Finding Peggy by Meg Henderson.

A TRUE, SHOCKING AND HUMOROUS
ACCOUNT OF LIFE IN A GLASGOW SLUM


Scottish journalist Meg Henderson grew up in Glasgow during
the fifties and sixties as part of a large and often troubled family.
The tenement block in which they lived collapsed and they were
moved to the notorious Blackhill district, where religious
sectarianism, gang warfare and struggles with hostile bureaucrats were
part of daily life for the people. Meg was born into a mixed-religion
family, where there was warmth and laughter as well as conflict. She
had a close relationship with her mother, Nan, and her mother's sister,
Meg's Aunt Peggy, two idealistic, emotional women who took on the
troubles of the world. Together they shaped Meg's life, shielded her
from the effects of her father's heavy drinking and helped her to
move on, eventually, from the slums of Glasgow.


A hopeless romantic, Peggy searched for a husband until late in her
life and then endured a harsh, unhappy marriage until she died
tragically in childbirth. Her death devastated the family and
destroyed Meg's childhood, but it was only as an adult, after the
death of her own mother, that Meg was able to discover the shocking
facts behind Peggy's untimely demise.


'BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND WONDERFULLY EVOCATIVE.
CAPTURES GLASGOW PERFECTLY WITH NO ROSE-TINTED GLASS' Alan Taylor


'A WARM AND VIVID MEMORY OF GLASGOW LIFE - IT PROVOKES 
NOSTALGIA AND ANGER IN EQUAL MEASURE. APART FROM
ANYTHING ELSE, THIS IS A GRIPPING STORY, TOLD WITH REAL
PASSION' Magnus Lmklater


ISBN 0-552-14185-2 ?



780552 141857 . 


Finding Peggy:
A Glasgow Childhood


Meg Henderson


CORGI BOOKS


FINDING PEGGY: A GLASGOW CHILDHOOD
A CORGI BOOK : 0 552 14185 2


First published in Great Britain
PRINTING HISTORY

Corgi edition published 1994
Corgi edition published 1994 twice
Corgi edition reprinted 1995 twice

Corgi edition reprinted 1996

Corgi edition reprinted 1997

Corgi edition reprinted 1998


Copyright (c) Meg Henderson 1994


'Mexicali Rose', music by J. B. Tenney, words by
Helen Stone. (c) 1925, M. M. Cole Pub Co, USA. Reproduced by
permission of Francis Day and Hunter Ltd, London WC2H OEA


The right of Meg Henderson to be identified as the author of this

work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78

of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.


Condition of Sale

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade

or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the

publisher s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

which it is published and without a similar condition including this

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.


Set in Linotype Plantin 11 12pt by
Hewer Text Composition Services, Edinburgh


Corgi Books are published byTransworld Publishers Ltd,

61-63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA,
in Australia byTransworld Publishers Australia Pry Ltd,

15-25 Helles Avenue, Moorebank, NSW 2170,
and in New Zealand byTransworld Publishers NZ Ltd,

3 William Pickering Drive, Albany, Auckland.


Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Cox Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire.


FOR


Nan, Peggy and George Clark,
Peggy's children and grandchildren,

and
The Clarks and the O'Briens


Also for my husband Rab, who knows why,

and our children,
Euan, Lisa and Debbie.

'?''

GLASGOW CITY LIBRARIES


C ft 0 '2. 4 5 '2 - 9 2

CBS
	0 3  032 0 0 0

.,4MSS
	6.99

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	397773

53


F


Acknowledgements


Willie McDvanney
for years of encouragement and arguments.

Lynne Reid Banks
for years of encouragement and nagging.

John Saddler
for recognising the story before I did.
also
Bill Black, Radio Clyde
Dr A. Cameron MacDonald
Scan Darner
Tony Martin
The School of Scottish Studies,
Edinburgh University
Marion Zekulin
and my cousins:
Anne Caldwell
Vicky Clark
James Kelly
Nessie Robertson.

Prologue.

My life has been shaped by two women, who, in my childhood,
instilled in me the values I still live by: my mother,
Nan, and her sister, rny Aunt Peggy. Although these days I
earn my living as a journalist and TV documentary maker,
. working and mixing with media high-fliers and household
names, I was born and brought up in the poorest and toughest
areas of Glasgow. As I was growing up I wasn't aware of how
much Nan and Peggy had influenced me, but the truth is that
I bear their stamp, and the older I get the clearer this becomes
and the more grateful I am for it.

We were three sides of one tightly-bound triangle from
the day I was born, so that it was impossible to think of
one without the other; prick one and we all bled. Nan and
Peggy were bright, vivacious, vital women, always on the
verge of laughter or tears and usually both. They lived on
their emotions and acted on instinct, they knew no other
way. When I think of them today I picture them laughing
helplessly and holding on to each other for support, their
faces awash with tears as they struggled to remember why
they had been laughing in the first place. Somehow I always
picture them laughing.

Nan and Peggy Clark were strong women in that they
believed in things, they had ideals and shared a dream of how
life should be. This dream was entirely non-political, but it
was in essence what started the Labour Party, though I'm
sure they would not recognize what has evolved as the Labour
Party today as anything to do with them. They believed
completely that people were good and honourable and that
everyone was of equal worth; indeed it never occurred to them
that this wasn't universally accepted. Looking back there was
something naive about that, and given the hard lives they had


l

it is difficult to understand how they could have sustained
such a belief. But there is something heroic and admirable
about it too, painfully so, as my story reveals.

Peggy's sudden death at the age of thirty-six brought an
end to the family as it had been; unable to deal with what had
happened the Clarks simply fell apart. My mother became a
recftlse within months and my childhood ended abruptly as
I had to take care of her. I never knew the exact details of
how Peggy had died, except that there had been something
especially awful about it, and the family found it too painful
to explain.	

It seemed that Peggy, so long an intregal part of me, had
simply vanished without trace and even mentioning her name
was frowned upon by the Clarks. Losing her devastated
and scarred my life and with my mother's withdrawal I
was suddenly alone for the first time, one fragile side of
the triangle that had existed for ever. Within a short time
Peggy's children went into care, and added to the confusion
and the grief was guilt. We all felt it but were unable to express
it because none of the Clarks connected anymore.

Much of my adult life has been spent fostering and
adopting sometimes very damaged children and I can now
see why I did that. When asked I would give what I truly
believed were my reasons and I would use all the correct
sociological jargon to explain. But the truth lies in the events
of my childhood and in the guilt about Peggy's children. I
was trying to reclaim her children over and over again.

All through my life I kept Peggy in my mind and in my
heart. Though I knew she was dead, the Clarks' reaction had
blocked the normal processes of grieving and healing. No one
had ever explained her death to the child I was then, so how
could I truly believe it? That was why in some secret place
inside me I kept alive the fantasy that one day I'd look up
and she'd be there beside me again, as she had been when I
was a child. As time passed and I married and settled down,
I realized that I would never find peace until I knew what
had happened to her and why, and though more than twenty
years had passed I managed to piece the story together. What
I found out was shocking and tragic and terrible, not just


because it happened to Peggy and my family, but because
it could have happened to anyone. I understood for the
first time how vulnerable working-class women were, and
still are.

The other side of the experience, however, was that I also
appreciated for the first time the extraordinary worth of the
ordinary people I grew up among, especially the women, like
Nan and Peggy. They are part of the unacknowledged history
of working-class women. They didn't make speeches or form
trade unions, they just kept their families alive against all the
odds, they survived and ensured our survival.

All through my childhood I watched my mother fight highly
effective campaigns to right wrongs, and to that end she valued
education and knowledge. Education and knowledge equalled
power, power to right more wrongs for those unable to do so
themselves, power to change the way she and Peggy had been
raised. Nan was the doer, the articulate, literate one, and Peggy,
shyer and quieter, provided the back-up. Together they were
a strong team, unable to accept that there was an alternative to
what was Right, unable to refuse help to those who had been
wronged. But caring exposes you to all sorts of hazards, and for
the two sisters the cost, inevitably, was high.

Above all they provided me with a blanket of love and
caring that has touched every corner of my life and covers
me still. I didn't realize how important they had been in
life, because like most people I simply accepted what I had
grown up with. Until, that is, a conversation I had with a film
producer I was working with. I mentioned that I had grown
up in Blackhill and Drumchapel in Glasgow, two of the city's
black spots and regarded by those who know nothing about
life in either place as the far end of the moon. 'Well,' he said,
clearly shocked, 'You've left that well behind!'

When our condemned tenement in the centre of Glasgow
collapsed in 1952, three generations of my family were
rehoused in Blackhill, a council estate three miles to the
east of the city. It had a reputation for deprivation and
violence that follows it to this day, and those sent to live
there knew in advance that there was little likelihood that
they would ever get out again. Blackhill wasn't so much an


to
ii


attempt at rehousing slum-dwellers as a judgement that they
didn't matter; Blackhill was a life sentence.

With my mother, father and two brothers, I did get out
though; as part of the inner city clearances in the 19505, we
moved to Drumchapel, a new estate five miles to the west. It
was happening all over the country after the Second World
War, vast housing estates, or schemes, were built and were
optimistically regarded by the people who were sent to live
in them as the first step to the good life. Extended families
like ours, who had lived within doors of each other for several
generations, were split up and sent to different estates, in
the expectation of a bright new future. For my mother too,
always chasing her dream, the move to Drumchapel heralded
a better life for her children.

But Glasgow seized the opportunity to show the rest of the
country how not to do it. The heart was torn out of the city as
ghettoes were built to replace ghettoes; devoid of any amenities
to make decent life sustainable, the new estates quickly became
as rundown as the old. For the people who lived in them the
situation was compounded by the loss of the support network
provided by their extended families, by the loss of their roots.
My film producer meant it as a compliment that I had left
Blackhill and Drumchapel well behind, but as I thought it over
I saw that he was wrong. It made me think about my childhood
and examine what and who had shaped it, who had enabled me
to work with, and shock, film producers.

The people of Blackhill and Drumchapel remain a part of me
and I of them; I have no need to leave them behind. To deny
them would be to deny the two women who raised me. For
now I see that without them I wouldn't be where I am today
or be who I am. This then is the story of the family I grew
up in and the tragedy that almost destroyed it. It's the story
of my search for the truth of Peggy's death, of how I lost her
and found her again. Much more man that though, it's about
Nan and Peggy. Despite everything that happened they weren't
destroyed; their values, their ideals have survived. And that I
suppose is why when I think of them it's not sadness, sorrow or
bitterness that come instantly to mind, it's that joyous picture
of them laughing. They won in the end.


12


Chapter One


On the day I was born, so the story goes, there was a storm,
so someone, somewhere, must have had an inkling. It was
May 1948, I was part of the post-War baby boom and as
my father was fond of relating, on that particular day,
the loth, Winston Churchill was given a medal by the
Germans. I analyzed that thought countless times over the
years but I never did find the connection. He was fond
of linking unlikely events though, and often told me that his mother had died on his sixteenth birthday. All my life
I was fascinated by that fact; even for the O'Brien clan, my
father's family, it seemed a somewhat bizarre gesture for her
to have made. He also liked it to be known that he had been
born on the Feast of the Holy Innocents, a coincidence that
was more apposite than he ever realized.

His name was Laurence Thomas O'Brien and he was
called after a friend of his father's, a Frenchman who
had ended up in a lunatic asylum. He would relate this
with relish, then cackle madly to himself. We called my
father's family 'the O'Briens', as though they were a thing
apart, an alien entity to be categorized as a collective
but separate genus, which they were. My father, the
youngest in his family, was known to the O'Briens as
'oor Laurence', and to my mother as Laurie, to annoy
the O'Briens, but to the rest of the world he was' Skipper,
or Skip. He had once proclaimed himself to be
the Skipper of the good sip O'Brien, and the name
had stuck.

My mother's name was Joan Henderson Clark, but she
was known as Nan, and reluctantly as Mrs O'Brien. She
wasn't exactly honoured to be part of 'they mad Irish pigs',
as she called her in-laws. At this term of endearment Skip


(c)



always gave another insane cackle, as though to prove
her point.

Though Nan stood a fraction over five feet tall I weighed
in at 10lb. 3oz., which must have been a considerable relief
to her because six years earlier my brother Laurie had
weighed I4lb. 6oz. Five years before that, as our brother,
Mkkey, liked to say of himself, the daintiest of the O'Briens
had been born, a mere stripling of 9lb. 8oz.

I was blue when I arrived, which was put down to my
being cold, so I was placed in a drawer and put beside
the fire. It was years before I discovered that in fact I
had been suffering from a fairly common condition where
the closing of a flap of skin over a normal opening in the
feotal heart is delayed. But I suppose the extra heat did me
no harm on a cold, windy day. Though my mother said I
was born on a Monday, it was in fact a Thursday, not that
she ever accepted this. She had her own thing about dates.
For instance, she was inordinately proud of her fertility and
was happy to tell anyone who would listen that she had
been married on 17 July and had Mickey on 20 July. In an
era when such things mattered, she omitted to say that her
marriage and the birth of her first born had been separated
by a year. My father would just smile with sly humour and
never once corrected her.

She was eighteen years old when she had Mickey,
after walking out of the maternity hospital at Glasgow's
Rottenrow because no one was bothering with her. She
walked the mile back to our house at 21 Balmano Street
and had him and, in later years, Laurie Junior and me, at
home among her family. Her mother, my grandmother,
called Maw Clark by everyone, was at my birth, as she was
at my brothers' and all my cousins' births too.

I was called Margaret Anne O'Brien. Anne was Maw
dark's name and every female child had it bestowed upon
them like an indelible stamp of ownership. Call 'Anne!'
at a family gathering and a stampede started, but I was
lucky, it was only my middle name. I was named Margaret
in honour of my mother's younger sister, but it was her
'Sunday best' name; she was known all her life as Peggy.


M


To save a stampede of two I was called Rita by the family.
Though I tried to get an explanation of why Peggy and I
had the same name but were called something else, I never
got it. Whenever I asked, my mother would immediately
be engulfed in a disabling spasm of laughter that would
then infect Peggy, so that the two of them would cling to
each other for support while furiously mopping their eyes.

Skip had wanted me called after his mother, Mary Ann
O'Brien, but Nan, in another fit of logic, pronounced it 'too
Irish'. The truth was that her sons had been called after the
O'Briens and she was damned if her daughter would be too.
Naming me was one of the small victories she delighted in
winning over my father's family.

We lived at 21 Balmano Street which stood at the top of
Balmano Brae, so the street was known simply as the Brae.
It towered above the city centre, on top of the steepest
hill in Glasgow, a grey-stone tenement four storeys high.
Underneath it ran old mineshafts and train tunnels leading
into Queen Street Station. Each of the eight houses was the
same: a room and kitchen, with a toilet outside on a landing
down a flight of stairs that was used by two families. There
were no bathrooms and no hot water; kids, and sometimes
adults, too, washed in front of the fire, standing in a tin bath
filled laboriously with water boiled on the kitchen range. A
proper bath could only be had by using the public baths a
couple of miles away.

The kitchen also served as a dining-room  sitting-room
and it was where my parents slept. Along one wall was a
set-in bed which was covered during the day by a curtain,
and there was a further bedroom where my brother Laurie
and I slept and where Mickey would have slept too if he
hadn't spent years in hospital. He had TB in his kneecap
and since before I was born he had been in Mearnskirk,
a hospital set in the open countryside, fifteen inaccessible
miles to the south of Glasgow city centre. I grew up with
him only as a name. Mickey was something or someone
my parents and the rest of the family visited, but no-one
ever explained who or what Mickey was, let alone that he
was my brother. As far as I was concerned I had Laurie,


J5


who was six years older than me, and all my cousins, that
was all.

There were seven families in 21 and the Clarks lived on the
top storey until the children left to get married. By the time
I was born only Peggy lived in the family home with Maw
Clark. Next door to them my mother's widowed sister Mary
lived with her son David; and my parents, two brothers and
I had a house on the first. I have very few memories of the
Brae, just feelings and impressions. First of all there was
the closeness; I felt that all the families who lived there,
the McCreadies, the Fitzgeralds, the Turnbulls and the
rest, were my family too, because I knew them equally
well. So when Nan and Skip visited Mickey in hospital,
Laurie and I were cared for by everyone in the Brae.
And there is an impression of the old buildings crowded
around 21, the winding, narrow, covered lanes, or closes, of
Townhead and Rottenrow that led to cramped, dark houses
with several generations of families living in them. I had
aunts, uncles and cousins living all around, because news
of empty houses was passed by word of mouth by families
who preferred living near to each other. So we could safely
walk into any house in the area, because if it didn't belong
to a relative it belonged to a friend. Skip's family had stayed
near by in Tarbet Street, so we lived in an area of Glasgow
where both sides of our family had been for two generations.
It was our own enclosed little world.

I wasn't aware of the Brae's crumbling stonework or any
other negative aspect, to me it was just home. But the living
conditions were unhealthy and the tenants had been waging
a long campaign, led by Nan, to be rehoused. Apart from the
obvious overcrowding, with most families having three or
more children, there was a constant battle against the bugs
that were taking over the delapidated building. In October
1950 Glasgow Corporation had shored the tenement up on
one side in an attempt to arrest gradual subsidence and the
tenants of 21 were told to be ready to move out at any
time. To the inhabitants of the Brae this clearly meant
that they would move into a better tenement en masse, that they would remain together wherever they moved to,


16


which was what they wanted. They wouldn't, however,
be considered for new homes, they were told in a classic
example of bureaucratic speak, until they were actually
homeless. As a very small child I was unaware of all this,
my reality was that I lived happily in a large family that
took in all the streets around the Brae.


But of course all was not harmony, no family ever is, and
as I grew I became aware of the divisions and subdivisions
that made up mine. I was nearer in every way to Nan's
family, the Clarks, and gradually I absorbed the rules
that governed Clark life. They were a close family and
outsiders were never aware, to my knowledge, of the two
'sides'. There were the 'Fair Yins', those like Maw Clark
who had fair hair and blue eyes, and the 'Dark Yins',
who had the dark hair, eyes and skin of Da Clark, my
grandfather. The 'Fair Yins' stuck together on all counts
and were favoured by Maw Clark, and the 'Dark Yins' kept
to their group and had the special affection of Da Clark. Yet
there was no animosity between my grandparents, in fact
Maw spoke of her husband with nothing but affection; still
the two groups grew into adulthood regarding each other
with deep suspicion. No 'Fair Yin' ever sided with a 'Dark
Yin' or vice versa in inter-family matters. Much plotting
went on, discussions about the motives and actions of the
others and plans to subvert them were food and drink to
the Clark factions.

And they were very different in character too. For
instance, Vicky, Mary and Willie, the 'Fair Yins', loved
to have a good time, something they shared with Maw.
They went dancing, were known to drink alcohol and
smoke cigarettes; Vicky and Mary even had their ears
pierced. Nan, Peggy and George came from the other
side and were altogether more circumspect. The 'Dark
Yins' had very definite ideas of how to behave, which
meant with decorum at all times - good manners were
high on their list of priorities. The most damning com
ynent my mother could ever make of anyone was to pronounce
them common, and she could encapsulate every


17


possible shade and nuance of disapproval in to that one
word.

Maw Clark was a strong personality and she cunningly
ruled her children by keeping them divided. She would
complain to one group of some supposed neglect or snub
by the other and they would rush around competing to
dp things for her. If that didn't work, she had the ability
to bring herself to death's door at will, which never
failed to bring the entire family to her bedside. Once
she had their full attention she would stage yet another
miraculous recovery and my childhood was studded with
her death-defying performances. There was a feeling that
the 'Dark Yins' were constantly striving for her approval,
which they never did get, and in the process they became
do-gooders, ever ready to take the side of the underdog and
to do the right thing. It was as though they felt they were
out of favour because they had disappointed Maw and had
to make up for it in whatever way they could.

They had a high regard for education and were always
keen for their children to do well at school. They wanted
a better life for the next generation, not in strictly financial
terms, but in terms of status too. A good job wasn't one
on an assembly line making a lot of money, it was one
that allowed you to get on, to contribute something, to be
somebody and to win respect by helping other people. This
was directly at odds with the philosophy of the 'Fair Yins',
who regarded their siblings as getting above themselves;
that kind of thing wasn't for the likes of them.

The exception to the family rivalry was Willie, who
outwardly qualified as a 'Fair Yin' but who had dreams
for his kids too and wanted them to be bright. Despite his
looks, a dark gene had inadvertently sneaked in at Willie's
conception, rendering him loved but distrusted by both
sides. Willie was everybody's friend, eternally stuck in the
middle, though he'd go with his own group when the chips
were down, always hoping not to be told any secrets because
he knew he couldn't keep them. 'Don't say anythin' in front
o' yer Uncle Wullie, hen,' Nan would tell me, 'It's no' his
fault, bit thu'll get it oota him.'


18

As Nan's child I was counted as a 'Dark Yin' too. This
meant that I absorbed the need to always be on my guard
with the 'Fair Yins', to be careful what I told them, and
that extended to their children too. It was assumed by
each side that the other's children were attempting to
extract information and we would be debriefed after every
family gathering about what had or hadn't been said. It's
a conditioning that exists still, when we're all old enough
to know better, and to this day I'm more at ease with my
'Dark Yin' cousins.


