years.

  I was waiting in the quiet hush when I saw the elderly woman. Dressed entirely in black, she was standing in front of a wrought-iron, heart-shaped candleholder which was half-full of guttering and smoking candles. As I watched she tugged out a stub and replaced it with a new one from a box that lay under the magnificent display. After she left I decided to get a better look at this blazing wonder. Most of the candles were flickering gently but others were almost burnt out. They lay in their holders, an inch of melted wax encircling a blackened wick. I decided to remove them and replace them with new ones and I had just completed this action when May appeared with the priest. He was a heavily-built man with a fierce red face and when he saw me he hurried over with a furious expression. ‘Did you light those candles?’ he demanded.

  As I nodded wordlessly he pointed to a moneybox which I had overlooked in the splendour of the glowing display. ‘You’re supposed to put a penny into the box every time you light a candle!’ he shouted.

  As I shook my head to say that no money had been put in the box he almost threw me out of the premises.

  ‘Get out and don’t come back!’

  When we were outside May explained the ritual. ‘Folk light a candle when they want tae pray for someone.’

  ‘Eh didn’t know that,’ I said, now totally unhappy about the whole sorry affair. ‘Eh just thought that if one candle went out you replaced it with another.’

  I decided I should go back in and apologise but I was barely inside the door when the red-faced priest saw me and hurried down the aisle towards me. At that moment a gust of wind whistled through the open door and caught the edge of his long black cassock, making it billow up behind him. This turned his advancing figure into the semblance of a demented bat. I took one terrified look and turned on my heels and ran, almost knocking May over on the pavement in my haste. May was really worried that he would report my misbehaviour to her mother. I don’t think Mrs Doyle would have been amused.

  As it was I was almost afraid to go into the Ann Street shop for scraps in case the priest had issued a description, a sort of juvenile identikit, to the elderly lady who served behind the counter. However, she handed over a sheet of scraps without batting an eyelid.

  Then another incident occurred, this time with George and Rose Doyle. One minute they were playing in the street and the next they had vanished, almost right under the noses of the two mothers. Everyone was in an uproar and people were dispatched to search for the two toddlers It seemed as if they had disappeared completely. A few hours later someone suggested going to the police station in Bell Street. The two women headed off and found the refugees sitting quite happily drinking lemonade and playing with a train set. They were so engrossed in it that they screamed and howled when it was time to go home.

  Mum and Mrs Doyle were definitely not amused. After the recalcitrant pair were tucked up in bed the two women discussed the day’s events. ‘Eh’ve never had such a red face in all my life,’ said Mum, ‘with all those outraged howls and antics from the bairns.’

  Mrs Doyle, who was equally annoyed, agreed. ‘That bobby will think we’re bad to them. Maybe he thinks we give them a good hammering every night.’

  May had her first communion the following Sunday. She appeared dressed like a miniature bride in her lovely white frock, with a small veil on her pristine ringlets. Mrs Doyle was carrying the baby but also keeping a tight grip on Rose’s hand.

  As usual, Mum
was peering from the window. She was full of admiration. ‘Eh see Mrs Doyle is keeping a tight rein on Rose, making sure she doesn’t run away again. She was saying she never felt so black-affronted as she did at the police station. She was saying she hopes never to have such a red face again.’

  At that point I had been toying with the idea of going to the chapel door to witness the spectacle of all the little girls dressed like brides but in the light of Mum’s words I decided to stay put. What if the red-faced priest should spot me within a mile of the chapel? Who knew what he might do! Somehow I didn’t think Mrs Doyle would relish the thought of another Macdonald child causing havoc in her well-organised family life.

  CHAPTER 8

  It was VE day, 8 May 1945, and Dundee, like the rest of the country, exploded into a frenzy of celebrations at the news of Germany’s surrender. Mum took us down to the High Street in the early evening and the City Square was packed with people, all singing and dancing. Although we stood on the fringe of all this gaiety, the unrestrained joy of the gathered crowd was highly infectious.

  However, there were still parts of the world that were at war. The Allies were still fighting Japan, but according to the local gossip this was a mere formality and that warring nation would soon capitulate just like the mighty Germans. Also, in spite of all this ecstatic display in the city, there were citizens who had nothing to rejoice in. Those families that had lost husbands, sons, mothers, daughters, sisters and brothers in the carnage were thankful it was all over, but nothing could ever bring back their loved ones.

  During the war years the local paper had printed stories and photographs of servicemen and women who had been killed in action. These were young people who had grown up and lived their pre-war lives in peace in Dundee and the surrounding districts of Angus, Perthshire and Fife, young people who were now buried in some strange foreign corner. One such picture that made Mum cry told the story of a pretty Dundee girl who had met and married her dashing Canadian pilot. Their wedding picture was shown along with the joyful script of their future plans as a married couple. A short time later the same paper reported the tragic death of the young pilot.