As I grew the other differences became clearer too. The
Clarks were Protestant and the O'Briens Catholic, that was
the biggest, all-encompassing difference. Maw Clark was
known to be a bitter Orange woman with an illogical hatred
of Catholics, so what it must have done to her psyche that
more than half of her grandchildren were Catholics can only
be imagined. Of her children, Nan, George and Vicky had
married Catholics, which of course meant they had to agree
to their children being raised as Catholics too. I had no idea
that I was a Catholic and wouldn't have understood had I
been informed anyway, but from as early as I can remember
I felt a tension in the family that went beyond being the child
of a'Dark Yin'.

All small children stick closely to their mothers during the
first few years; fathers are optional extras, which is probably
why I have no memories of Skip then. He was working
as a bus conductor for Glasgow Corporation Transport
Department when I was born and I vaguely remember
playing with his badge. My mother and Peggy are the
the ones I recall best. Their faces often merge into one as
I look back, so I suppose that's how they seemed when I
was little. They looked so alike anyway that outsiders were
often unsure which was which, though they knew they were
different people. So Nan would answer when called Peggy
and Peggy would answer when called Nan, it was easier than
explaining. To me they were beautiful women - whenever
I hear the word 'bonnie' I think of them. They were in
constant touch through what I suppose was telepathy and


19



I clearly remember them finishing each other's sentences or
answering questions that hadn't been asked aloud. To me it
was perfectly acceptable because it was there all my life. If they
went out shopping alone they invariably returned with identical
items and if they went out together they swapped whatever they bought anyway. This produced the characteristic Clark
laughter, a helpless, almost soundless shaking accompanied
by lashings of tears. They would hold on to each other and
stumble about creaking with laughter, mopping uselessly at
their streaming eyes. They told me endless stories of their
family, the tales dissolving into the Clark laughter at the funny
parts, or into tears of sorrow at the sad parts.

They had been particularly fond of their father, Da Clark,
as he had been of them, and it was one of their greatest
sorrows that he died before I was born. I think because we
three were so close, it seemed 'no' right' to them somehow
that we had no shared memories of him. Somewhere in the
telling of the current story one of them would look at me,
sigh and say, 'Oh, bit Da widda loved you!' and then the
two of them would burst into tears. After a few minutes
of communal grief one or other of them would say, 'Whit a
daft perra buggers we ur! Look at the state o' us!' And they
would then start laughing. This of course produced more
tears and as they clung to each other one of them would
say, 'Noo whit wur we laughin' at?' As though finding
the cause would help them eradicate the effect. 'Look at
that poor wean! She disnae know whit's gaun' oan!' But I
did. I would watch them enthralled, a show in themselves
that I never tired of seeing. Their performances were so
memorable that Da Clark was ever-present in my life, he
was real and alive to me because they kept him so.

Da Clark was the son of a Borders farmer and had run
away from home when the farm horses he had cared for
all his life were sold to the Glasgow Police. He was found
sleeping in the hay beside the horses in the police stables in
Bell Street and was promptly thrown out. For much of his
teenage years he survived as and where he could, and in the
process acquired 'a bad chest'. His family made one attempt
to bring him home by sending one of his brothers to find

20




him. Once released from the farm, the brother decided to
remain in Glasgow too, and neither of them ever went home
again. The brother worked in the Camp Coffee Factory, and
though I have no memory of ever seeing him, I do recall that
Camp Coffee was ever-present in all Clark cupboards.

Da Clark became a docker; I remember once seeing a
photo of him at work, a tiny man with a huge black
moustache, the inevitable bunnet, or flat cap, on his
head and his shirt-sleeves rolled up; he hardly looked
strong enough for the hard lifting that dockers had to
do in those days. My mother used to tell stories of his
breathing troubles, of how in summer he had to sit upright
all night beside the window, trying to catch a decent breath,
but still he went to work every morning. By all accounts he
was a kind, if strict, father who worked hard and was fonder
of his 'Dark Yins'. He fought incessantly with Willie, who
being Willie never fought back, but just laughed in his
good-natured way and merrily agreed that he was a waster
who would never achieve anything.

The story goes that during the Second World War Da
Clark lay unconscious and dying in Duke Street Hospital,
with George, his eldest, still missing presumed dead. In the
middle of the night the heavy tramp of army boots echoed
through the hospital, coming ever nearer to the ward where
the females of the family sat vigil by Da's bed. He opened
his eyes, shouted 'George!' with great joy, and died before
Willie walked in, dressed in his Highland Light Infantry
uniform, having somehow managed to get home on leave.
Strange that the one who caused Da the greatest annoyance
should have been the one to let him die happy, but every
time I heard this story as a child I wondered how Willie
really felt about this crushing story against him.

After the war, with George safe and sound, it was Willie
who took the badge and followed Da Clark into the docks.
Da was fifty-five when he died, which seemed incredibly
ancient to me as I listened to these stories in my childhood,
but of course it was very young - and seems more so to me
the nearer I get to it myself.	y?


21

CCCI ?



Another character who figured large in the lives of the
Clark children was Granda Johnston, Maw's father. Old
William Johnston came from Belfast, where he had been a
bacon curer, but he was highly intelligent, a man of good
taste and some education. He drove the less academic of
the Clark children to distraction by waiting outside school
to drag them to libraries and museums. He learned Scots
Gaelic, for instance, and read music and became determined
to teach his grandchildren whatever current interest he had,
thudding them on the skull if they didn't perform well. My
mother was the clever one of the family, the dux of Glasgow
High School for Girls, as she never tired of reminding us.
Nan at least showed some promise and he liked her but poor
old Willie, at the other end of the scale, had to climb over
the back wall of his school to escape from the self-appointed
dominie.

From Da the 'Dark Yins' got their demeanour and sense
of themselves, but it was perhaps from Granda Johnston
that they got their appreciation that the way out was
through learning and with that their determination that
their children would be educated. Though quite why the
message got through chiefly to them I cannot say.

Granda Johnston stole everything he could lay hands
on as he got older and the family turned a blind eye
to it. His favourite time was during the blackout, when
everything walked under cover of darkness, but he didn't
confine himself to it by any means. He would set out on
a mass visit of the family and ask to wash his hands in
each house, slipping the soap into his pocket when he
was finished. Another trick was to pretend to be asleep,
then when attentions were elsewhere, he would sneak
whatever was on the table into a paper bag and resume
his 'snooze'.

My only memory of him is of an occasion after the
War when he hadn't noticed my brother Laurie in the
room, lying in wait for him. As the old lad pocketed a
bag of sugar, Laurie's voice rang out, 'Mammy! Granda
Johnston's stealin' oor sugar again!' As he died in 1950,
when I was two years old, I'm not sure if I was really


22

there, or if I've heard the story so often that I just

think I was.

Granda Johnston was a passionate Orangeman and a Past
Master of an Orange Lodge, so it was partly from him
that the dichotomy of my upbringing stemmed. Unlike his
daughter, Maw Clark, he wasn't bitter, he was, as Nan and
Peggy told me, a gentleman. By all accounts he was also a
proud Scot despite being an Ulsterman. He used to sing
'MacGregor's Gathering' at family get-togethers with eyes
blazing in stern defiance, ending the war song of the outlaw
Rob Roy MacGregor with a rousing 'MacGreegor despite
them, will flourish F-O-R-E-V-E-R!' He never seemed to
notice, in his patriotic fervour, that my father and Willie
were fencing around him and between his legs and arms with
pokers from the fire, for the entertainment of the others.

It was Willie, naturally, who was given the job of staying
with the old lad as he became increasingly confused with
age, and he returned to find him dead one day. He got
my father to help him lift the body and tidy the house
up. All day they tripped over a box in the middle of the
floor, and instead of moving it they kicked it out of the
way and cursed it as they worked. They found countless
sugar packets stuffed with half-crowns and when the coal
had been removed from the bath, envelopes full of cash
were discovered underneath. In his years of thieving from
the family Granda Johnston had managed to put away a tidy
sum. Then someone picked up the box from the middle of
the floor, or as Willie said, 'Sumbody honest' and inside was
a fortune in banknotes. Skip and Willie were heartbroken.
If they had found it they would naturally have purloined the
treasure and not been seen again for some time, instead they
had kicked and cursed it all day long.


My father's family, the O'Briens, lived in Tarbet Street,
behind the Brae. My grandmqther, Mary Ann McCue, had
been born in Scotland but her family came from the town of
Carlow in County Carlow, to Dundee, where Mary Ann was
a weaver. There Mary Ann met Tom O'Brien, whose family
came originally from New Ross, in County Wexford. In


23



fefe.


Dundee, Tom's family had run a guest-house and were quite
well-to-do, and Tom was well-educated and well brought
up. He was apparently destined for the priesthood, but in
the parlance of the day, he got Mary Ann into trouble and
had to marry her. Once married they moved to Glasgow,
probably to escape Mary Ann's father, and quickly set about
founding a dynasty.

Granda Tom was a studious, aesthetic soul and quite
unsuited to married or family life, especially with the
family he sired. I remember him as a distant, quiet little
man with a permanent look of confusion on his face. He
was a lithographic printer but gave this up to work as a
janitor in St Aloysius in Garnethill, a Jesuit school for
Roman Catholic boys. He did so for the simple reason that
he wanted to be near the Jesuits, which demonstrates an
astonishing lack of responsibility to his wife and the large
family he was supposed to provide for.

He loved literature, art and the theatre and to escape from
his family he buried himself in these pursuits and in the
Roman Catholic Church. He was a devout Catholic, partly
I suspect to provide some sort of order in his life. Marriage to
Marry Ann was clearly not the life he would have chosen for
himself and he was quite incapable of adapting to it. He was
highly respected in the community and his growing brood
regarded him in much the same light, mixed perhaps with a
little pity. He was not like them in any way and they mostly
realized this without blaming him. The exception was his
son Tommy, who saw Mary Ann's health decline over her
many pregnancies and blamed his father for doing nothing
to help her. 'He hid nae interest,' Uncle Tommy would say
bitterly, 'except when bedtime came.'

Granda Tom's devotion to the Catholic church extended
to all his money, and countless black babies in Africa
doubtless became good Catholics thanks to his donations.
But Mary Ann suffered a slow, painful death from womb
cancer when there was no pain relief available except alcohol. She was ill all during my father's childhood, and died,
as he said, on his sixteenth birthday in December 1927. Her
children suffered from rickets, caused by a lack of calcium


24


in the diet, which was the scourge of working-class children
at the turn of the century. Indeed my father couldn't walk
until he was four years old because of rickets, and all his life
he walked with a characteristic rolling gait. Uncle Tommy
never forgave the Catholic Church any more than he forgave
his father. 'It wis a' there if they'd looked,' he'd say darkly,
'bit they wurnae ony merr interested than him. They jist
took his money an' turned thur faces in the oappisite
direction.'

Granda Tom kept his distance from the entire family,
and I didn't know him when I was a child, though I
recognized him in the street as he hurried by with a curt
nod. It probably wasn't that he was a cold man, he just
had perfectly understandable reservations. He knew who
my father was after all. Granda looked so like Wilfrid
Hyde-White, that when I was a child and saw the actor
in a film I was convinced he was Granda Tom and accepted
his presence on screen without surprise; after all they were
both far-removed from my life. He always wore a black suit,
tie, topcoat and bowler hat and an immaculate white shirt,
though my mother discovered that he wiped his hands on
the shirt sleeves after stoking the St Aloysius boiler, so
underneath they were as black as his suit.

He didn't have much luck with any of our family, including
my brother Laurie, who failed to utter his first word to
anyone for years. Once Granda Tom made a rare appearance
at a family function and gave Mickey sixpence. 'And you,
young man,' he said to Laurie, 'Will only get thruppence,
because you won't speak to me.' Laurie was four years old
and chose that moment to say his first ever words. 'Stick yer
thruppence up yer arse, ya auld bastard!' Granda Tom was
helped out, his saintly expression extremely compromised,
and he doubtless headed for the nearest chapel to fill up
again on piety. But at least jt proved that the child wasn't
deaf or dumb; he just didn't have anything important to
say until that moment ...

In his later years Granda Tom took to wandering the
streets of Glasgow with his rosary in his hands, reciting his
prayers aloud. There are parts of the city where this is not


2i


advisable, and it was obvious that something had to be done.
Even in an age when caring for elderly parents was the norm,
he was too far removed from his family for any of them to
take him in, but none of them would take responsibility for
putting him in a home either. In the end an adult grandson
took matters into his own hands and placed the old lad in an
old folks' home run by nuns, where he lived happily, rosary
safely in hand, to the age of eighty-four. The O'Briens were
very relieved to have that responsibility taken off their hands
but they still roundly castigated the grandson who had put
Granda Tom into the home; he had done the shameful deed,
they hadn't.

Granda Tom died in 1952, when I was four years old, and
I remember his funeral vividly. It was held in St Aloysius
in Garnethill, and as befitted a Knight of St Columba he
got the full works. Men in cloaks with scarlet crosses on
the shoulders carried the coffin, and they wore large,
plumed hats. One of the hats lay on the coffin too, and
all around thousands of candles burned, the choir sang,
the organ boomed and funny-smelling smoke made me
cough. I thought I was at a pantomime and I loved every
minute of it.

No one had consulted me on whether or not I wanted to
be a Catholic, and as I grew up reluctantly and resentfully
within the fold, I realized I had been right. It was all indeed
a pantomime.


;?


26



,'AMli1.'


Chapter Two


By all accounts the O'Brien madness came from the McCue
side, in particular from Mary Ann's father, old Hughie
McCue. Skip, the youngest of ten, used to tell me tales of
visits from his grandfather, visits Mary Ann would bring to
an abrupt end. As soon as old Hughie arrived at the house,
Skip would be commanded to escort him down to Queen
Street Station and put him on the first train back to Dundee,
but he never managed it. Old Hughie would go down one
set of stairs to the underground men's toilet in High Street
and come up the other side. Next time he would do it the
other way round, so that his confused grandson could never
be sure where he was. He would then bolt into the bars of
the city and have a hooley, arriving back on Mary Ann's
doorstep whenever it ended naturally or sometimes in the
company of the police. 'Every time Ah saw him,' my father
would say, 'Ah knew he wid get away frae me an' Ah wis
in fur a dunt oan the heid frae ma mither by the end o'

the day.'

The Tarbet Street house was more the O'Brien domain
than a mere house and it was the setting for many of their
ploys. They were bright, witty and inventive and none of
them ever really grew up. Throughout their lives they waged
a form of psychological warfare against the rest of the world,
and each other in particular. It was called the Game, though
family members didn't need to call it anything, it was in the
blood. In the Game, points were awarded, but only when the
players were family. Outsiders, hadn't a hope of competing
on level terms since they didn't know that the Game existed.
Yet they still became its victims, even though no points were
awarded for a score against a non-O'Brien.

An insurance man used to call at the house, and when he


27


was counting out Granny O'Brien's change he had a habit
of saying "ere noo' with some regularity. 'One, two, 'ere
noo, three, four, 'ere noo,' an opportunity for amusement
that the family could not pass up. One day as he counted
out the money, voices came from all over the house, high
voices, low voices, unearthly voices, "Ere noo,' "Ere noo,'
"Erejioo,' as he counted out each penny. The little man
stared at Granny, who gave no indication that she had
noticed anything. Everytime he came to the house after
that the house rang to the sound of "Ere noos' up and
down the musical scale, and still Granny's expression did
not change, though apparently she beat the hell out of those
she could catch afterwards. This, of course, meant that she
had forfeited the points by reacting.

"Ere noo' became a family password, almost a means
of identification, and it was written on Christmas cards
instead of the more conventional 'From all the family'.
Once, many years later, I put it on a telegram from abroad
at the end of a message saying when I would arrive home.
My father was delighted; all the other words had been put in
a numeral code above the written message, but the bemused
international operator had been unable to find a numeral
that covered it, and there it was, "Ere noo' twice.

On another Tarbet Street occasion years ago that my
father loved to tell us about, a travelling salesman's luck
ran out. Skip was never sure where the salesman had
come from, but he was black, wore a turban and arrived
with a full caseload of clothes to sell on a day when the
O'Briens were obviously bored and in need of amusement.
The salesman was graciously invited in. There his case was
emptied, and every one of the family decked out in the
contents, layer upon layer, including his turban, which was
arranged decorously atop the head of Norah, my father's
older sister, who had a passion for hats. Then they sat
down in all their finery and took tea together, pinkies
stuck out, conversing in terribly polite voices, as though
the unfortunate salesman didn't exist, until there was a
knock at the door and he grabbed his chance to escape.
They later found his coat outside, it had been caught in


28


the door and rather than knock again and risk recapture, he
had taken it off and fled, leaving it and all his merchandise
behind. The O'Briens were shocked, they had only wanted
a bit of fun and hadn't planned to steal the clothes. 'Poor
auld bugger,' Skip would say everytime he told the story,
'He wis likely poorer thin us tae. An' he never came back
either . . .', and he would shake his head in puzzlement at
the strange ways of mankind.

In the basement of Tarbet Street my father in his youth
had constructed a full-size boxing ring, and one of the
family's favourite leisure activities was to con people into
boxing in it. It didn't matter who they were or why they
were there, they would be encouraged into the ring to
perform. There was also a home-made still for making
hooch and they tried every possible concoction of rotgut,
none of which ever had a chance of reaching maturity. It
would start with the necessity to 'check oan it', and when
the checker didn't return another would set off in search of
him. Then another, and another, until they were all out cold
beside the empty still.

I didn't realize that the O'Briens were odd and wondered
why the rest of the population was so boring. The oddest,
and to me the most beloved, was Uncle Hughie, very aptly
named after Mary Ann's father. At the age of four Hughie
was knocked down by a horse-drawn tram and his right leg
was severed above the knee, except for a 'sliver o' skin'.
While a pair of scissors was located to deal with the sliver,
his sister, Norah, she of the hat fetish, took up a collection
from the crowd of onlookers. Norah was an accomplished
actress and her tears and sobs could fool the most cynical
observer. The amount of performance money raised from
this joint venture remained a subject of contention between
her and Hughie for the rest of their days. Whenever life
was dull Hughie would resurrect the argument and aver
that he had been cheated, that Norah had kept more than
she had given him when as the star of the show he should
have received cash that reflected his leading role. After all,
he had sacrificed an entire leg in the venture.  

This vile accusation always produced one of Norah's


29



LiJSti



finest virtuoso performances as the wronged woman, with
much sobbing and fainting, though strictly around well
placed chairs - Norah was nobody's fool.

As the drama unfolded Hughie would accuse Norah of
wilfully defrauding a one-legged man, her own brother.
This was a doubly heinous crime apparently, though in
ordinary circumstances it would be regarded as entirely
legitimate. Norah would throw herself on the mercy of the
assembled audience asking for justice, but it depended who
she had cheated last whether she got justice or not on each
occasion. It was a highly entertaining show that I watched
many times over the years and always with great enjoyment.
Norah doubtless did cheat Hughie though, just as he would
have cheated her had it been the other way round. But Fate
had dealt him the lying down role, and he never quite got
over the unfairness of it.

Uncle Hughie grew up with one leg and one wooden
crutch, and he regarded that arrangement as the norm.
Two legs was, well, deformed somehow. Over the years
he was fitted with numerous artificial legs by well-meaning
medical people, but he never used them for their intended
purpose. One he arranged on the inside of his door, dressed
up in a coat, trousers and hat. This, he told everybody,
was his twin brother Louis, pronounced Looey to rhyme
with Hughie. They had been born with two legs between
them, so Hughie had taken the left one and Louis the right.
Hughie and Louis lived amicably like that all of Hughie's
life, and Louis was accepted by the family and greeted as
they entered Hughie's abode.

The other legs meanwhile served more mundane, though
perhaps more bizarre functions. For instance, one was
used as a rubbish bin. Others were filled with ashes from
Hughie's fire and thrown into the River Clyde. Yet another
he kept solely for visits from well-meaning social workers,
in those days called almoners, who naturally came from
non-working-class backgrounds. Hughie had a special leg
clad in a black fishnet stocking, which he positioned just
sticking out of the side of his set-in bed whenever an
almoner called to offer unwanted assistance. Throughout


30


the conversation, which was conducted by Hughie in
ultra-polite mode, the protruding leg and the temptress
who was supposedly attached to it, was never mentioned,
though the almoner couldn't drag her gaze from it.

Hughie could move at an incredible speed with the old
wooden crutch and regularly raced two-legged unfortunates
for money, winning every time. He once had a fight in
George Street with another one-legged man, though no one
can remember what it was about. They each balanced on
their one good leg and bashed each other with their wooden
crutches, while a huge crowd gathered laying bets and
cheering on their champion. The contest lasted for hours
apparently, with rest periods provided between rounds, and
as far as I know Hughie won, though how anyone could tell
is a mystery. It's a mental picture that can bring a smile to
my face in my darkest moments, a scene so surreal that it
could only have Hughie as its author.

A day spent with Uncle Hughie was an honour and to
this day I remember every one. As my brother Laurie and
I walked along the road with him we had to trot to keep up,
and he would lodge the crutch on an electricity junction box
or a handy windowsill and suddenly pole vault into the air.
He would land with a cry of 'Alley-oop!', and then continue
as though nothing had happened. I can still recall the feeling
of pride at being related to someone who could accomplish
such public feats of silliness and was daft enough to want to.
He is clear in my memory still, a small man bent over the old
crutch, with the ubiquitous Glasgow bunnet, under which
were two bright grey eyes that sparkled and shone with the
ever-present promise of mischief, of adventure waiting to
begin. I never saw him without the bunnet, and even today when I see someone wearing one I remember him and I can't


help smiling.

Uncle Hughie would take us on repeated tours of old
Glasgow, each time pointing out the very spot where he
had lost his leg all those years ago. All the while he would
be giving a gripping running commentary on the events of
that day. It didn't take us long to realize that he took us to
a different place every time and that he gave many, many


31


versions of how the 'sliver o' skin' had been dealt with, each
one more convincing than the last.

As well as various venues throughout Glasgow, he lost
that leg in the Crimea, at Waterloo, in the Boer War and
in the First World War, according to Hughie. Laurie and
I fervently believed all the stories at once because Hughie
did,. To prove his more heroic claims he had his photo
taken wearing every available military uniform. Every one
was one hundred per cent genuine, after all, unlike Hughie,
the camera never lied.

Hughie was the first of the family to marry, but every
day he returned to Tarbet Street. As part of their ongoing
psychological warfare, the others would decide that he was
'It', and his knocks on the door and face at the window
would be ignored. Eventually he would be allowed in, only
to be given his tea in the mug that Granda Tom used to
soak his false teeth. The full points were awarded to Hughie,
who would drink up the tea with apparent relish and win a
dubious victory.

Hughie had newly moved into a little house on a hillside,
and, so the story goes, he was touched at the offer by his
brothers to decorate it for him. 'A nice Regency stripe,' he
ordered, and he left them to it. When he returned they had
applied the striped paper horizontally, at the same angle as
the hill outside. The pictures on the walls had been papered
over, as had every door, which was then carefully cut around
for easy access - no one could ever accuse them of being
downright silly. Once again, though, it was Hughie who won
the points by professing himself delighted and he lived with
the wallpaper unchanged for years. To this day any home
decorating, be it painting or wallpapering, is known within
the family as 'A nice Regency stripe', though it's possible
that some far-removed relatives might have no idea where
it originated.	"

Despite all the hilarity in Hughie's life, his wife, Maggie,
died young after giving birth to five children in very quick
succession. Only two made it past babyhood, the others
all died from the TB that killed Maggie. Granny O'Brien
was still alive at the time and she placed the two surviving


32

girls in convent homes. One died after a fall, aged fourteen,
while cleaning windows in the convent, and the other was
knocked down and killed by a bus after leaving the convent
when she was sixteen. I didn't know any of this when I was
a child. In the mythical O'Brien world of fun, sadness was
not allowed, I simply regarded Uncle Hughie with adoring
affection for the magical creature that he was. It was only in
later years that I realized what a sad life he must have had,
though he never once showed it. He brought constant joy
with his belief that growing up wasn't obligatory, despite
what the rest of humanity might think.

As Granny O'Brien had made the supreme sacrifice in
honour of my father's sixteenth birthday, I never knew her,
but she left a legacy that's still around today. She had a very
potent curse, called the Curse of Cromwell, that has to be
used with caution. Once put on it cannot be removed, and
if it hasn't been used for a while it can become rusty; this is
not a curse with a built-in margin for error, it demands exact
coordinates. As Skip used to explain, 'It kin get the wan tae
the side or jist behind the wan ye waant. So ye need tae be
careful.' And the strange thing is that it seems to work. I have had few occasions in my life so serious that Cromwell
had to be called into action, but each time he has, some
catastrophe has befallen the recipient of the curse. I use it
very, very rarely these days, it's too powerful to unleash on
an ill-prepared world . . .


33



Chapter Three


My mother first set eyes on my father when she was ten
years old and he was seventeen. She was playing with a
piece of chalk, writing names on the pavement. She asked
him what his name was and then wrote 'Lawrence O'Brien',
which he changed to 'Laurence'; they married seven years
later. At first she was prepared to 'turn' with my father
and took instruction in the Catholic faith. It didn't last
long though; she pronounced it 'A loada noansense', and
walked out never to return.

They were married at the start of the traditional Glasgow
holiday fortnight, on Fair Friday, 17 July 1936, in St
Andrew's Cathedral in Clyde Street, beside the river at the
Broomielaw. As a result of Nan's refusal to accept 'the one
true faith' the ceremony was carried out at a side altar, while
a real Catholic couple had pride of place at the front altar.
As a child this slight to my mother made me simmer with
rage, and I never understood why my father accepted it for
her, after all, he at least knew it to be an insult. My mother
thought it was an hilariously funny example of how infantile
the whole thing was, and I learned from her that you can
only accept an insult if you have some respect for whoever
gives it: she hadn't.

After the ceremony they visited Granda Tom at St
Aloysius. It was a mark of how isolated he was from his
family that he hadn't been at the wedding, but he was due
their respect, hence the visit. He wasn't even close enough
to have been displeased at his son marrying a non-Catholic,
it wasn't anything that concerned him. He was stoking the
school boiler and that was when she discovered the secret
of his dirty shirt-sleeves. It was my mother's first meeting
with her father-in-law and she said he was very nice to them,

34

wished them luck and gave them one-and-sixpence, which
they spent on a wedding picture. She looks so young in it
that it makes you want to cry 'Foul!'


Laurie Jnr was the most vulnerable of our family. He was born
during the war, six months after my father had gone overseas
with the Royal Artillery. Skip's letters home showed clearly
that he wanted a daughter, and wartime communications were
so bad that he didn't- find out he had a second son until Laurie
was six months old. The only visible proof Laurie had that
his father existed was a picture of him taken in dress uniform,
which made him look tall, brave and handsome. The reality
arrived in the early hours of one morning at the end of the War
when Laurie awakened to find a five-foot-tall and perfectly
unimpressive Glaswegian in his home. Laurie then went to
school to tell the teacher his mother was in bed with a strange
man. When told it was his father, he replied, 'Naw it's no'!
Ma Daddy's a big man!' Laurie never quite recovered from
the disappointment and he and Skip never did hit it off. Then
to complete Laurie's unhappiness, I arrived soon afterwards,
the longed-for daughter, not that I ever fulfilled my parents'
dearest dreams in that department. The epitome of feminine
charm I never was.

When my father arrived home that night to disappoint
Laurie, he had noticed banners all over the street, but it
was dark and he didn't stop to read them. Next morning
he was borne shoulder high through the neighbourhood and
saw that the banners bore the message, welcome home our
hero. Uncle Hughie had spread the story that his younger
brother had been awarded the George Cross. He'd even told
the local newspapers. My mother, who regarded anything
that the O'Briens did to each other as none of her concern,
hadn't warned the returning 'hero' and my father had to
endure a lavish street party, complete with speeches by
minor functionaries. Of course Hughie was nowhere to be
seen, though it was my father's firm belief that 'he wis jist
roond the coarner, watchin' and laughin'.' The points were
shared though, because my father carried it off and never,
ever mentioned it to Hughie.


35


Always missing from our family as we listened to these
stories was my brother Mickey. He had been in Mearnskirk Hospital when I was born. As Laurie and I grew up, every
available penny went to Mickey's needs, he was after all Nan
and Skip's first born and that is always special. It was natural
and understandable that in their frustration at being unable
fja help him, they tried to make sure that he had whatever
he wanted. So they spent long hours on public transport
going to and from Mearnskirk to deliver little luxuries to
Mickey, and because money was tight it was inevitable that
Laurie and I got less. It wasn't Mickey's fault and neither
was it Nan and Skip's, it was simply one of those things.
I had no experience of any other life, but Laurie had. He
was deprived of Nan's attention by virtue of Skip's return,
Mickey's illness and by my arrival. Laurie had needs too
and they were undoubtedly overlooked.

Laurie and I spent a great deal of time together as
children during our parents' absences visiting Mickey. I
have no particular memory of anything we did, I just
know that Laurie was always there. Neither have I any
clear memory of our house in Balmano Street, except that
it always seemed full of visitors. Gradually I came to realize that this was because of my mother. She was like a magnet
to those in trouble, and wherever we lived there would
always be a steady stream of people at our door looking
for her. It would start with a knock and a voice saying
'Is Nan in?', and in they would come, usually bearing a
letter of the official and intimidating kind. This heralded
the start of one of her crusades, as she read the letter to the bearer and then discussed the facts. The next thing was to
compose a reply, though if she thought the situation merited
it she would beard the letter-writer in his den, wherever that
might be.	1
After the War the stock of houses in Glasgow, as in I all cities, was low. Throughout the War years no new
house-building had taken place and money that should have
be spent on repairing those that existed went instead to the
War effort. Through Nan's campaigning 21 Balmano Street
had been condemned and to stop it falling down it had been


36

shored up on one side, still there was no possibility of a new
home. In truth, what the inhabitants of 21 really wanted was
a replica with one or two mod cons to sprout up beside the
decaying building so that they could go on living together
for ever. Even with improvements the housing would hardly
have been ideal, but they had no experience of anything
better, except for my mother, who had worked as a maid
in 'big hooses' in the city when she left school at fourteen. It
was always her dream that her children would live in similar
'big hooses', but the reality was Balmano Street which was
like an extended family and none of the tenants seriously
contemplated life apart. But time was running out as the
building continued to rot.

The final collapse came one June night in 1951, after
weeks of dry weather gave way to a prolonged and heavy
thunderstorm. Sand had been trickling through ceilings all
day, then a neighbour asked Nan to come down to her
ground-floor home. The woman's sink was disappearing
into the kitchen floor, and Nan suddenly realized what was
happening. Just then there was a roar like an enormous
clap of thunder, and the building started to collapse. Nan
ran through 21 shouting at people to get out, knocking on
doors and pushing her neighbours to safety. And that is my
only clear, sure memory of the Brae, of being outside in the
dark with the rain falling and of being in Laurie's arms, a
blanket over our heads. Inside the little cave I remember
feeling no fear, though all around there was panic, with
people shouting and running and the ringing bells of the
fire engines, police cars and brown ambulances.


In the middle of this I have a picture of Laurie, who was
only a little lad of about eight or nine. He looked totally
lost, as though whatever was happening was targeted at him
personally. I remember it so well because it was a look I was
to see often as we grew up; the night the building collapsed
was the first time I registered it. He was a beautiful child,
with hair so fair it was silver and big brown eyes, but always
that look, as though life had dealt him a massive, unfair and
irreversible blow that the rest of us had somehow escaped.


37


Then Peggy appeared and took me from him, and all was
well because she was there. She had been out dancing and
had felt that something was wrong, so she had rushed home
just in time to see my father coax her mother across an open
space four floors up, where their floor had once been. The
gable end had fallen into the street below and a yawning
chafcm had appeared between one half of the building and
the other. My father had eased a plank of wood across
the divide and managed to get Maw Clark halfway across
before it gave way. He caught Maw as she fell, then went
next door and did the same with Mary, Nan's sister, and
her son David, before the fire brigade arrived.

Meanwhile, as the newspapers reported next day, my
mother had got all the other inhabitants of 21 out safely,
no-one was even injured. While my mother had been saving
neighbours though, Laurie and I had to be rescued by
firemen. She had forgotten about us, and we used that
against her for years. Of course Skip had forgotten us too,
but by the time we were old enough to joke about it, my
father's lack of concern for his family was past a joke.

The inhabitants of the building were taken to the
Poorhouse at Foresthall by bus that night, but of course
Nan refused to go. Instead we stayed with her sister Vicky,
the leading 'Fair Yin'; it was a family issue after all, not an
inter-family one. I remember press camera lights popping
and all night a clock chiming every quarter of an hour, with
my parents' voices talking on into the morning light. We
didn't know it then, but we had spent our last night with
the neighbours of 21, it was the end of the Brae era.


38


Chapter Four


Blackhill. The name filled Nan with horror. She wanted her
children to go up in the world, to have a bright future, to
one day live in 'big hooses'. Instead, it would be Blackhill,
legendary home of rogues, thieves and murderers. Nan was
told by the housing officials that it was only temporary, but
she wisely didn't believe them. The Blackhill council estate,
or scheme, was started in 1933 as a result of the Housing
Scotland Acts of 193035, with the first tenants moving
in, in April 1935. Incongruously, it was built on the site of
the Glasgow Golf Club, much to the annoyance of the many
senior Glasgow Corporation officials who were members.

For such a prestigous site the surrounding area was surprisingly
unattractive. To the south was the Monklands
Canal, to the west the Corporation's Provan gas-plant and its
railway link. Beside the gas-plant stood the chemical works
and nearby, across two tracks, was the White Horse Whisky
distillery, known locally as the Bondie. The 872 houses
that made up Blackhill were carefully secreted within these
borders, to hide it and its residents, who were renowned for
their violence and degradation.

The people living in Blackhill were those with no choice,
no hope and no power; they were simply deposited there
and abandoned. They were drawn chiefly from manual
labourers, which meant they were either Irish Catholics
or of Irish descent, Irish being synonymous with Catholic
to the Glasgow of the time. There had long been a strong
anti-Catholic bias in Glasgow,knd for many years Catholics
were not allowed to be tradesmen. Notices would appear
beside job adverts, stating that no Catholics need apply, and
even without the actual words, a silent prejudice applied despite
the claims of the PR men it often still does.


39



Even in the fifties, time-served tradesmen were predominantly
Protestant, and of course they earned more and had
better job security, so it followed that they also had better
homes. So there was a tradition of Catholics being slum
dwellers, and as those slums were replaced by estates like
Blackhill, it was logical that Catholic manual workers would
form the majority of residents. As with all generalizations
of course, others were lumped in who didn't belong. There
were Protestants with Irish surnames for instance, or mixed
marriages, like that of my parents, or those with nowhere
else to go. For Nan that was three-out-of-three, and there
was certainly ample evidence to base her fears on, like the story about Blackhill: the poisonings of 1949.

It was New Year 1948-9, a time when there was little
alcohol available, and a party was in progress, until the
booze ran out. A local lad, Terry Donnelly, who worked
in the nearby chemical works, led a group of friends to a
vat of methyl alcohol in the factory, on the basis that alcohol
was alcohol. Bottles were filled and taken back to the house
where the party was being held, but methyl alcohol is a
poisonous industrial substance used in the manufacture of
paint. Those who drank it that Hogmanay, neat or mixed
with lemonade or wine, quickly became ill. The lucky ones
were blinded for life, but ten men died slow, agonizing
deaths.

The incident entered into the folklore of Glasgow, and the
media played its shock-horror part, so that Glasgow came
to accept that it was typical of the depraved monsters of
Blackhill to behave in such a way. There was no sympathy,
it simply reinforced the opinions of those who regarded
Blackhill as a hell-hole for the hopeless and undeserving.

Terry Donnelly was given thirty days in prison for the
theft of the methyl alcohol, a sentence that was regarded as
harsh and unnecessary by the people of Blackhill. Though
he had ended up unintentionally hurting his own, there was
nothing malicious about it, he had meant no harm and had
suffered enough by the outcome, and that is still the strong
opinion of those who were alive at the time. But, of course,
it became the one incident that characterized the place in the


40

minds of many, and though it happened before we moved
there, that notoriety was partly responsible for Nan's fears

for her family.

Once in, there was little chance of escape, because no one
would willingly exchange hell for a house in Blackhill, and
wanting a better life and future for your kids added no points
on the housing list. After all her years of campaigning to have
Balmano Street condemned, the letters written, councillors
ambushed and MPs coerced, the collapse of the building had
played a sick joke on Nan and we were landed in Blackhill.
No buses or trams ran through it, there was no police
station, only one or two shops, no social facilities of any
kind and no employment within it. In the Fifties few sociologists
had identified these problems and it was generally
acknowledged by those outside that those inside were a bad
lot and by keeping them together the better areas of the city
would be that much safer. Nowadays I look at the South
African townships, the ghettoes for the black or Indian
people in America and the Aborigines of Australia; places
that are no more than reservations to keep them in one place
and contain them for whatever the authorities may wish to
inflict on them, and Blackhill springs easily to mind. It was
our punishment for the crime of being poor.

There were three distinct areas of the development:
Blackhill Rehousing a coy name for slum clearance,
Blackhill Extension and Blackhill Intermediate. The first
two were built along the lines of the traditional tenements
and each housed the same kind of tenants, while the Intermediate
were four-in-a-block houses of very much superior quality, and reputation. The Intermediate area was intended
for the respectable poor rather than the disreputable poor.
Those who lived in the Intermediate part referred to it as
High Riddrie, in an attempt to disassociate themselves from
the rest of Blackhill.	

We moved into the rehousing part of Blackhill, though if
anyone we didn't know asked where we came from, Nan
always said Riddrie. This wasn't out of snobbery, but out
of self-defence. The stigma of Blackhill was indelibly and
irrevocably applied to all, and its residents were routinely


4i



subjected to abuse. Indeed it wasn't unusual for children
who ventured the few miles to the park in Alexandra Parade,
in the respectable RiddrieDennistoun area, to be stopped by
the police and questioned, before being sent back 'tae fuck
where ye belang.' So if we saw the police we ran, though we
had done nothing wrong.

There was no area for children to play in, a common cry
heard in every council housing scheme to this day, but the
children of Blackhill wouldn't have agreed. For a start there
was the canal. The last words every child, including Laurie
and I, heard going out to play were, 'See an'keep away frae
that canal!' This of course ensured that we headed straight
for it, because it had two elements that made it irresistible:
parental disapproval and the sure knowledge that water is
provided on earth to be played with and in by children.
We never told Nan that we played there though, we knew
it would only worry her.

In those days the attractions of the Monklands Canal ran
to clear water, water birds, and live fish just waiting to be
caught, not to mention all manner of flotsam and jetsam
that challenged us to make them into rafts. Brownings were
common and were accepted by the local kids almost as an
occupational hazard. After each one a petition would do the
rounds of Blackhill asking for the canal to be filled in, which
the children of the area regarded as a gross infringement of
their rights. There was nothing to worry about though, no
one with the power to do so took any notice of petitions
from Blackhill, and the canal remained there to tempt the
local children until it was filled in to make way for the
construction of the M8 motorway. The City Fathers had
their priorities after all, the safety of the local kids counted
for nothing. And when they did fill in the canal it was ironic,
to put it kindly, that one form of environmental pollution
was simply exchanged for another, the exhaust fumes of
cars, buses and lorries. In the fifties the canal was part of
our daily lives, something we lived with, and we never really
considered it to be the danger that our parents did, though of
course it was.
?gpiThe railway lines ran behind the tenements at the lower


42

half of Acrehill Street, and there was also one, big triangle
of grass. Bordered along the top of Royston Road, it had the
gasworks, chemical plant and a railway track on one side,
and the whisky bond and another track on the other. In those
days no one had heard of the hazards of industrial pollution
and, even if they had, in the eyes of our 'betters' it would
have been regarded as good enough for our kind of people.
Anyway, where else was there for us to go to if we didn't
like where we lived? There was a lot of sickness, mainly
eye trouble, and chest infections that settled into chronic
bronchitis over the years. From the whisky distillery, the
Bondie, ran a small stream carrying the effluent of whatever
mysterious processes took place inside, but to the children
it was a burn and, therefore, like the canal a legitimate
place to play. We were disappointed, though, that no fish
swam there.

Trains coming from the distillery-end met up at the point
with those coming from the gasworks and chemical factory
track, so to get to the grassy area in the middle we had to
cross the line. Sometimes a railway man would descend from
his signal box and attempt to chase us off. But until he did I
would lie on my back, lost in the long grass, staring at the
sky above, overcome at the immensity of it and wondering
where it ended, as the other kids fought and played around
me. It was the first feeling I had of being able to stretch
my eyes, and the awakening of an awareness that there was
existence beyond the streets and houses where I lived.

We lived at 34 Acrehill Street, a long, curved street of
drab, grey-stone tenements like all the others, built in rows
throughout Blackhill. Nan's sister Mary, and her son David,
who had lived beside us at the Brae, were at 43. Maw Clark
and Peggy had a house in Moodiesburn Street, towards the
better RiddrieProvanmill end.

Like all tenements there was an entrance, the close, which
connected all the houses frofn the bottom storey to the top,
and through to the backcourt, but in Glasgow it means more
than a passageway. A close is a place in its own right, it's a
meeting place, a talking shop, and tenement dwellers feel
a strong sense of ownership over their closes. The close at


43


345 leading up to our first-floor home, had a distinctive
atmosphere, just as every other one did to its owners. This
time we had two bedrooms, a kitchen, sittingdining-room
and an inside toilet, so the house itself was luxury compared
to Balmano Street. Just inside the kitchen, on the left, was
the coal-bunker, and at the top, on the right beside the sink,
stooci the gas boiler. It was about the size of a large oil drum,
with a gas ring below, and this was where the family washing
was done. Mondays were boring days, because Nan had to
boil the clothes up, then rub them with Fairy soap over the
corrugations of the washing board, and put them through a
mangle into the sink. Then she had to rinse them and mangle
them again, and sometimes again. All this took a great deal
of time, and on Nan's part a greater deal of effort, and I'd
hear her puffing and panting while trying to keep singing,
as she always did about the house. Until the washing was
safely on the line, though, we couldn't go out and I had to
hang around, bored and impatient to see Peggy.

The houses of the other Brae refugees were strung out
between ours and Peggy's, and whenever we passed, old
neighbours would rush out for a reunion. They clung to
each other like prisoners in a foreign land, which indeed
they were, with Nan the only point of safety, and they could
never let her pass their doors.

Before long 34 became established as the place to go
when in trouble, and the familar, steady stream of worried
women, clutching letters and looking for Nan became the
norm. Once again I didn't realize it at the time, but I
was witnessing the much-denied link between wealth - or
the lack of it - and education. Most of the people who
brought their problems to my mother did so because they
could neither read nor write. They weren't stupid and they
weren't illiterate through choice, it simply went with their
abject poverty and lack of power over their own lives. It came
with the territory of deprivation.

Nan would read the proffered letter or listen to the story
and we would hear her say, 'Noo, that's no' right. . . ,' the
words that signified the start of another campaign. As in the
Brae, if the matter was relatively simple she would compose

44


and write a reply to the hapless sender of the offending letter,
but if the situation was dire she would be instantly off in
search of the miscreant, to sort it out face-to-face. People,
she fervently believed, were basically good, and no one
meant harm to another. There was only Right, and once any
minor misunderstandings were explained, Right would be
universally accepted and sweetness and light would prevail.
It was her mission in life to do the explaining, for the simple
reason that she could.

Skip maintained that the initials, HE, in the middle of
her name, were born of the panic Nan induced in Council
Officials. 'They see hur comin,' he would say, 'an' shout
"Joan - Holy Christ! - O'Brien!" Then they a' run away
name.' She was anybody's idea of an earth mother, plump
and maternal, with soft, concerned brown eyes that betrayed
every emotion, dark brown hair caught up in a bun from
which it was forever threatening to escape, and she always
had a child by the hand. In her battles with officialdom she
used this to its fullest advantage of course, knowing exactly
what kind of Blackhill representative her adversaries were
expecting. The best clothes were brought out and freshly
pressed, stocking seams checked for ramrod straightness,
hair carefully brushed and me the 'wean' scrubbed clean.
It caught 'them' off guard to be confronted with a well turned-out, articulate and polite matron instead of the stereotype
they expected from the badlands of Blackhill. She
then hit them with an impassioned honesty that could melt
the heart of the hardest bureaucrat, and she usually emerged
victorious, with respect and dignity preserved on both sides.
As the youngest of her three children I was a pre-school
accomplice on her missions, and I was trained to sit quietly
without interrupting and to be well-mannered when spoken
to. Nan didn't miss a trick when her heart was in the fray.

Years after my mother had died, I was in Glasgow City
Chambers for what I thought was the first time. It is an
extremely ornate building with extravagant use made of different
kinds of marble and much opulent gilding of the lily;
once seen never forgotten, even if you try hard. Halfway up a
landing I turned left into an instantly recognizable place:


45


at the top of the next flight of stairs Nan had stood shaking
hands with a tall, white-haired man at the end of a meeting,
and he had given me the unheard of sum of half-a-crown,
which my mother had immediately confiscated and handed
back to him, declaring it to be 'too much'. My father at that
time would have been earning something in the region of two
pounds per week, and I had been handed the huge sum of an
eighth of one pound! I remembered vividly how difficult it
had sometimes been to be quiet and well-mannered, especially
when my mother lost me the untold wealth of a half
crown. The memory was so clear that I could almost locate
the three figures in mid-air as I followed the voices in my
mind, but the reason for our being there was lost, if indeed
I ever knew it. Undoubtedly though it had started with that
knock at the door and an anxious voice asking, 'Is Nan in?'


This was the Teddy Boy era, intensified in Glasgow by the
CatholicProtestant divide, and there were running street
fights every night, so Nan enforced a curfew after dark. I
grew up hearing my father trying to calm her down as the
sounds of battle ripped through the darkened streets, but
being used to it I fell asleep quickly; it was just another
familiar part of normal life. One night, though, Maw Clark
had been taken to the Royal Infirmary with one of her
terminal illnesses, and by the time the family had been
reassured that she would live to con them another day, it
was night time.

Arriving at our close we found a fight in progress, with
four Teds against one. Skip, being a street-wise Glaswegian
with a well-developed instinct for survival, turned and
walked back out. Nan instinctively waded in though,
wielding the ever-present message bag that served as both
handbag and shopping-bag for working-class women. She
had made it herself at a craft class at a local school, but
never had she envisaged using it as a weapon. She brought
it down on whatever head was nearest, and grabbed handfuls
of hair, the knives and razors flashing around her. 'Bit
Missus O'Brien,' shouted one of the men, 'He's a Proddy!'
not knowing that so was Mrs O'Brien, not that it mattered.


46

She saw them off then took the victim into our house
and cleaned him up, all the while lecturing him on how
his mother must feel with him mixed up in knife fights.
'Missus O'Brien,' he said wearily, 'Ah huvnae seen ma
mammy since Ah wis a wean o'three.' Listening at the door
I wondered what this could mean. Life was simple; fathers
went to work if they had it, mothers stayed at home to look
after the house and the children. So why hadn't he seen his
mother for such a long time? When he'd gone I asked Nan
about it and she told me with a frown that the boy's mother
had run away from home leaving him behind. This made me
wonder even more; what terrible thing could he have done to
make his mother run away from him?

Gradually, and to her great embarrassment, Nan became
known as 'a guid wumman', and our home became a haven
for neglected children whose mothers were away from home,
either temporarily or permanently. If a mother couldn't find
her child she came to our house, knowing that the child
would be there, safe, fed and cared for. Children waited
outside our close for her during the day happy to walk
along the long road with her to the bus-stop, where the
local gangs stepped aside to let her on first, though she
tried not to notice. I only really became aware that Nan
was different once I started school, and realized that the
other kids tumbled out at going home time and fought to
have her tie their laces, 'Kin ye still no' tie yur am laces?'
she would ask in mock disapproval, and the kids would grin
back at her, 'Ah don't know whit kinda school that kin be!'
With an exaggerated sigh she would put down the ubiquitous
message bag. 'A'right then,' she'd say, 'Gimme yur fit oan
ma knee.' It had always happened, but there was one day
that I looked at the scene from the outside for the first time
and wondered: why Nan? I wasn't bothered by it and neither
was I particularly impressed, I simply noticed it consciously
for the first time. By taking up a few minutes of her time the
kids weren't depriving me of anything. They only wanted to
bask in a little of her warmth, and she always had more than
enough of it to go round.


47



Chapter Five


We were always aware that our friends' brothers, uncles
and fathers disappeared into Glasgow's notorious Barlinnie
Prison. It was known locally as the Bar-L, or more confusingly
given Nan's ambitions for us, the Big Hoose. One day
our cousin David boasted that he knew where Barlinnie was
and Laurie dared him to take us there. We walked along
the canal bank and stopped opposite a cafe on Cumbernauld
Road called the Golfer's Rest, reputed to be a meeting place
for the Teds. The stark, raw brutality of Barlinnie rose
before us over the trees, and even though I was only about
four years old, I felt a shiver run through me; the place was
so patently what it was. As we stood there, engrossed in
recounting the horror stories we had heard about the place,
we became aware of three men standing behind us. One was
Billy Fullarton, the leading Protestant baddie, and the other
two we knew by sight as his henchmen and bodyguards.
'Walk!' said Fullarton, pointing back in the direction we
had come from, and with a feeling of dumb terror we were
trailed all the way home by them in total silence. I felt like
a puppet with slack strings, nothing in my entire body was
coordinated and I was cold all over. I was only a child, but
I really believed that I was about to die.

At the foot of Acrehill Street, Fullarton leaned down and
stared into the deepest recesses of our young souls. 'Yer
mammy's a decent wee wumman,' he said, 'She'd no' like
ye gaun near that place. It's a bad, bad place. So don't go
near it again, or Ah'll see tae ye. Unnerstaun'?' He then
released us to walk home alone in a state of shock; we
were like hostages who had expected to be shot only to be
inexplicably released instead. With every step there was an
urge to turn around and see if he was still there, but we

resisted it rather than be killed by one more glance from
Fullarton's cold, hard eyes. When Nan opened the door
it was like walking into a different world, like Dorothy
opening the door after the storm to reveal the brilliant
technicolour of the Land of Oz. I could smell gooseberry
pie which was one of her specialities and up till then had
always been one of my favourites. To this day I only have
to see a gooseberry yoghurt to feel Fullarton's gaze on me
and the terror I felt that day rushes back.

It took me a long time to work out why he had let us walk
those last awful yards home alone. Nan would have been
horrified if someone like him had arrived on her doorstep
and obviously Fullarton knew this, so he had simply saved
her the embarrassment. He knew the difference between
Them and Us and he had acknowledged it that day in
deference to Nan, who was 'a decent wee wumman'.

After that, whenever our paths crossed, he would stare
at us coldly as he exhaled a long, slow "stream of cigarette
smoke, and we knew that he knew that we would never
forget. Some time later I was on my way to the dentist and
was wearing a scarf around my mouth, the traditional badge
of the toothache sufferer. Waiting at the bus-stop with Nan
I was aware of Fullarton and his two henchmen there too.
To my horror, and doubtless even more to Nan's, I saw him
approach us. He put his hand in his pocket, brought out
a half-crown and put it into my hand. 'Ye kin get sweeties
efter,' he said, and walked back to his friends. Nan took
it from me and threw it away later. 'Ye don't know who
he carved up tae get his hauns on that,' she told me, 'It's
tainted hen.' It was a relief to get rid of it, after all it had
belonged to Billy Fullarton, but even so, I wondered if I'd
ever get to keep a half-crown while Nan was around.

Fullarton's intrusion into the civilian ranks had been
exceptional, because the gangs were identifiable armies
and though they lived 'among us they never truly lived
with us. There was a subtle code that we picked up, like
never establishing eye contact and never, ever talking to
them. I wasn't aware of being told this, it was part of a
collective sixth sense that we absorbed and was as natural


48

49


and essential to Blackhill children as breathing. As a result
we never felt that we would be harmed and neither were we.
If a fight broke out when children were around we would
simply move quickly out of the way or be moved by the
adults present, so that the distance between the civilians
and the fighting men was always maintained. Nan though,
without that instinct born of childhood experience, saw
danger everywhere and was unable to distinguish between
real trouble and the imaginary kind. To her every minute
we lived in Blackhill was filled with potential danger, and
every second that passed safely was a bonus.

Laurie, David and I once dug up a gun wrapped in
oilcloth in the backcourt, a hand-gun just like the ones we
saw in the cowboy films. We fought over it all day, taking
turns atpretending to fire it at each other, until we reached
impasse on who should get to keep it. Just like everybody
else, we took our dispute to Nan for mediation. She went
totally to pieces when she saw the gun. The curtains were
drawn, the door locked and for some illogical reason our
prize was put into the coal-bunker. When Skip came home
he took the gun back to where we had found it and re-buried
it, and as far as he was concerned that was the end of it.
Not for Nan though; it was weeks before she slept properly
again, and whenever she saw a gang member she went
through the closed curtains, locked door routine all over
again, convinced that we would all be murdered in our
beds for finding the gun. Laurie, David and I watched
over our buried treasure from various close-mouths for a
while to see who might come back for it. When no one
did we remembered better things to do and gave up, so we
never did find out who had left it there, and for all I know
it could be there still.

The hard men of the gangs made their livings outside
their home areas and not by robbing or cheating their own
neighbours, so they kept on the right side of them. No-one
in Blackhill would have grassed on any of the gangs, and
not entirely through self-interest, but also because they took
care to give us little to complain about. Besides, the police
were our common enemy, so there was no one to grass to.


50

There was a convention that men didn't swear in front
of women and children, so the first time I ever heard the
phrase 'Fenian bastards' was from the police. Having an
ear for words I of course repeated it perfectly to Nan, keen
to know what it meant. Once she recovered she explained
that it meant a Catholic who didn't have a father. "Cos he's
in the Bar L?' I asked. 'Aye hen,' she replied in a distracted
kind of way, 'Sumthin' like that, bit don't you say it tae
thum, they might no' like it.' Later, when she thought I
was out of earshot, I heard her telling Peggy, as she told
Peggy everything, and the two of them laughed till they
cried. Then they looked at me, and I looked at them and
they laughed again, till we were all three clinging together
giggling. I was laughing because I was delighted, .to have
caused them such happiness, if only I could work out why
and how I'd done it ...

The gangs survived materially by turning over factories,
shops and businesses in other parts of the city, and their only
money-spinners within Blackhill were protection rackets
involving the pubs and illegal bookies. There was a little
money-lending, but to fellow rogues, not to the ordinary
punters, and of course there was dealing in stolen property.
Most of the trouble that did break out that wasn't purely
sectarian, was because one lot had moved in on another's
territory, or someone hadn't paid up on a deal, and in that
way the violence was contained within the 'armies'.

Nan's constant fear was a thing of puzzlement to me,
because living in Blackhill gave me a feeling of security
and safety that I have never regained and as a child I was
supremely happy there. Peggy was near enough to visit
every day, and en route we also saw the other refugees
from Balmano Street. Yet from the day we moved into
the house at 34 Nan was trying to get out. She would
send letters to all the council officials she had approached
countless times on behalf of other people, and make endless
visits to meet councillors and MPs. None of it worked of
course, there were no houses anywhere except those that
no one else wanted, which meant houses in the worst areas,
like Blackhill. Though her affection for and empathy with


5i


the ordinary people was to grow over the years, Nan never
came to terms with living there and never lost her fear of
the hard men.

One of the local characters who made Nan nervous lived
at the top of of our street. From a ground floor house, a
man leaned on his window-sill all day, every day. He talked
to all tHe children going to and from school and gave us
thruppenny bits for the ice-cream van that stopped outside
his house. Skip always spent time talking to the man, but
though Nan tried she seemed uneasy. When I mentioned
this to Skip, he said with a laugh, 'Yer ma's mair genteel
than the rest o' us.' Years later I learned that the man
had married 'a bad yin', and had come home one day to
find his kids locked out in the rain and his wife locked in
with another man. In the fight that followed he had killed
her, but he must have been convicted of culpable homicide
manslaughter to have escaped the noose in those days.

When I knew him he was an old man and had served
whatever sentence he had been given. He had never seen
his kids again, so he lived through the lives of the neighbourhood
kids for thruppence a time, a gentle soul who gave
out no feeling of threat or danger, except to Nan, who was
'mair genteel'. It was part of her inability to judge Blackhill
accurately that she couldn't relate one hundred per cent to
him, though he was the kind of underdog that she would
normally do battle for. Whenever the capital punishment
debate resurfaces and I hear murderers described as monsters
and perverts, somehow I can't help thinking about
him; just an ordinary man who had lost everything, and
regretted it everytime he saw a child.	.;",

Further down the long, crescent-shaped street, round
about where it curved, was a different kind of man alto
gether. He was the father of a mentally handicapped boy
of about ten, called Bobby. I never knew exactly what was
wrong with Bobby, he was just 'no 'right'; he used to watch
all the other kids out of his window but he wasn't allowed
to join us and he didn't go to school. For long spells we
never saw him, then he'd reappear again, watching from
his window. One day Nan had a deputation of women at

52

the door to report that Bobby had been heard being beaten
up by his father and was badly bruised on the side of his
face. Some of the women had gone to see Bobby's father
and had been sent away with screams of abuse ringing in
their ears, and poor Bobby got it again. Nan went to see
the local health visitor, called the Green Lady because of
the colour of her uniform, but she got short shrift too,
and no one thought of involving the police because we
knew better than to trust them. To the police, who came
from outside, everyone in Blackhill was scum, fit only to
be raided and thrown into the back of Black Marias en route for the Bar L, and it was accepted that we took care
of our own problems without involving them. In fact, the
unspoken rule about not looking directly at the hard men
and not trying to engage them in conversation also held
good where the police were concerned, and however bad a
villain might be, no one would ever have helped the police
to take him away.	'

Across the street from Bobby lived a woman called Mrs
Logan. Her home was like a palace, everything spick and
span and displaying riches beyond our experience. While
we were lucky to have lino on all our floors, Mrs Logan
had fitted carpets, and a taxi picked her up whenever
she ventured outside, one of the few times we saw a
car in Blackhill. It was said that Mrs Logan was Billy
Fullarton's aunt. So Nan and I went to see her, which was
an unbelievable treat for me, because Mrs Logan seemed to
have an endless supply of biscuits and cakes. When we went
back next day I really thought my boat had come in, but
sitting there were Billy Fullarton and his two friends and
suddenly I couldn't force down a crumb of the feast Mrs
Logan had laid before us.

Nan hadn't acknowledged Fullarton's presence and he
hadn't addressed a word to her either. Avoiding his eyes,
Nan seemed to tell Bobby's story to no one in particular.
Fullarton listened, his face taut and expressionless and those
hard, icy eyes staring at her. When she had finished he still
said nothing. As we were leaving he put a hand on my head
and I drew back instinctively. 'It's a'right wee yin,' he said


53


with what passed for a smile, 'Ah don't hurt weans. Except
fur bad weans mibbe. Ur you a bad wean?' Then he laughed,
which was just as well because I couldn't have thought of a
reply. Afterwards, as we walked along past the two closes
between Mrs Logan's house and ours Nan was shaking, and
when shjs got inside she locked the door and made cup after
cup of ta.

A couple of nights later there was a commotion in Bobby's
close which we took as part of normal life at the time, but
next day we saw Bobby's father badly bruised and cut about
the face. He never touched the boy again, in fact whenever
Nan stopped to talk to Bobby, his father was positively
deferential. After all, she had Billy Fullarton at her beck
and call, though she never admitted having any part in what
had occurred.

To my great chagrin we never went near Mrs Logan
and her Aladdin's Cave of goodies again, in fact my
mother would take long detours to avoid passing the house.
Sometimes in her attempts to avoid Mrs Logan Nan would
get lost in the maze of backcourts and closes, and being
more familiar with them I would guide her safely home. This
meant clambering over middens, the three-sided, concrete
structures with sloping roofs where the rubbish bins were
kept. I discovered that Nan was no good at dealing with
middens, and, if anything, worse at climbing or squeezing
through the iron railings that separated the tenement back
courts. I remember feeling mildly embarrassed by her lack
of aptitude in such ordinary skills.

Whenever we did pass her house, Mrs Logan would shout
down to us to come up, but Nan always had an excuse. All
those cakes and biscuits, all that luxury, was lost to me for
ever. There were times when I just couldn't understand my
mother; she wanted the good life for us, but whenever we
got close to it she threw it away.


I can only recall actually witnessing one warrant sale in
Blackhill, though I knew one was probably taking place
if I saw a car. We only saw cars if a doctor, the police or
the sheriff officers, or bailiffs, came calling. Warrant sales

54

took place when someone couldn't pay a debt, and their
possessions were sold off to make it up. Given the level
of poverty of some families, or maybe because of it, there
were fewer sales than might have been expected, because
sheriff officers were reluctant to venture into Blackhill to
enforce the warrant. There was never any actual violence
that I remember, but the reputation of the place worked in
our favour in a way and certainly the women used it to its
full advantage to create an atmosphere of menace.

The goods being sold off, few as they were, often went to
the sheriff officers themselves at knock-down prices, so the
local women pooled whatever money they could lay hands
on and bought everything up, then returned it to the victim.
I didn't regard this as heroic at the time any more than the
women themselves did. They knew that if their turn came
next the same rescue operation would be mounted for them.
It was part of the way things were to me as a small child,
but looking back now from an era where nobody cares much
about anyone else, and especially knowing how tight money
was in those days, I admire their strength and decency in a
way I feel but can't adequately explain.

On that particular day I was off school with tonsillitis, a
constant complaint throughout my childhood, and I was
hanging onto the handles of Nan's message bag as she and
the other women made their way to the home of the hapless
debtor. The sheriff officers had taken the precaution of
bringing police protection with them, a move that amused
the women and made their loathing of both stronger. After
all, what kind of men could they be, to be afraid to face a
bunch of women without bringing the police for protection?
The sheriff officers and the police saw it as a demonstration
of strength, but the women regarded it as an admission of
fear. Nothing much happened, the goods were snapped
up by the women but I can remember the tension as they
stood in ranks so close that the intruders could barely move.
When the sale ended the weeping woman once more took
possession of her bits and pieces. As the sheriff officers were
leaving the close Nan couldn't contain herself any longer.

'Excuse me!' she called after a bowler-hatted sheriff


55


officer, 'Ah wis wonderin' aboot yer mother. Is she still
alive?' He stopped for a moment, puzzled, and stuttered
that his mother was dead.

'Likely died o' shame,' Nan replied, as the other women
gathered around. 'Hur wean growin' up tae dae this tae
decent reople.'

'I get'no pleasure from this kind of thing,' the creature
said,'I am only doing my job.'

'Aye,' Nan said softly, 'Sumbody will've gied ye orders
right enough. It's no' really your fault like.'

'Exactly!'

'Is that no' whit the Nazis said tae?' she asked.

'I don't need to take this from the likes of you! I fought

in the War!'

'Bit oan whit side?' Nan retorted, 'Ah hope tae God it
wisnae oors 'kis oor men wur surely men!' The other women
formed a semicircle behind Nan as the police moved in to
shepherd the sheriff officer towards his car. Nan reserved
her fire until the car door was open and he had one foot off
the ground ready to climb in.

'Ye don't seem sich a bad wee man,' she said kindly,
'Bit ur ye no' black affronted at earning yer livin' in this

durty wey?'

He hesitated just long enough to register that her barb
had gone straight home, before climbing into the car and
being driven off. His chin rested on his hand and his face
was turned away in an attempt to convey his complete lack
of concern. But the women had witnessed that split second
of hesitation as he got into the car and they knew better.
Their derisive laughter rang out, and though I had no real
understanding of what had happened, I knew we had won
somehow; Nan had been taking lessons from the O'Briens.
Yet much to my puzzlement, she hurried home, closed
the door and burst into floods of tears. Then she made a
cup of tea and got on with her housework, singing as she
always did. I understand now, of course. She was crying
tears of humiliation and rage, the tears of the helpless and
powerless.

al


And yet despite the harshness of Blackhill life, it was for
me filled with the magic of childhood. The summers were
just as long and sunny, the winters as full of sparkling snow
as anywhere else. Indeed, the only time I ever saw Santa
Claus was in Blackhill. I slept in a bed cabinet in my
parents' bedroom and on that Christmas morning I must
have wakened just as Santa was leaving, because certainly
I heard a noise that made me ignore my presents. I ran to
the window and looked out - and there he was! He was just
above ground level, guiding the sleigh through the air, laden
with presents, giving instead of taking, and the sleigh was
pulled by two long lines of reindeer. I tried to waken my
parents but they didn't seem interested, so they probably
missed their only chance to prove the existence of Father
Christmas. I can still see in my mind's eye today what I saw
that dark, early morning, and it really was Santa, it really,
really was . . .


56


57


Chapter Six


Peggy was the only unmarried Clark, a gentle, vivacious
woman with a lovely smile and quiet nature. My mother was
regarded as the brains of the family, but together she and
Peggy formed the core, even to the 'Fair Yins'. Peggy was
less articulate than my mother, less intense, but they were
two parts of one character. Nan was the doer, but only after
discussing everything with her sister, including the approach
to Fullarton through Mrs Logan. Peggy would never have
had the courage to actually do it, but she would have agreed
with the plan or Nan wouldn't have carried it out.

Nan and Peggy met every day, it would have been unthinkable
not to because they needed each other, and I grew up
the third part of a tight eternal triangle. Peggy's one ambition
was to get married and have a family of her own, but there
was a feeling about her of being one of nature's spinsters, a
custom-made maiden aunt. If that was what fate had decreed,
Peggy wasn't for accepting it though.

Weddings drew her like a magnet and she would stand for
hours outside a church if she happened on a wedding, just for a
glimpse of the happy couple, then she would smile for the rest
of the day. If you saw a wedding when she wasn't there you
had to recall it in great detail while her eyes misted over with
the romance of it all. I used to dread being in town with her,
because she would never go home until we had visited every
wedding-dress shop for miles and admired every creation available.
Having spent so much time in the company of Laurie I was
a confirmed tomboy and very definitely not a lace and flounces
child. Despite this Peggy's plan was that when she married I'd
be her bridesmaid and so, she claimed, she had to window shop.
I used to cringe at the frilly concoctions she dreamt up for me,
but she never noticed, she was eternally lost in her dream.


58

Babies also left her dewy-eyed. Like my mother she had
the unconscious ability to draw children to her, and Peggy
hadn't my mother's experience of the reality to dampen her
romanticism. Peggy wasn't interested in having a good time,
she was interested only in settling down and starting a family.
This naturally put men off, especially those who had returned
from years of war-service and just wanted some fun.

Her taste in men was notoriously awful, and each one would
be brought to my mother for approval. The waifs, the strays,
the wasters, misfits and the undesirables, somehow they all
found their way to Peggy and she convinced herself that each
and every one was a god. Add to that list of catches the ones she
fancied but never got near, all of them reprobates to a man, and
Peggy's reputation as a magnet for disaster was safe for all time.
I don't think she ever noticed my mother's grimaces, she was
lost in her dream and adored each god who chanced along.

When each relationship failed my mother would heave a
sigh of relief, until the next unsuitable match arrived on the
horizon. Uncle George, the other 'Dark Yin', would seek out
my mother and plead with her to put Peggy off whichever man
she was seeing through her eternally rose-tinted gaze this time,
and my mother would assure him it wouldn't last anyhow.

Peggy, much as they loved her, was a constant worry, she
was too gentle for the world, too trusting and in need of
protection. She had a heart of marshmallow and was easily
moved to tears, which in turn moved my mother to tears.
They'd stand there together, mopping their eyes, then the scene
would strike them as silly and funny and they'd laugh, which in
turn caused more tears. The vicious circle would continue until
they were exhausted by it all and were rendered red-eyed and
out of breath, unable to look at each other without suffering
a massive relapse. Each blamed the other on these occasions,
but in truth it was impossible to tell where one ended and the
other began. They were equally to blame, though neither could
ever explain why they were laughing or how it had all started.
'Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Whit wur we laughin' it?' one
or other would demand breathlessly, which was more than
enough to start it all up again. I used to watch them, holding
their sides and groaning but unable to stem the laughter or the


59


tears, hanging onto each other for support and demanding that
the other 'Stoap it noo!' No O'Brien could have or would have
been able to abandon themself to such glorious, all-consuming
emotion and mirth.

As part of her quest for marriage and motherhood, Peggy
regularlv enlisted the help of Norah, Skip's sister. Norah had
a strong theatrical bent, as her performances with Hughie
showed, and had decided that she could tell fortunes. This
she did by reading teacups, and before each 'reading' she
did for Peggy she would quiz me carefully about what was
happening in Peggy's life. Thus was she able to come up
with amazing details, almost as if someone had told her, and
Peggy believed every word she uttered. The man was forecast
several times and he never arrived, but that didn't put Peggy
off. After all, look at the things Norah knew about her . . .
There must be something in it ...

Peggy was a highly skilled welder, a trade she had
learned during the War. She made tabernacles for the
Catholic church, the ornate little domes that house the
Eucharist on church altars. Given the bitterness of Maw
Clark's Orange leanings, this of course made Nan and
Peggy laugh more than anything else did. Maw had an
orange pin cushion, and embroidered on it was King
William of Orange sitting on his white horse. Whenever
Skip went into the Moodiesburn Street house he would
insert pins in strategic parts of King Billy's anatomy,
which would bring Maw screaming to remove them.
This always puzzled me; what else could one do with
a pin cushion but stick pins in it? Was it a dastardly
plot invented by the Catholic church to manufacture the
pin cushions and sell them to devotees of the Loyal
Orange Order, so that pins would be stuck in King
Billy? As with all running jokes, everyone, especially
the children, joined in, so that King Billy was perpetually
covered in pinholes. It wasn't because we were
bigoted, we didn't understand any of it. All we knew
was that it was a marvellous way to greatly upset Maw
Clark.	SJ ,.


"


1


The O'Briens were regarded by the Clarks with guarded
affection, as honoured guests that they were lucky to have
among them. The O'Briens of course accepted this as their
due, with dignity and condescension and they put their usual
ploys on hold, never subjecting the Clarks to any warfare.
They were family, but family once removed after all and not
up to the Game. There was no enjoyment in scoring points
over an opponent who wasn't up to standard. Wisely the
Clarks were never sure of them, though they loved to have
them at family gatherings. It was like sin by proxy, as the
O'Briens did and said the kind of things that the Clarks
wanted to, but never dared.	? Skip,
Hughie and another brother, Pat, were famed for
their sand-dance, shirt-tails out, trousers rolled up and pots
on their heads. They scattered ashes on the floor from the
fireplace of wherever they were, and performed their masterpiece
in total silence, and the sight of the five O'Brien legs
sent the Clarks into their usual heaving, creaking laughter.
For me the delight was in seeing the Clarks all holding onto
each other, tears running down their faces, totally abandoned
to their mirth. The sand-dance itself was commonplace,
after all I was an O'Brien and had seen it many
times.

The O'Briens reserved their gentlest treatment for Peggy,
who was shy with them and blushed as Hughie kissed her
hand or sang her praises. There was something about her
that brought out their sensitive side, and not many people
could do that to the O'Briens. They would have fun with
Nan by suggesting that Hughie and Peggy would make a
good match, and Nan would scream with horror. 'Wan o'
us being' merried intae this lot is bad enough!' she'd declare,
'Oor Peggy disnae deserve that!' She knew of course that they
were having her on, but the enjoyment for them was that they
knew Nan could never be entirely sure.

Clark family gatherings "usually celebrated someone's
birthday, Glasgow Fair holidays, Christmas or New Year,
but they could just happen if enough people turned
up at the house my grandmother and Peggy shared in
Moodiesburn Street. A bottle would be spun and whoever


60

61



it pointed to had to sing. I always sought a cave-like
vantage point to view it from, usually under the table
and waited for all the party pieces to be enacted. No
gathering was complete without Peggy being persuaded
to sing 'Mexicali Rose'. It was a maudlin country-and
western ditty about star-crossed lovers - what else would
Peggy Sing?


Mexicali Rose stop crying

I'll come back to you some sunny day

Every night you'll know that I'll be pining

Every hour a year while I'm away

Dry those big brown eyes and smile dear

Banish all those tears and please don't sigh

Kiss me once again and hold me

Mexicali Rose, Goodbye bye.


Mexicali Rose I'm leaving, don't feel blue
Mexicali Rose stop grieving, I love you
When the dove of love is winging through the blue
All the castles you've been building will come true.


The song might have been written for Peggy to sing,
the sorrow for the lost love and the building of castles and
as she sang, tears flowing from her big brown eyes, Skip
and Willie would mime the song to the assembled company.
They would swoon into each other's arms and sob
sorely before riding off into the sunset around the table,
as I watched their performance from underneath. By that
time Peggy would have been forced to give up anyway, due
to a combination of tears of sympathy for the unfortunate
Rose and tears of laughter at the travesty of her sorrow
being enacted. Then Uncle Willie would sing an army song
about Quinn's Pub in the Springburn area of Glasgow, an
establishment obviously held in great affection and built
under a rocky outcrop that had been made into stairs. It
was called 'Doon in the Wee House' and had to be sung
whenever Willie was present, and if a do was on, Willie
was there.


62

Doon in the wee hoose, underneath the stairs,
Everybody's happy, everybody's there.
We're a' gay and he'rty, each in his chair,
Doon in the wee hoose, underneath the stairs.


Noo Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue,
'Twas him that discovered America, if history books

are true,

All honour tae Columbus, but honour I declare, 1 Tae the man that built the wee hoose, underneath

the stair.


Noo when ye're feelin' lonely, when ye're feelin'

blue,

Don't give way to sorrow, Ah'll tell ye what to do,
Jist take a tram tae Springburn, see if Quinn's §,

there,	'f
He's the man that built the wee hoose, underneath

the stair.


Noo when Ah'm feelin' weary, and ma bones are

sair,
Ah won't get auld an' grumpy, like that auld

bugger there.

Ah'll save up a' ma pennies tae buy a hurly-chair,
Jist tae tak' me tae the wee hoose underneath the

stair.


When it came to the line, 'Ah won't get auld an' grumpy',
the entire company would rise as one, point an accusatory finger
at Maw Clark and shout 'Like that auld bugger there!'

Skip's party piece, when the other three legs of the famous
sand-dance weren't present, was to begin singing an army
song that after a few lines threatened to descend into filth
but never did, because everyone jumped up shouting and
throwing things at him. It was what could be called a performance
piece, with everyone else having to take part for full
effect, but watching from my cave under the table, it always
made me feel uncomfortable. I didn't quite understand what
it was about and of course no one would explain; it was one


63


of those adult jokes that make all children feel slightly uneasy
for that very reason. Nan sang an odd little song, given the
many others she knew.


Wance Ah hid a wee broon hen, it hid a wee broon

tail,
Ah sent it fur an ounce o' snuff an' it never came

back again,
Noo it's deid an' in it's grave fur many an' many a

day,
God bless ma wee hen, it never came back again.


Ah'll hae a funeral fur ma wee hen,

Ah'll hae a funeral, fur ladies an' gentlemen,

Ladies an' gentlemen know ma wee hen,

God bless ma wee hen, it never came back again.


Everyone joined in with the chorus, as they did with
every song apart from Skip's, because he never got that
far, but it was a strange little song for my mother to sing.
Despite the tragic end of the wee broon hen it was always
sung with great gusto and greeted with much cheering and
stamping of feet.

These happy family gatherings showed the great differences
between the two families. The Clarks for instance
lived on their feelings and lacked the emotional strength
of the O'Briens, though that strength was the kind that
children have, egotistical and selfish. To the O'Briens, showing
what you really felt or thought gave others an unfair
advantage over you, so emotions were kept tightly under
control. Instead they performed a comical act that kept
them safe from close emotional ties, ties that I think they
were incapable of forming. They concealed their feelings
behind a mask of knockabout humour and it was a matter
of pride to them not to shed a tear, even under the most
tragic circumstances. The O'Briens believed that control
was strength, but the sentimental Clarks cared and that did
make them vulnerable. As they would find out before long,
caring costs.


64


Chapter Seven


I was a toddler when I first saw my brother Mickey. He was
still in Mearnskirk Hospital and children weren't allowed
to visit, so I was taken to look at him, or for him to look
at me, through a fence. I had no idea what I was about to
see or what I should do, but I remember feeling let down
by the experience.

This creature called a Mickey had been so exotic and
fabulous that my parents had spent every weekend and as
many days or evenings as they could, going to see it. It was
talked of incessantly, it was regularly bought gifts that were
beyond the dreams of Laurie and me, therefore it had to be
something wondrous to behold. At last I was being allowed
to see it, to be in its presence. But it turned out that a Mickey
was just a big boy supported by two wooden crutches. This
confused me, because I thought only Uncle Hughie had a
wooden crutch, yet here was Mickey with two. He looked
physically like a 'Dark Yin', the only one of our family
who had all of the Clark characteristics, dark skin, eyes
and hair.

I have no idea if Mickey was as disappointed as I was by
that meeting but I think he probably was. His whole attitude
towards me was always impatience that I did not conform
to his personal standard of what his sister should be like. So
we both failed spectacularly to live up to the expectations of the other. If I wanted Mickey to be a magical creature, then
he clearly wanted some ideal storybook sister he could be
proud of on his terms. Not of course that we ever expressed
any of this, because we never became close enough to talk
of such things. We just settled into a mutual dislike that
grew from the seeds of our seperate disappointments at that
first meeting. It was little to do with actions or words and


65


everything to do with unrealistic expectations that were
bound to be dashed.

The only truly revealing thing Mickey ever told me was
that when he was in hospital he thought he came from a
rich family. Everything he wanted he got, and the best of it. Nan once saved money to buy him special soap for
instance, because the hospital variety irritated his skin. It
came as the biggest shock and disappointment of his life to
discover that we were extremely poor. I often wondered if
he made the next connection, that Laurie and I had done
without to keep him in luxuries, but if he did he kept it to
himself. It was something he had no control over anyway,
he was, after all, a child at the time.

Mickey came out of hospital for a spell while we were in
Blackhill, and because of his mistaken belief that we were
rich, he hated it even more than Nan did. Apart from the
feeling that he was unhappy, I have very little recollection of
him then. He was after all eleven years older and therefore
an adult compared to me, uninvolved in my life in the
streets. Most of his time he spent studying to make up
for the schooling he had missed. He was very bright and
was interested in electronics and Nan was determined that
he should get every chance. The only memories I have of
his time with us is of his head bowed over a book and the
caliper on his left leg. When he walked across the floor,
which wasn't often because he spent most of his time in
bed, the woman who lived below complained about the
noise he made. I had no particular affection for Mickey,
but the woman's insensitivity appalled whatever sense of
justice Nan had instilled in me. Her name was Mrs Burrell,
and to this day I dislike the name.

After years of operations Mickey's knee-cap had been
removed and the joint locked, so that he could not bend it
as he moved. Laurie and I were used to having a fully mobile
Uncle Hughie about the place so Mickey's handicap didn't
seem like one to us, but Nan cried a lot, though never when
Mickey was around. I couldn't understand why; after all,
she hadn't done it to him. Now that I'm a mother myself,
of course, I understand only too well and I wish I could


66

reach back through all those years and give her the cuddle
I didn't understand enough to give her then.


I started school at Easter 1953, just before I was five years
old, joining Laurie at St Philomena's Roman Catholic school
in Royston Road, though being six years older than me he
was in his last year at primary school. Nan had me kitted out
in a frilly blouse, Royal Stewart tartan skirt and black-patent
shoes with huge buckles, called kiltie shoes. All the children
cried of course; it was the generation before play schools
were invented to make the parting easier. Having gone the
first day I could see no reason to go back again and had to
be forced.

My teachers soon discovered that I could already read
and I was instantly treated like a leper. Nan was summoned
to be told how displeased they were and her protests that
she hadn't taught me, that I had picked it up by myself,
were treated with scorn. It wasn't until my own son was
learning to read that I discovered how I had cracked the
code. Apparently children begin to read by recognizing
word shapes, and I have a clear recollection of picking
out words with double letters in the middle; I liked words
like 'good' and 'week' for instance. Knowing why I learned
to read still doesn't explain how I knew what those words
represented. That remains a mystery still.

Knowledge was the teachers' to give however, and if they
didn't give it, it was not to be acquired. I was put at a desk
apart from the other children and kept supplied with books,
which I suppose was a form of punishment. If it was, then it
backfired badly, because to this day I can think of no finer
treat than to be left alone to read books endlessly. When
the school inspectors arrived I would be trotted out to read
to them, thereby proving the excellence of St Philomena's
teaching abilities. I have often wondered since if the teachers
were stupid for thinking the inspectors were taken in by this
ploy, or if the inspectors were taken in and were therefore
as stupid as the teachers believed them to be.

One of the more absurd features of life in Glasgow, then
as now, was that schools were segregated by religion. Every


67


morning we collected David at number 43 and together we
walked to school, past the little man who had killed his
wife to the end of Acrehill Street to where it met Craighead
Avenue. There David had to veer off to the right and go to
his school the long way. David, coming from my mother's
side of the family went to the Protestant school, whereas
Laurre and I went to the Catholic school because of Skip.
In local parlance we were, without a hint of offence given
or taken, Proddies or Papes. Despite the lack of animosity
over names, had David passed our school he would have
been attacked and severely beaten up, just as we would have
been had we tried to pass his school.

Every lunchtime there were pre-arranged fights, with a
gang of children from one school attempting to invade the
other, and we stockpiled clods of earth for the battle. It
would start in the ritual manner, with the day's aggressors
standing outside chanting a song against the other side. We
would shout 'Proddy dogs eat frogs!', which for some reason
was regarded as a huge insult, and they would sing the few
words they knew of The Sash My Father Wore'. We hadn't
a clue why we should take offence at this either, we only
knew that we had to or the battle couldn't commence and
before long the air was heavy with clods of earth from both
sides. The Proddies also sang a cheery little song that we all
secretly joined in with, singing it under our breaths because
we knew it was a sin:


Hello, hello, we are the Billy Boys,
Hello, hello, we are the Billy Boys,
Up to the knees in Fenian blood,
Surrender or you'll die,
Hello, we are the Billy Boys!


Again neither side knew what any of it meant, it was just
another adult insult handed down to children who sang it
while happily throwing clods at each other.

At the end of the day, once out of sight of our respective
schools, David, Laurie and I met up again at the corner of
Craighead Avenue and Acrehill Street and headed home


68

together. For us it was doubly bizarre, because David had
been as close as a brother since our Brae days. Children
just accept what they are brought up with and we never
questioned it. That of course is the tragedy of it and how
religious bigotry survives. Anyone who doubts this only has
to look at the children taken to march in Orange marches,
who haven't a clue what it's all about but will make their
children march too when the time comes. So it was religion
which drove a wedge between families and friends, and it's
still happening today.

It was natural that David should want to continue playing
with the children he had been playing with at school all day,
and the same was true of us. Soon we were walking on
opposite sides of the street, mouthing mindless obscenities
at each other that we didn't understand, things we never
heard or repeated within the family. We never made the
connection between what was happening at school and King
Billy on Maw Clark's pin-cushion, we didn't even realize it
was all part of the same nonsense. Bigotry was a subject
on the school curriculum, sticking pins in King Billy was
a family joke, and it's very difficult to hate something that
you laugh at.

Sometimes I look back to those days and I feel great anger
at the way we were manipulated into expressing a hatred we
didn't feel and even greater sadness for the innocent victims
that we were.

The reality was that religion just wasn't for me, even at a
very early age. It made no sense to me whatsoever and still
doesn't. Skip took me to my first mass when I was about
five years old and I found it unutterably, mind-crushingly
boring. I was forced to attend mass chiefly by Nan, in a
'never let it be said that I stopped them being Catholics'
way. Eventually I became impossible through desperation
to escape, behaving so badly jliat they stopped making me
go. Otherwise I might have become a serious arsonist.


Nan was delighted that I was bright at school, after all
learning, education was all to her. It took her a long time
to convince me that I would never be able to fly though,


69


and I'm not sure even yet that she succeeded. Birds in the
sky were like people flying to me and I simply assumed that
one day I'd fly too; I was devastated when she insisted that
I couldn't and wouldn't. Somewhere deep inside I think
I'm still devastated. It must have induced fears in Nan
that I had inherited too strong an O'Brien streak, because
she forbade me from telling anyone, apart from Peggy of
course, who wasn't just anyone. I wasn't hurt when Peggy
laughed, she was after all a part of me, but I always felt that
Uncle Hughie would have understood, so maybe Nan was
right about my O'Brien streak. It was a good example of
the difference between the two families: apart from Peggy's
romantic castle-building, the Clarks dealt with reality and
had their feet firmly on the ground, while the O'Briens dealt
strictly in fantasy and understood the yearning to soar into
the air.

Mickey was clever too, but Laurie couldn't read and he
couldn't spell, and his writing was totally unintelligible.
Letters were missing or back-to-front and always in the
wrong order. He was dyslexic, but in the fifties no one in
education knew anything about the condition. He had a
calculator brain when it came to mathematics, but because
of his dyslexia he was regarded as an idiot.

Naturally it brought out in Nan the lioness fighting for
her cub, allied to her natural sympathy for the underdog,
and she had another cause to fight. When he failed his
qualifying test, the forerunner of the eleven-plus, he was
consigned to a Junior Secondary School, where the idiots
went. Nan would have none of it; she knew Laurie had a
problem even if she didn't know what it was, but she also
knew that with his ability with numbers he wasn't stupid.
She lobbied the Education Department, harassed the school
and won over a teacher to help her lobby the Education
Department some more. Finally she won and six months
after being consigned to the scrap-heap Laurie was sent to
St Mungo's Academy instead. Once there though, with no
more understanding of dyslexia than anywhere else at the
time, Laurie's difficulties weren't addressed and he got no
help. It was as if the authorities had relented and said, 'OK,

70

you're in a Senior Secondary now. Be normal.' So Laurie
continued to struggle, and because of the deficiencies of the
system, he was made to feel responsible for his problem.


Every Saturday David, Laurie and I went to the pictures.
This entailed walking the length of Acrehill Street, along
Pro van Road to the Rex or the Vogue in Alexandra Parade,
a distance of perhaps two miles. It was an expedition that
called for sustenance en route and for this we went to
Galbraith's, a big shop near where Peggy and Maw lived,
that sold chipped apples and broken biscuits. Sometimes
the expedition took so long because of many detours to
play along the way that we missed the film. On one of
those occasions my brother Laurie gave me a black wine
gum to eat that was really a slug. I ate it with relish, and
he was sick; even when he did his brotherly duty by doing
something nasty, Laurie was the one who suffered.

We used to sing 'The Black Hills of Dakota', as we
walked along, a song we had first heard in a cowboy
film. We would sing Take me back to the Black hills, the Black hills of Dakota', perfectly happy to accept that
Dakota was the Apache name for Glasgow. Then Laurie
developed a passion for toy knights in armour, and would
occasionally purloin all our cinema cash to buy one for his
collection. This naturally had to be kept from Nan, and
to put in the necessary hours when we should have been
cheering on the cowboys we went to the park or wandered
the streets looking in the shop windows. To stop us spilling
the beans Laurie let David and I play with the knights too.
We weren't particularly gentle with them so he didn't make
much out of his little scheme.

Laurie was eternally unhappy. He disliked Skip for
coming between him and Nan, yet I always felt that what he
wanted more than anything was Skip's approval. There was
no natural meeting place between them though; Skip was
unused to dealing with low self-esteem that didn't transform
itself into eccentricity. Skip was an O'Brien, and that meant
never admitting the possibility of being less than special. I
think because Laurie wasn't like him my father regarded


?i



,fj

him as a bit of a wimp, a failure, though he never actually
said so. He was not a man used to showing his feelings, if he
had them, and he was embarrassed by the fact that Laurie
did. I cannot recall my father ever making an encouraging or
affectionate remark to his youngest son. Mickey he adored
above all other human beings, and it was obvious without
my fattier having to say so that Laurie wasn't in that league.
Neither for that matter was I, but I had a different nature
from Laurie, and anyway I had a close, warm relationship
with Nan and Peggy.

Perhaps the seeds of my adult relationships with both of
my brother were sown then. I was never close to Mickey
and never thought of it as a possibility. All we now have
in common is that we had the same parents and that sort
of hold loosens considerably when the parents die. There's
no particular bitterness, our paths simply don't cross often.
As a child I was close to Laurie, but that stopped when
he married and found himself a family of his own. When
siblings are brought up to compete with each other they
often make a sub-conscious decision to lead separate adult
lives, indeed some cannot live in the same country. Looking
back I think that was how we grew up, or Laurie and I at
any rate, vying for attention and approval that my father
could only give to one, his son Mickey. And the sad thing
is, that I don't think Mickey gained anything from being
the only one Skip cared for.


72

Chapter Eight


My father was a shoemaker - nor a cobbler, but a time
served tradesman. Skip always made that distinction as
strongly as possible, because of the anti-Catholic bias that
had traditionally banned Catholics in Glasgow from being
tradesmen. Uncle Hughie had been a shoemaker too and
Skip had served his apprenticeship with him. There were
attempts to get Skip away from the trade over the years.
At the time when Balmano Street collapsed he was a bus
conductor for instance, but he was what he was. Nan's
official excuse for trying to convert him was to say that
it was an unhealthy life, full of leather dust and noise and
the wages were low; all true, but not her real objections.

He worked in a long, low, converted farm-building across
the road from my school, and when lessons were finished for
the day I would sometimes visit him. The farmland had been
overtaken by the city, but some of the buildings still stood,
and though they weren't used for their intended purposes
they kept their original names. So Skip was a shoemaker in
the byre and a shop beside him that sold no milk was called
the dairy. His employer, Paddy Doyle, was rarely there, so
Skip mainly worked alone.

I would take my books into the workshop and watch
him at the various stages of mending or making shoes
between reading my stories, growing drowsier in the warm,
dust-laden atmosphere, lulled by the whirring machines
until I fell fast asleep. He kept a yellow tin mug there
for me that he had carried around the world during his
sojourn with the 8th Army, and would prepare hot, sweet
tea for 3 pm. He was a fine craftsman and I never tired of
watching him work with the leather, selecting the quality he
needed and cutting it to shape with the minimum of waste.


73


Then he would fill his mouth with nails and start repairing
the shoes, placing each nail onto the new sole or heel and
rhythmically tapping it into place.

Skip was very particular about the quality of leather he
used, and if he ran out of the right kind he would set out
on the rounds of the shoemaking fraternity in Glasgow,
all Irish to a man. They were a close-knit group and
borrowing materials from each other was common. Tools
were immediately downed, wives and children called to the
shop and every visit became a hooley. I used to go with him
and loved the welcoming shoemakers and their families. At
one time, had I found myself in trouble in any area of the
city I could have gone to the nearest shoemaker and got help
by announcing myself as the daughter of Laurie O'Brien.

Skip specialized in making surgical boots and shoes by
hand and people were sent to him by other shoemakers. The
trouble was that he couldn't bring himself to charge for the
real price of the work because anyone handicapped enough
to need special shoes was invariably poor, and besides, he
had a boy of his own in the same position. The practical
aspects of life were never Skip's strong points.

Behind the byre stood a tall, wooden building, the top half
of which was the home of an Irish family called Kelly. The
Kellys were a big family and countless redhaired, almost
identical children tumbled from every crevice. It seemed
that every day we were called upon to climb the rickety
stairs to their house to admire yet another Kelly baby. The
children were clean but never well-dressed and they were
the happiest family I have ever seen, a living advert for large
families. The railway line ran behind the Kelly house and
beside it lay an old car that Nan was determined was full of
rats. I could never see the connection between the car and
rats, so I played in it for many happy hours with the Kelly
clones. None of us had ever been in a real car, but the rat
car took us to every exotic location we had ever heard of
without once moving from beside the railway track.

I always wanted to walk home with Skip but he would
never let me. He would send me on ahead, saying Nan would
be waiting for me at home. I knew this wasn't true because

74


Nan knew exactly where I was, but I had no idea then why
he sent me on ahead.


Although Blackhill was criss-crossed with railway lines there
was no station anywhere near us. We treated the track like a
road we had to cross, and as no buses ran through our streets
people inevitably took short-cuts across the track. By getting
off the bus at Royston Road, beside the chemical plant, you
could cut across my triangle of grass and the track at the
bottom end, thereby saving a very long walk. Occasionally
someone got hit by a train, someone's man coming home
from work or the pub, in the dark. It was how things were,
so we accepted it. It never occurred to us that there should
have been some sort offence to keep us and the trains apart,
but then we were used to being regarded as not worth the
bother by anyone in authority. When someone was killed or
injured, all that happened was that Nan and the local women
organized a collection around the houses for the family and
that was it till the next time.

Once, one of our friends was killed as we played together
outside. He was a boy called Jamie Craig who was nearer
to Laurie's age than mine. We were hurried away from the
scene, but we had all seen enough to know what damage
a train could do. His mother's greatest wish was that he
should be buried wearing a suit, which we all knew was
madness. We had seen him cut to bits, how could he wear a
suit? Besides, a suit was an unbelievable luxury, something
to aim for but rarely to achieve. Peggy, single and earning
money, paid for the suit though, and as we watched the
small white coffin being carried out of Jamie's close, we
idly discussed the idiocy of adults with the callous logic
that children have. There had been nothing left of Jamie
to hang a suit on, and all around were live boys who would
never have one. Soon the memory faded, as it always did,
except for a vivid picture still in my mind today of Jamie's
blood on the track.

The other dangers, from the gasworks and the chemical
factory, were merely dark suspicions, based on the logical
belief that fighting for breath was bad for you. In the fifties


75

there was no concern for the environment and there were no
filters fitted on the gasworks. Gas was made by baking coal
and to make enough to cope with peak hours like lunch and
tea-times, extra coal was baked for an hour or so before, with
the by-products being discharged directly into the air over
the houses. If washing was left out the smell of sulphur and
tar clung to them, and if you were outside you nearly choked
on the yellowish fumes. Everyone knew when the gasworks
'came out' and so it was routine to rush home beforehand
and to close the windows until the discharge was over.

The gasworks and the chemical factory were suspected
of causing the chronic health problems in Blackhill, but it
didn't occur to anyone that something could be done about
it. We had no idea what came out of the whisky bond either.
Added to the industrial factors we couldn't prove, was the
inherent dampness and poor insulation of the houses, built
with the emphasis on quantity rather than quality. Glasgow
Corporation was proud of the low cost of building Blackhill
and we lived with the inevitable health risks that went with
that priority. It was all part of what 'they' inflicted on us
that 'they' wouldn't have inflicted on the richer areas of the
city. But anything was good enough for those who lived in
Blackhill . . .


76


Chapter Nine


I was about five years old when I first saw Uncle Jim, one
of Skip's many brothers. In the Twenties he had been a
bare-knuckle fighter of some repute, and legend had it that
he kept a special pair of white kid gloves for his battles.

Jim was a tall man by Glasgow standards and that and his
reputation as a fighter made him a target for every macho
drunk. He was never a member of a gang and apart from
one friend to watch his back he travelled alone. One night
he and the friend were in a pub when the usual challenge
was issued by a drunk, and the two men got up and left.
The drunk followed them to another pub, and when Jim
left again he trailed behind, shouting insults. When he still
didn't respond the drunk dived at Jim's feet, and Jim kicked
out, knocking him against the concrete base of a lamp post
and killing him.

Jim was charged with murder, and Granda Tom arranged
for one of his St Aloysius contacts, top criminal lawyer
Laurence Dowdall, to defend him. Not only did Dowdall
get him off, but the Judge praised Jim's restraint under
severe provocation. He also ruled that the drunk had
had an exceptionally thin skull and that this factor had
contributed to his death. Not that this cut any ice with Nan,
who wondered aloud what school the Judge had gone to.

Jim was the only O'Brien she actually disliked. She didn't
trust him and she believed that he was no more than a thug.
Skip when pressed would admit that Jim was 'a hard big
man', a lacklustre defence that I took as proof that Nan
knew what she was talking about. After the trial Jim went to
London, saying that he would be a marked man in Glasgow,
but Nan's opinion was that he knew other charges might
be pending and was making a quick getaway. As she was


77



an expert on the O'Brien psyche, she may very well have
been right.

Nevertheless the myth was born of Uncle Jim, gentleman
thief, and no one built myths like the childlike O'Briens,
who wove mystery and romance around him in his absence.
Jim, it was decided, was a master criminal in London, and
every bfcg robbery that hit the headlines was claimed in his
name. Nan would give a snort of derision and say, 'Couldnae
hiv bin Jim, naebody wis killed.'

Once, when he arrived unannounced and definitely
uninvited at Acrehill Street, her words of welcome to
him were, 'Sumbody efter ye in London?'. Jim smiled
down at her with an easy charm that fooled her not a bit.
He was laden down with gifts of jewellery and clothes, and
I remember a beautiful dress that he brought me, even if
it was six sizes too big. Once again Nan disposed of it all,
saying we had no idea where and who it came from.

Like the rest of the family Jim was a born story-teller and
I remember during this visit that he kept us entertained for hours with his tales, or as Nan maintained, 'lies'. He had
worked as an embalmer - 'Cuttin' oot the middle man noo
Jim?' - and he told us that the biggest problem was the rats.
They'll do anything to get at the blood,' he said. 'Aye, well,
ye'll know a' about that Jim,' said Nan tartly, 'Ye've hid yer am difficulties in that direction.' Jim smiled back sweetly.

Whether Jim was an embalmer or not, the family latched
onto it with gusto, never guilty of letting the damnedest lies
stand in the way of a good yarn. It was decided that he
embalmed only the top people, the richest, the heaviest in
jewels and gems, items that of course they no longer needed,
whereas Jim undoubtedly did. It fitted with the rest of the
Jim myth that he never actually harmed anyone physically,
though Nan of course had other ideas about that. He gave
Skip two pairs of cuff-links; a gold hexagonal pair with a
pattern in wine, black and white enamel, and a rectangular
pair in silver, with a similar pattern in blue, black and
white. They were quite beautiful and I now know that they
were worth a fortune, so naturally the other O'Briens got
to work on him. They laboured the point about stealing


78

from corpses, which on this occasion was regarded as a
dreadful crime, and being masters of their art they then
left the thought to fester in Skip's soul, not to mention his
fertile imagination.

Finally he could stand the guilt no longer and resolved
to get rid of the cuff-links in a way that would bring him
no gain; he must have felt very guilty indeed. He went to
a Catholic church and tried to put them in the St Vincent
de Paul collection box for the poor, but they wouldn't go
in. He went to another church and found another box, but
again the cuff-links wouldn't go through the slot, and in
the next church it was the same.

Like the rest of his family Skip loved ghost stories and
tales of the supernatural. His favourite was The Monkey's
Paw by William Wymark Jacobs, where a talisman, the
paw, is supposed to bring great fortune, but turns out to
bring terror and tragedy instead. He felt the same about
the cuff-links; in his fevered imagination they became the
monkey's paw, and he was convinced that some awful fate
awaited him if he didn't get rid of them. In a state of
sweating fear and convinced that God himself had decided
that he should be punished by having the cuff-links in
his possession forever, he panicked finally and put them
through the letter box of the priest's house.

In my experience, priests, despite their talk of poverty
and charity, much prefer the good life. So I'm sure the
recipient of Skip's largesse would have known quality when
he saw it. The beautiful cuff-links would have gone no
further than the priestly shirt cuffs and are doubtless an
heirloom of his family today, if he isn't still living off the
proceeds of their sale. Years later it emerged that they had
in fact been given to Jim by a rich girlfriend, no doubt
for services rendered, and that the rest of the family had
known this all along. Obviously they couldn't claim the
points unless Skip found -this out, so they made sure that
he did. But long, long after the beautiful cuff-links were
irretrievably out of his reach.

Uncle Jim spent two weeks with us in Acrehill Street,
during which he threw money around, mainly in the


79 :v


direction of the pub, and I doubt if Skip was sober for
two minutes together the whole time. He never offered
anything towards his keep though and Nan knew that the
only way to get rid of him was to demand some cash. He left
one day 'to cash a cheque' and we never saw him again.

That night the London train crashed and a few days later
we got a letter from Jim telling us not to worry, that he
was safe - not that this was of any consequence whatever
to Nan. When he got home though, he continued, he had
discovered in the turn-up of his trouser leg, a severed finger.
Nan was not impressed.

'Ah'll bet ye anythin' it wisnae his finger cut off though,'
she said cynically. Skip, knowing a good story when he
heard it, thought that this was harsh and uncalled for and
wondered how she could be so hard.

Jim had enclosed with the letter a photo of himself,
dressed immaculately with gold tooth gleaming and fondling
a kitten. Sensing another put-down Skip supplied
the punchline before Nan could, 'Probably jist before he
strangled it.'

We never heard from Jim again, but like Hughie he lives
on in our imaginations. Everytime a spectacular robbery
is pulled off we say with pride, 'Uncle Jim!', though he
would be over a hundred years old by now. More recently
however, we have had to put him into virtual retirement.
Crime is so violent these days and we won't have Jim connected with anything sordid. There doesn't seem the
demand anymore for skilful, classy criminals like Raffles
Jim, but he's probably out there somewhere yet, still trying
to cash that cheque . . .


80


Chapter Ten


In the early Fifties the Korean War was taking young men
from Blackhill to fight in the jungle. Nan used to address us
on the issues, which to her were inextricably linked to the
Second World War.

After six years of a war we had won, the meat ration had
actually been reduced in 1947, and clothes were rationed
until 1949. Sweet and chocolate rationing had been abolished
in March 1949, but the public had gone slightly crazy and it
was reimposed in July of the same year and didn't end until
February 1953.

On Saturdays we still went into town for the weekly
shopping, going to the same shops we had used when we
had lived at the Brae. We spent our sweets coupons at
McLellan's in George Street, a little shop at the bottom of
the Brae. George McLellan thought highly of Nan and it was
said that he gave her extra sweets, and though naturally she
denied it, she still took all of the Clark coupons to him. My
weekly allocation was a tube of Smarties. Though it doesn't
seem a lot, it was no real hardship as I had never known
anything other than rationing. The business with coupons
gave Nan the opportunity to complain again that not only
did we still have rationing, but young lads were still being
called up to fight in another war.

There were constant reminders of the war overseas. From
a gap in the buildings at the top of Acrehill Street, we
spent hours watching a blimp in the sky spilling out tiny
parachutists as part of their training for Korea. It looked so
near and we tried to find it many times but we never did. The
blimp tantalized us and we argued endlessly about where it
actually was but all our expeditions to find it failed. The
boy Nan saved from the Catholic Teds came to say goodbye


81


before he went to fight, I suppose she was the nearest thing
to a mother he really had. She cried of course, then she told
Peggy and Peggy cried too, then they cried together. This
gave Nan another chance to deliver an impassioned lecture
on the evils of war and rationing, getting so carried away
that she and Peggy would collapse in tears once again.

Likefthe rest of my generation I grew up with the Second
World War as an ever-present feature. It's almost like a race
memory I remember it so well, though I wasn't born until
it was over. The sound of an air-raid siren chills me to the
bone only because it did the same to my mother. Though
I never heard it sounded in anger I absorbed her anxiety
and made it my own. Nan refused to leave Glasgow or to
have Mickey and Laurie evacuated during the War, so the
sound of the siren really did mean danger to her. I can still
see the German planes flying over Balmano Brae on their
way to bomb the River Clyde and the shipyards in Clydebank
because she described it so often and so clearly that I felt I
had been there too.

As for the lad Nan had saved for the jungles of Korea, we
never saw him again. But every now and again I would think
about him and hope he had survived. I'm sure she did too.



Some Sundays Skip took me for a walk along the canal
bank. The canal was part of my everyday playground, but
the weekly walk with Skip was somehow a special treat.
Laurie never came; I don't know if he was ever asked, but
if he had been I'm sure he would have refused, however
much he wanted to come with us. I always wore the same
dress, a charcoal and blue striped taffeta creation given to
me by my godparents, Auntie Annie and Uncle George. To
be truthful I only had one godparent, because Skip had taken
Uncle George for a drink before the ceremony and they had
disappeared, so Auntie Annie took me on her own to be
christened in St Andrew's Cathedral, where my parents had
been married at the side altar.

Uncle George had met her when he was twenty-three and
boarding a troop train and she had been only ten years old.
She and her parents were seeing.her brother John off on


82


the train and the two young soldiers had struck up a
friendship on the platform that lasted forever. Her name
coincidentally was O'Brien, but she came from a separate,
more conventional and normal branch of O'Briens. After
coming through the War together George and John O'Brien
had remained close friends, and given the situation at home,
where as a 'Dark Yin' George wasn't exactly a favourite, he
spent more time with John's family.

Da Clark, who doted on George, Nan and Peggy, had
died during the War, and the two sisters had formed their
own mutual support group, so in a way George was finding
his own with the normal O'Briens. As he and the grownup
Annie grew closer over the years, her father refused them
permission to marry unless George became a Catholic. They
split up for two months before George gave in, though he
paid no more than lip service to his new religion. It was the
price he paid to marry Annie, that was all. Like Nan though,
he was forced to agree that their children would be raised as
Catholics.

Naturally George took Annie to meet Nan before introducing
her to the rest of the family, and having won Nan's
support there was no problem with the rest. There were
mutterings of course from the 'Fair Yins', who never missed
a chance to have a go at a 'Dark Yin', that a real man wouldn't
have given in, a real man wouldn't have turned. None of this
was actually said to George. No Clark was ever that silly.

When I was born Annie was already pregnant with their
first child and Nan won a twisted little victory over my
christening. She needed Catholics as godparents, which
logically pointed to the mad O'Briens but she didn't want
them involved if she could help it, so Annie and George were
chosen. They were a glamorous couple in my eyes; Uncle
George was tall and darkly handsome, like a cross between
Gary Grant and Gregory Peck, and wherever he went female
heads turned. Annie wore glasses and used to wonder with
a wry smile why George, who was so good-looking, had
married her of all people. It was as though she was ugly,
which she wasn't of course.

Annie had a beautiful figure and wore clothes well, so that


83


you always remembered a particular dress or outfit when you
thought of her. She also had the nicest nature, and coming
from a family of such extremes on both sides I was very
impressed by this. She was genuine; when you talked to her
you didn't have to work out the politics or the psychology of
the situation first. Though this was refreshing when you got
used to it, it was also a little confusing. She was an O'Brien
after all, and O'Briens just weren't like that.

Because George was tall in a city of small men he had to
keep his temper in check; a big man can do more damage
than a small one. So there was always a feeling of tension
about George. Like all the Clarks he had deep emotions,
but somehow he couldn't risk letting them go for fear of
who knows what. All through my life I can hear Annie's
voice at moments of family tension. 'Watch George!' she'd
shout, a warning that the big man was nearing the end of
his tether. It was Annie who softened him and made him
sociable, she was a gentle soul with a talent for smoothing
out his awkwardness, and they were very obviously happy
together. Whenever they came to visit I would wait for them
at the bus stop, to bask in the glamour of walking beside
them and showing them off as my relatives.


Peggy had a new boyfriend, or rather an old one for the
second time. The family had breathed a sigh of relief the
first time Jim McAvoy had disappeared off the scene. Now
you could almost hear them collectively breathe it back in
again. Soon she announced that she was marrying him, after
a courtship that had tested the family's lung control and
nerves to the limit.

If the Clarks didn't fit the public perception of Blackhill
inhabitants, then the McAvoys did. They were, in the
opinion of the family, a feckless bunch of lazy wasters
who dabbled in petty crime, lacking the organisation or
application for anything else, and Jim was the prime
example. Like Nan, Peggy was a giver, and givers tend
to marry takers. McAvoy was a charmless drinker and
gambler who seldom worked, and he certainly wasn't what
Peggy deserved. But at thirty-two she must have felt time


84

running out; Fate was winning, and so she took what no one
else wanted. 'She should dae better,' Nan told the family
firmly, 'Bit she won't.' As the two of them sat stitching hats
for the wedding, with me in between them, they discussed
the family's antagonism endlessly. ;

'They'll never like him Peggy,' Nan said, 'If ye take him
ye take him knowin' that.' And take him Peggy did, one cold
March Saturday in 1953, with her favourite niece wailing
outside St Paul's Church in Langdale Street, clutching a
silver horseshoe and shivering in the chill wind. I couldn't
go into the church because I was a Catholic, and it was a
known fact that no Catholic could enter a Proddie church
without suffering some unspecified but dire consequences.

Instead of the frills and lace she dreamed of, Peggy wore
a grey suit with a pink blouse and hat, and she was solemn
as I handed over the good luck charm, expecting a smile.
McAvoy put his arm around me and I instinctively shrugged
it off and clung to Peggy. The wedding reception had a
desperate air of forced joy, as the Clarks tried to look as
though they had wished for this dream match for years. I
can see them yet, looking at Peggy with concern and sorrow
when her attention was elsewhere, and smiling when she
turned in their direction.

McAvoy didn't warrant the same consideration; he was
already in no doubt about how they felt. From that day,
to the anguish of the Clarks, whatever had lit Peggy from
within grew dimmer, as though the deal she had made with
Fate to escape from spinsterhood had required her to surrender
the very brightness of her soul. Within a year she had
given birth to a stillborn son. The umbilical cord had been
around the baby's neck, and I heard Uncle George saying
to Nan, 'Ah wish it hid been roon' McAvoy's neck insteed.'
'Wheesht Geordie,' said my mother quietly, as though she
was calming a distressed child, 'it disnae help son.'

We were still close though, because Peggy and McAvoy
lived with my grandmother. Nan and I still saw Peggy at
some time every day, and as Peggy opened the door my
mother's first words were always, 'How is she the day?',
meaning what kind of mood was Maw Clark in and how


"5


much trouble was she causing? Peggy's usual response was
to raise her eyes heavenward; Maw Clark could give a new
meaning to difficult without even trying. We would spend
some time talking, catching up on the huge changes that
must have taken place in the twenty-four hours or less since
we had last met. Then I'd leave Nan and Peggy talking and
go oufto play.

My first task was to decide if I was yet up to jumping down
the back stairs. There were eight of them outside Peggy's
house, leading down to the backcourt, eight steep stairs, and
jumping them was a test of honour for me and all my cousins
and all the Moodiesburn Street kids. The back close, the rear
exit to the tenement at the bottom of the stairs, was narrower
than the stairs themselves, so a misjudged jump could take
you straight into the wall. Even if you judged it right, the
stairs were slippy and you could end up slamming into the
wall anyway. Having thought it all through and chickened
out once again, I'd run down through the backcourts, past
the air raid shelters to the playpark beyond, with its slides
- one long, one short - a roundabout, three swings and a
maypole that had no ropes. Beyond that was a stretch of
grass beloved of the local dogs and then the pond, where
I could catch fish and watch the swans. A single track road
with a pavement at one side separated the pond from St
Philomena's, our school, but curiously we only associated
the park and the pond with visits to Moodiesburn Street and
rarely went near it at any other time.

Nan and I tried to pick a time of day for our visits when
McAvoy would be out and we would leave again before
he arrived, partly because Nan knew how the sight of the
Clarks annoyed him and so Peggy suffered, and partly
because we really didn't want to see him either. So life
went on in Blackhill, and even if the horizon was clouded
by the unwelcome arrival of McAvoy and the subtle change
in Peggy, the essentials for existence were still comfortingly
in place. Then came the night that started Nan's big push
to get out of Blackhill once and for all.

During the War metal railings had been removed from
all over the country to be used, it was said, to make


86

munitions. We now know that after collection the metal
was simply dumped. It was just a government propaganda
scheme, designed to make those at home believe they were
contributing something to the War effort apart from their
menfolk, and even Blackhill was included. A nine-inch wall
ran around every tenement, studded with the remains of the
railings that had once stood there. They had been intended to
enclose gardens, but, in fact, they only surrounded a muddy
space between the pavement and the buildings.

One evening I was sitting on the wall with a friend,
exchanging scraps. It was early evening, the safe time,
because the Teds usually went into battle during the
hours of darkness. Then someone ran down the street
shouting, 'Thur's a man comin' wi' his heid in his hauns!',
an interesting proposition, and I was fully expecting to see a
ghostly figure with his head tucked underneath his arm. As
he staggered into view we were all disappointed to recognize
him as a very much alive Ted, his hands covering his face.
Every few steps he would stop and bellow, 'Youse wimmen
get they weans oota the wey!'

Adult hands grabbed children along the route and took
them inside houses, and from behind someone's net curtains
I watched him as he staggered past where I had been sitting,
only feet away. His hands were holding his face together
where the blades had slashed him repeatedly, and blood
pouring from between his fingers ran onto his shoulders
and chest and flicked onto the road. When it was obvious
he wasn't being chased by whoever had carved him up,
we were released, feeling cheated as we luridly examined
the grotesque red paperchase he'd left behind. We were
greatly put out that an event that had started with such high
expectations had collapsed into the mundane.

For Nan it was the last straw and it reinforced her greatest
fear that her own kids, especially Laurie, could be caught up
in the violence. From then, her battle to get out moved up a
gear. Getting a house somewhere else wasn't that simple of
course, because of Blackhill's reputation. So there was an
obstacle course set up: if you wanted a house in a better
area you had to apply to the Council, and the Factor was


87


asked to provide a reference. Without a Factor's reference
you could give up any ideas above your station. The letting
department sent a Housing Visitor to inspect your home as
part of this procedure, and a form was filled in, giving the
Housing Visitor's opinion of the general condition of your
home, the state of your furniture and the 'type of person'
you were. The scale ran from very good, through good and
fair to poor, and Nan lived on her wits while this process
was gone through.

Looking back it's hard to understand why we put up with
such indignities. But the system was supported by the ruling
Labour administration, and the Party of the People made
sure it didn't stop there. There was also the constant threat
of the 'Green Lady' health visitor, who had the power to
knock on any door at anytime and inspect your home. At the
first sight of a Green Lady in the vicinity the bush telegraph
swung into action, sending all the women of Blackhill on
a furious tidying spree, in case the Green Lady picked
on their house and gave a bad report because something
was out of place. The Green Ladies were forever trying
to outsmart the women, because if you wanted to avoid
a visit you took yourself off as soon as the bush telegraph
sounded its warning. So the Green Ladies often came on a
Monday, washing day, when they knew that the majority
of women would be tied to the boiler, washing board and
mangle for many hours. This made them doubly unpopular
of course, the last thing any woman wanted or needed was
an interruption on washing day.

Another good time was Friday afternoon, when the
women were waiting for their men to come home with
their weekly pay packets so that they could do some
shopping. So again the last person they wanted was the
Green Lady arriving to take up their time instead, and
of course they couldn't refuse to let her in. There was
a children's street song that we used to sing about not
being able to find 'a bonnie laddie tae tak' me awa' ',
the first line of which was 'Queen Mary, Queen Mary,
my age is sixteen.' So powerful were the Green Ladies
that I thought the line started with 'Green Lady, Green


88

Lady', and I sang those words for years without questioning
them.

Then came the news that we had passed all three elements
of the obstacle course, the Factor, the Home Visitor and
the Green Lady, and after five years as temporary refugees
in Blackhill we were told that we would get a house in
Drumchapel. Nan was ecstatic; I was bereft.

Drumchapel was part of the City Fathers' destruction of
Glasgow. Instead of renovating the old tenements in the
heart of the city they decided to raze them to the ground.
The tenements symbolized everything that was bad about
Glasgow, except to the people who actually lived in them,
but there has never been a politician who listened to the
people anywhere. In the Fifties in Glasgow they bulldozed
away our history and background, erecting high-rise
monstrosities that the people neither wanted nor needed.
They created council housing estates or 'schemes',
that were no more than ghettoes to replace ghettoes.
Two-thirds of Pollok, eight miles to the south-west of
the city, was built after the War and then Easterhouse
sprang up six miles to the east, Castlemilk, five miles to
the south-east and Drumchapel six miles to the west.

Our move to Drumchapel was part of a mass, enforced
exodus that was happening all over the UK after the war
years, but in Glasgow it was undertaken with a vengeance.
In some parts of the city there were 400 people to the acre and
the need to rehouse them at minimal cost took precedence
over what they wanted. People who had lived for generations
in cramped conditions with outside toilets and no bathrooms
needed better housing, but they didn't want to leave the
areas where they had grown up and the close communities
they lived in. It became a common sight to see sad little
groups watching bleakly as their former homes, and those
of their parents and grandparents were demolished. But the
politicians still knew best..

It would be over twenty years before meaningful conservation
of the old buildings began and the high-rise flats, once
determinedly hailed as Utopia, were blown-up, to cheers
from those who had been forced to live in them. The Glasgow


89


experience undoubtedly helped other areas of the UK not to
make the same mistakes on such a stupendous scale, but the
cost to the ordinary people in the loss of identity and social
cohesion was enormous, and the city has never recovered.


In the mid-fifties we knew none of this, but there was talk
that son we would have skyscrapers in Glasgow, just like the
ones in America that we saw in the pictures at the Rex and the
Vogue. It was a time when anything American was desirable
and exciting, and I listened enthralled as Nan, Peggy and
Maw Clark discussed high-rise living. I saw in it definite
possibilities of a reprieve, because like the Balmano Brae
inhabitants, I envisaged a skyscraper being built where I
lived, which meant I wouldn't have to leave Blackhill. It
was the perfect compromise; Nan would be far enough off
the ground to be safe from the gangs, and yet I could still
be at home.

'Ah saw it in a magazine, ye hivtae use a lift tae get up an'
doon,' Peggy said authoritatively, 'An' thur's nae midden,
ye use a kinda chute tae get ridda yur rubbish.'

I found it hard to envisage having no middens to jump,
but a chute held delightful prospects of its own.

'Bit whit if this lift thing breks doon when ye're in it
Peggy?' Nan demanded, 'Whit dae ye dae then?'

'Bit they'll huv thoaghta that, therr'll be sterrs or
sumthin'.'

'So ye'll hiv this lift, an' ye'll still hivtae dae the sterrs!'
Nan snorted, 'An' Ah suppose ye'd hiv tae take yur turn at
waashin' the lift tae! An' talkin' aboot waashin', where wid
ye hing it oot?'

Tae hell wi' the waashin', jist think, ye'd be away up
there!' Peggy persisted, 'Up in the sky wi' aeryplanes passin'
yur windies! Ye could wave tae the pilots!'

'Ah widnae like that!' Nan decided, 'Ah'm no hivin' nae
skyscraper thanks very much! Ah'll jist hiv a hoose!' And
she and Peggy laughed. I was devastated; it had all been a
diversion, they were winding each other up.	- -

'Naw, me neither,' Peggy said, 'They're mibbe a' right
fur the Yanks, bit Ah cannae see thum catching oan here.'

90

'Ah'll tell ye wan thing,' said Maw Clark, who had been
listening as intently as I had, 'If any o' yese move tae wanna
they big buildin's, it's the last ye'll see o' me! Ah'll no' be
comin' tae see yese if Ah hivtae use a lift!'

The same thought passed through our minds simultantaneously
and I don't know yet how Nan, Peggy and I
controlled ourselves. Peggy got up to make the tea, Nan
went to help her and I followed, and when we reached
the kitchen all three of us fell into a mutually supportive,
creaking, crying, laughing huddle.

'Christ! It'd be worth it!' wheezed Peggy.

'Sshhh!' cried Nan, mopping her eyes, 'She'll hear ye!'

'Bit think o' it! Ye could be twinty stories high, an' she
wid be doon below lookin' up at ye! Ye could drap things
by accident like! Pails o' watter mibbe!'

'Bowls o' custard!' Nan supplied.

'Ye could even make a wee mistake an' miss the rubbish
chute!' Peggy wailed, and Nan had to rush to the toilet,
leaving Peggy and me to compose ourselves as best we could
before we took the tea into Maw Clark. For the rest of the
visit we avoided each other's eyes.

I can't pass a high-rise block to this day without seeing
the phantom figure of Maw Clark, standing at the bottom
looking up ...


I put Drumchapel out of my mind for as long as possible,
which was easy, because it was so impossible to believe. I
kept hoping up to the last minute that the bad dream would
go away, but the day came and there was the van loaded up
with our furniture.

Children moving house usually have a fear that their beds
will be left behind, but I hoped mine would be, so that
I could stay in Blackhill. People came out of closes with
presents for Nan, tins ofood, biscuits, and sweeties and a
few pennies for me. These were people who had very little
themselves and of course Nan was so touched by this that
she cried buckets; I don't think she realized till then how
much a part of Blackhill she had become. Nan had started
off being frightened and refusing to accept that the family


9i


had to live there, but she discovered that the women who
made life bearable, even possible, who kept their families
functioning against all the odds, were women just like her.
Now she was leaving them behind.

The Balmano Brae refugees were in attendance too and
they were almost as inconsolable as I was, but not quite.
I crieduncontrollably, much to Nan's fury, partly I think
because she was feeling unexpectedly fragile herself. I had
never been outside the total security of Blackhill as far as
I could remember, never more than five minutes away
from Peggy, how was I supposed to survive hundreds of
miles away?

As the bus left the city centre though, I began to glimpse
another world, of trees, grass and wide roads. Along Great
Western Road were huge, beautiful buildings that Nan told
me were 'big hooses', not that I believed her of course.
The council would hardly give one family a building big
enough to house ten, and even if it did, what could one
family possibly do in all those rooms?

Drumchapel was in its early stages in 1956, set in fields to
one side of Drumry. Nan told me that she had come here on
Sunday School picnics when she was a child, but it had been
all open countryside then. Being a Catholic of course Sunday
School picnics were an unknown world, a bit like the Proddie
hymns we were banned from singing at school. We moved
into 48 Halgreen Avenue, the top of four storeys built like
an old-style tenement, but it was roomy, airy and white and
it had an outside verandah, just the thing for the Scottish
climate. Instead of two bedrooms it had three, so I had one
to myself. I didn't think much of the deal.

It was too quiet at first; there were no gang fights and
nowhere to play for a child used to second-guessing trains.
I even missed the smell of the gasworks. I remember sitting
on the steps at the close, unable to accept that I had to
stay there, feeling totally lost and homesick for Blackhill
and Peggy. I was on another continent, as far away as the
people who were emigrating to Australia for ten pounds a
throw. The newspapers were full of photos of them bidding
tearful goodbyes to families they knew they would never see

92

again, just as I would never see Peggy again. Part of me was
missing without her; I couldn't believe that my own mother
could have done such a thing to me.


I hadn't really been aware of trouble between my parents
until we moved to Drumchapel, though I had a vague feeling
of unease at times in Blackhill as I caught a tone of voice or a
look. At family dos, as he capered and performed, the others
would say, 'Leave him alane Nan, he's no' daein' ony herm,'
and I used to wonder why she wanted to stop him having
fun. Once we moved to Drumchapel though, like all the
others who had been transported by the City Fathers and
the planners, he had to travel back into Glasgow to work,
adding at least two hours to his days. But he would come
home later than that.

There were no pubs in Drumchapel, so he went to
the nearest one before he came home, and that's when I
remember the arguments starting, though there must have
been others before that I wasn't aware of. Around the age of
seven or so I began to realize that his drinking was different
from the other men around me. Uncle Willie took a drink,
Uncle George did sometimes too, though not often, but Skip
drank all the time. Sometimes he came home without any
wages, because his drinking money took precedence over
everything else, food, clothes or paying the rent. In fact
booze came before the need to breathe. As I grew older I
would absorb the chronic anxiety about unpaid bills, though
Nan always kept little stores of money all over the place to
provide for the times he came home with little or none.

Gradually things became clearer. All those times I went to
his workshop after school and he had sent me home alone,
he had been going to the Provanmill Inn, the local pub beside
where he worked. The times when Nan sent me with him
around the other shoemakers, it was in the hope that he
wouldn't get drunk with his little daughter to take care of,
a forlorn hope born of her desperation. This was the start
of another family myth, that Skip loved me so much that he
took me with him wherever he went. To this day relatives
still repeat to me this version of Nan's attempts to make him


93


stay sober. It always ended the same, with Skip so drunk
he couldn't see where he was going or stand up straight.
As a child I often had to find our way home, sometimes
at night, and it has left me with the ability to negotiate the
city without knowing the names of places very well. In the
dark I was frequently frightened, and even today I can catch
sight frf an alleyway in the centre of Glasgow as I pass by and
"it seems familiar, familiar enough to bring tears to my eyes,
though I can't quite remember why.

The truth is that I didn't know Skip any other way but
drunk, and as a very young child I had thought him great
fun, which he was. But the other side of the amiable,
life-and-soul of every party was a childish dictator, who
would shout, argue and sulk, and for some inexplicable
reason Nan couldn't handle these tactics. When he was
late home there was never any doubt where he was or what
state he would come home in, but she always feared he had
fallen under a bus or been attacked. I would sit with her
until we heard him falling up the stairs and trying to open
the door, then I'd scamper off to bed and hide under the
blankets until the inevitable row was over. I learned the art
of diversion, of concentrating on something else to blot out
the voices. Nan could handle the toughest bureaucrat, but
she was helpless against her husband, and it always ended
with her defeated and crying and him asleep in a drunken
stupor; he always 'won'.

In truth, the shouting, distressing as it was, affected me
less than the sight of my mother so totally vanquished each
time. Everything had happened with Skip in no fit state to
remember it, but Nan didn't drink and she remembered
every word, as I did, and every word hurt. As the years
passed I hoped rather than feared that he had fallen under
a bus, and if anyone had attacked him, I wanted them to
make a good job of it so that we could be free of him. The
sound of his drunken falls on the stairs often reduced me to
tears of rage and disappointment under my blankets. Skip
was a survivor; he made it home every time.


94


Chapter Eleven


We went back to Blackhill every Saturday to see Peggy,
the whole family assembled there and the excitement would
build up all week until Saturday arrived. There was a kind
of panic at first, a feeling that I would never see her again,
a bit like losing a limb almost. Then Saturday would come
at last and we'd set off to Blackhill.

After reassuring myself that Peggy was still there and
hadn't forgotten me I would escape joyfully back to Acrehill
Street to relive old times. As time passed though I found
that I didn't belong any longer. I wasn't part of what was
happening there every day and gradually I was losing touch
with my old friends. The truth was that I had left the
Acrehill Street kids behind; I wasn't one of them anymore,
I was just a visitor.

So I began to stay more around Peggy's house in
Moodiesburn Street, watching life go by from the top
of the red-brick air raid shelter in the backcourt. I
had suddenly realized that sights and sounds I'd taken
for granted while living in Blackhill weren't part of my
new home, and I missed them. Blackhill had a vigour and
energy that made me yearn for the place even more. ?

In those days, before hygiene was a consideration, you
could buy almost anything from a board carried around on
someone's head. The baker sold cakes, buns and bread that
way, shouting out as he came into the backcourt, and the
fishman, the butcher and the man who sold coal brickettes
too. I could earn the odd tftru'penny bit by running upstairs
with the goods and change to the women who had thrown
down the payment from their windows. And there was
Paddy the bleachman, who came around all the houses
once a week selling bleach in big, green bottles shaped


95


like whisky bottles. They cost a few pence each and were
much cheaper than the kind in the shops. Every woman in
Blackhill bought Paddy's bleach. Looking back, it seems
incredible, given the outsider's view of Blackhill, that these
people weren't attacked for the money or the goods they
carried, but that wasn't a thought that occurred to anyone,
anduf it had happened the community would have sorted
the situation out.

In the good weather a man called Ronnie McPhail came
around the backcourts playing an accordion. The women
would shout down requests and he'd play whatever they
wanted then be rewarded with a few coins thrown from
the windows. Whoever had requested the tune would start
singing along, and other windows would fly open and their
neighbours would join in or shout encouragement. I would
lie on top of the air raid shelter, listening to the voices
coming from the open windows high above, as women
abandoned their housework to sing songs of grand passion or
mournful romantic disappointment. When Ronnie McPhail
moved on to the next street, they would be reluctant to give
up the mood and a clabber, a backcourt concert, would
take place.

Someone would bring down an old blanket and throw it
over a washing line to form the backdrop to a stage, then
the women would bring out chairs and sit like an audience
at the theatre or the pictures. Everybody took their turn
in front of the blanket stage, singing a song, sometimes in
duos or trios, or doing a dance, and those watching from
the windows joined in or sang from where they were. There
was always a great deal of laughter as the women teased each
other or sent themselves up, giggling at the songs of yearning
romance they were singing. 'Fur coat an' nae knickers isnae
in it!' they'd shout to each other, 'Ah jist look like Connie
Francis, daen't Ah?', and they'd howl with laughter.

When it was coming near to tea-time, signalled by the
stench from the gasworks, the clabber came to an end and
the women would return to their chores, still laughing.

A clabber was a women's only do, the men had their
own, quite separate pastimes, which mainly centred around


96

1

the Provanmill Inn, which wasn't just a pub, but the male
meeting place too. My favourite entertainment involved the
drunks who took detours through the backcourts on their
way home. They usually arrived after the pubs closed in
the afternoon, or in the early evening if they'd been thrown
out. Either way they were like lambs to the slaughter. They
sang hoping for pennies, while insults and worse landed all
around them. The O'Briens used to heat pennies before
throwing them to drunks for the sheer pleasure of never
giving a sucker an even break.

'Ah could gie ye "Ghost Riders in the Sky," ' the drunk
would shout to the windows.

'Keep thum tae yersel', a' woman would shout back, 'Jist
hop it Hopalong an' gie us peace!'

'Well how aboot "The Star O' Rabbie Burns?" ' the
would-be entertainer would wheedle.

'Ye'll be seem' stars yersel' if ye don't get tae hell! How
aboot jist buggerin' off insteed?' would come the reply,
closely followed by a pot of water or whatever unsavoury
offering lay at hand. The drunk man would stagger around
the backcourt, threats, oathes and missiles coming through
the air at him from the windows above.

I never understood why the drunks did it, they earned
nothing but a withering contempt that was always more
entertaining than their singing, as the women cooperated
in insulting them, shrieking with laughter at each other's
attempts. I loved the drunks, not for themselves, but for the
entertainment the women put on whenever they appeared.

Often though I would stay inside the house, because
Peggy now had a baby son. I remember the day he was
born because it was the first time I had ever been in a
telephone box. The only public telephone around was in
nearby Provanmill and Nan and I had squeezed into it to
call the hospital. There was all the business with button
A and button B, then Nan asking for the ward and for
news of Mrs McAvoy. Outside we whooped and shouted
with joy, Nan dabbing at her eyes with her hankie, then
we rushed back to Moodiesburn Street to tell Maw Clark.
We were in the house too a week later when Peggy came


97


home with James Junior, and suddenly collapsed and was
rushed back to hospital with a post-partum haemorrhage.
It had happened with the stillborn child the year before
and was to become the pattern every time she gave birth.
The new baby was a great novelty, of course, and Peggy
seemed as relaxed as I could ever remember her. Mission
accqrnplished: she was at last a mother.

A' few months later, on Ash Wednesday, Nan and I had
come through from Drumchapel to see Peggy and the baby,
stopping at St Philomena's church first, so that I could have
the ritual dab of ashes on my forehead. All Catholics knew
that the ashes were sacred, to remove them was a great sin
for which I knew I would be struck instantly dead.

Nan was shopping and I'd run on ahead because I wanted
to see the baby. When I got to the house, one of Maw dark's
cronies was with her, a woman we knew as Auld Broon, and
another strong supporter of the Orange Lodge. Peggy was
changing the baby and suddenly Maw Clark leaned over,
grabbed hold of me, snatched the dirty nappy and wiped it
across my face, removing the ashes from my forehead. Then
she and Auld Broon fell about cackling with delight.

Poor Peggy was embarrassed and took me into the
kitchen, offering to replace the ashes with some from the
fireplace, which was doubtless where the priest had got
them from in the first place. But she didn't understand! The
ashes were holy, they were blessed, and now I would be
struck dead before finishing primary school as punishment
for letting them be removed!	f

When Nan arrived Peggy motioned her into the kitchen
and whispered what had happened, and the two of them
entered into a conspiracy to calm me down by convincing me that the ashes put on my head by the priest had somehow
survived. Then Nan went into the living-room and told Maw
Clark off while Peggy kept me in the kitchen and gave me
a special treat, some of the baby's National Orange Juice.
I could still hear the raised voices in the living-room. 'It
disnae maitter whit you think o' her being Catholic,' Nan
was saying loudly, 'Ye've nae right tae take it oot oan the
wean!' and my grandmother protesting that it had all been


98


a joke. When we left, Nan was still angry enough to burst.
I asked why Maw Clark had done it and Nan replied,
'Sometimes yer Maw's no' a very nice wumman hen, in
fact maist o' the time she's no' a nice wumman! She's ma am mother, bit she's common. Noo don't you go tellin'
anybody that!'

'Dae they no' know?' I asked puzzled.

'Well yur Uncle George dis,' she replied, 'An' Peggy tae.
Jist think aboot poor Peggy, hivin' tae live wi' hur!'

Looking back at that incident all these years later, it
was a rotten thing to do to any child, let alone your own
grandchild. It taught me to keep my distance from my
grandmother. Not only was I 'wan o' the Dark Yins', but
I was also a Catholic, so I was learning that I was doubly
at risk from her 'jokes'.


I used to hate arriving on those Saturday visits to find
McAvoy there, and if he was in the house I would go out
again until he had gone. I never mentioned it to anyone and
never actually thought it out myself, but I just didn't like
being around him. Somehow Peggy knew this and wasn't
hurt by it. She would give me a cuddle and say with a smile,
'He'll soon be away oot, then it'll jist be us!'

While Nan talked to Maw Clark in the living-room I
would stand beside Peggy as she made soup on the old
kitchen range. These were the times I loved best, talking
quietly to Peggy, just the two of us, and sharing secret spare
ribs from the pot. We used to exchange little presents over
the soup pot, too.	i

Peggy loved toffees and I remember buying her a tin for
her birthday in August. There had been a choice of toffees in
a tin with a battleship on the front, or some other sweets in a
tin with flowers, so I made the woman in the shop empty out
all the sweets and put the toffees in the flowered tin. Then
Peggy and I had eaten them.as the soup was made. Once she
gave me a little square handbag that opened across into two
triangles; I still have it somewhere. And I remember a red
cardigan being handed over across the spare ribs, specially
chosen to go with a black-and-white checked dress that she


99


knew I hadn't been keen on. Eventually Nan would come
in and demand in mock suspicion, 'Whit ur you two up
tae then?' and Peggy and I would smile innocently and
say 'Us? We're no' up tae anythin'!' through mouthfuls of
spare ribs.

At the end of the evening Nan and I would take a trolley
busVto High Street to meet up with Skip for the journey
back to Drumchapel. Every Saturday he met old Eighth
Army pals and they went drinking together, and I think
Nan arranged that we met up so that she could be sure he
was actually going to arrive home. She couldn't arrange what
state he would be in though, and her anxiety ran through our
precious hours with Peggy.

When we'd meet him Skip's moods would vary. He could
be falling-down drunk and stupid, or nearly falling-down
drunk and silly, and then again he could be rotten drunk
and ready to fight, usually with my mother. There were
pubs all along the way to John Street, the terminus for the
Drumchapel buses, and it was just after throwing out time.
There was a drunken fight at every pub door, so my heart
was always in my throat. In Blackhill I had been protected
from violence by the community and also by the men who
caused it, but out in the open, in the dark, it threatened
from all around.

It was always late when we travelled back to Drumchapel,
arriving sometimes at nearly midnight. I hated those journeys
because the bus was always full of drunks and there
would be some kind of fight or someone being sick. I was
terrified that my father would verbally join in a fight out
of sheer cussedness, but usually he just slept. I was relieved
when he did this, but disgusted too. Once we met him at
High Street and he could hardly stand. We made the usual
assumption, only to discover that he had stabbed himself
accidentally with one of his knives at work that morning and
had bled heavily; he wasn't just drunk, but weak from loss
of blood. He didn't go to a doctor though. He didn't much
believe in doctors.


There were no schools in Drumchapel when we moved


100

there. Laurie was at St Mungo's Academy by this time
and had to travel as far as my father to get to and from
school. Mickey was back in hospital, in Stonehouse this
time, again, well outside the city. There had been no
monitoring of his health after he had been discharged from
Mearnskirk, despite the fact that the TB had already cost
him the full use of his leg. Now the disease had moved to
one of his kidneys.

Several months passed before the education department
got organized. Then the Drumchapel children, including
me, were bussed to and from the Marian School every
day. The Marian had been founded in 1954 specifically for
Catholic overspill children, as we were called. The Sisters
of Notre Dame already had a fee-paying primary school in
Dowanhill, and the Marian was set up alongside it. Nearby,
the Sisters also ran Notre Dame High School for Girls, the
top Catholic girls' secondary school in Glasgow. The bus
ran through leafy avenues of quiet, 'big hooses', which
seemed to confirm Nan's earnest belief that in moving to
Drumchapel we had found Utopia. The Headmistress was
Sister Frances Mary McNally, a quiet but imposing figure
who regarded the Marian as her very own baby.

My teacher was Betty McGettigan, a marvellous woman
who spoiled me for all other teachers, because she was what
all other teachers like to think they are. While we worked
in huge, high-ceilinged classrooms, in a class of forty-five
children, Mrs McGettigan played Sibelius on an ancient
gramophone. I had no idea what it was at the time or who
wrote it, I only knew that quiet happiness existed in her
classroom. Sibelius and Mrs McGettigan were ably abetted
by the absence of boys, because the Marian was for girls
only. The rooms and corridors of the school were panelled
in wood just like the convent that adjoined it, and the smell
of polish was the first thing you noticed when you entered.
It was tranquil and orderly and it was an extremely happy
place to be in, chiefly I think because the nuns of Notre
Dame genuinely liked children. It was the most civilized
atmosphere to learn in and outside in the playground there
were trees and grass and a cleanliness and freshness I had


101


never known before. I discovered the existence of ladybirds
in that playground one especially warm summer and I still
have a fondness for the little beetles to this day, because
seeing one takes me straight back to the Marian and Mrs
McGettigan. However bad things were becoming at home,
I hal found an oasis of happiness and contentment at school
in Glasgow's West End.

I was embarrassed by Mrs McGettigan's reaction when she
found out that I read and wrote stories all the time. Just
like flying, I assumed that everyone did these things. I read
everything that was put in front of me or that I could lay
hands on, and because I was busy doing so I hadn't noticed
that other people didn't. It wasn't just that I enjoyed reading
and writing, it all came so naturally that it was a part of me.
So when Mrs McGettigan made a fuss over me it was like
being praised for breathing. I thought she'd made a mistake
and that when she realized this she'd be angry with me for
misleading her.
She would give me a title and wait with barely concealed
excitement until I had finished my latest masterpiece, then
she would read it with unconcealed glee. Each time this
happened I sighed with relief, then immediately started
worrying about the next time, when she must surely find
out. As far as I was concerned she was being extremely
kind in letting me write a story, I was always grateful to be
given a composition to do, so it was confusing to be treated
as though I was doing her a favour.

Writing fulfilled a need. It gave me my happiest and most
contented hours and made me feel really The', somehow. I
suppose the seeds of being a loner were already taking root
before I reached the Marian, perhaps in St Philomena's
when I was given books to read and left on my own. Reading
and writing marked me out as different throughout my
schooldays. I was perfectly happy to be on my own, never
needing or wanting close friends. Perhaps words were my
escape from reality, just as Laurie's knights had been his.
But what would I have done if I hadn't had words I wonder?
How would I have coped then?

My complete incompetence with numbers saved me from

becoming really unpopular with the other children though,
and I never understood why arithmetic was necessary or
desirable in a civilized society; the truth is that I still don't.
When it came to geometry and especially algebra I rebelled
completely, refusing to accept that Y equalled anything just
because someone arbitrarily said it did.

Betty McGettigan thankfully had a soft spot for creativity,
and I was always aware that despite coming no higher
than third in the class, and that only rarely, I was her
favourite. She provided me with self-esteem at a time when
I desperately needed it. I was coming to terms with the
reality that I came way down my father's list of priorities,
far lower than booze which came before everything else in
the universe.

I made my First Communion while I was at the Marian,
though not with as much gusto as the others in my class.
While there were no schools in Drumchapel, lest the faithful
had a chance to stray, the Catholic hierarchy built a church,
called St Laurence's strangely enough. We practised making
our first confessions at school for'weeks, which must have
been really riveting for some priest, and bravely swallowing
bits of wafer in case we threw up the real thing on the
day. Nan refused to spend money on a long dress, more
to Peggy's disappointment than mine, so I was bought one
that was short and very plain. Peggy, who naturally had
,, tagged along on our shopping trip, was mortified; she didn't
care about the occasion, she just wanted a few flounces and
frills whatever it was all for. The veil was as short as possible
and the head-dress plainer than the dress.

On the Saturday of the great event it was Nan who took
me to St Laurence's, where all the other children were
decorated like fairies on the tops of Christmas trees. They
all clutched expensive rosaries in piously joined little hands
and wore long, elaborate dresses under velvet capes trimmed
with white fur, and they had walked proudly through the
streets displaying their superb outfits. I had my coat on,
buttoned up to the neck, the veil and head-dress stuffed
in Nan's pocket. The only concession was a prayer book
given to me by Auntie Norah, a special white one with a


102

103


plastic cover made to look like marble and a little window
on the front with a holy picture behind. At the last minute
Peggy had given me a pair of white lace gloves, desperate
for anything fancy to creep into the proceedings. When it
was all over I was taken home again, my coat once again
severely buttoned and my other knick-knacks concealed in
various pockets.

It was left to my father to take me to a photographer for
the ritual portrait, and it's no wonder I looked furtive, as
though I was about to be grabbed and covered up again at
any minute. Nan thought the whole thing was distinctly odd
and was unable to hide it, and the cost of even a very plain
rig-out must have taken a large chunk out of what little my
father had handed her after his booze money had come out
of it. I didn't feel cheated or upset, I never truly felt one of
the faithful anyhow, but Nan was so annoyed at the whole
business that it took her years to laugh at the strange little
tableau we must have presented.


It was around this time, when I was about seven or eight,
that Nan was diagnosed as having epilepsy, though there
had been strange occurrences for a while that no one could
explain. It had started a couple of years before, while we
were still in Blackhill. I remember being on a bus with her
one day, when she held up her hand, stared at her finger
and earnestly inquired, 'Whit's that?' On other occasions,
for a fleeting moment, she would seem not to recognize
other familiar objects. Then very gradually she began to
blank out completely for a few seconds, then for longer
periods until just after we moved to Drumchapel she was
having grand mal seizures.

During these she would collapse on to the floor, shaking
and twitching all over and foaming at the mouth for several
minutes, often biting her tongue or the inside of her mouth.
Before the diagnosis was made she was having ten or
more fits a day. Once she was put on various kinds of
anti-convulsant drugs the frequency of the fits was reduced,
but not completely controlled, mainly because she deeply
resented having to take the tablets and would quietly cut

104

them down or stop completely. She had very little warning
of a fit, sometimes enough to call a name in a tone of voice
we learned quickly to recognize, but after a time we could
predict the kind of things that were likely to bring one on.
If she was particularly upset, tired or excited we knew to
expect a fit, which of course added another dimension to the
rows about my father's drinking. There were times when
I suspected him of deliberately upsetting her to bring on
a fit so that he could meanwhile do what he liked without
too much fuss. He was certainly childish enough to do it,
but whether he was able to think up such a strategy in his
befuddled state is something else.

Once, during a particularly bad argument he had raged
on so much that she had had a fit. Next day, sitting in my
class in the Marian, I was going over it all in my mind.
Peggy was so far away and I couldn't talk to her till Saturday
and my mother was at home by herself waiting for a repeat
performance of the night before. I started to cry over my
books and Mrs McGettigan noticed and tried to find out
what was wrong. I had already learned the first rule for
all families of alcoholics, that it was something to keep
hidden, my own private shame, so I couldn't tell even nice
Mrs McGettigan. Eventually it was decided by a process of
elimination that I must be ill, and as we had no telephone at
home my father was phoned at work to come and take me
home. He was the last person I wanted to see, but at least
he would be home sober for once. Mrs McGettigan spoke
to him before we left. 'You know Mr O'Brien, Margaret
is a very bright girl,' she told him, 'We expect her to take
university in her stride, she's well capable of it.' He nodded
and said, 'Oh aye, aye.' But even at that young age, I could
see that she was trying to get something important through
to him that he couldn't, or wouldn't, understand.

Because Nan's condition came on slowly over a period
oi two or three years, by the time she was having grand
mal fits I had gradually learned to cope. It was simple,
she had to be laid on her side for the few minutes the fit
lasted and then she woke up. Afterwards she always had a
splitting headache and temporary amnesia, but a couple of


IDS


hours sleep would bring her back to normal. Her attitude
to the condition settled into annoyance. She objected to
having this nuisance thrust on her and was never reconciled
to depending on the medication that eventually controlled
the fits completely, but in reality it made little difference
to her life. Taking my lead from her I took her epilepsy in
my stride and it presented few problems.

The only reason she was ever given for her condition
was possible oxygen deprivation at birth, which seemed
at least possible. Like most city-dwellers at that time my
grandmother undoubtedly suffered from rickets, which
stunted skeletal growth, including that of the pelvis. So
Maw would have endured a long, painful labour in those
pre-NHS days, with no money for a doctor or the caesarian
section she needed. It would have been entirely likely that
at some stage the baby, my mother, was deprived of oxygen,
and from the area of brain affected came her epilepsy. She
refused to be called 'an epileptic', and became quite annoyed
if anyone else used it as a description. 'Ah'm no' a disease!'
she'd say defiantly, 'If sumbody his warts, ye don't call thum
a wart, dae ye?'


WlK

106


Chapter Twelve


Drumchapel was beginning to grow on me. I discovered the
Bluebell Woods, some distance from our house, carpeted
during the spring and summer with the most wonderful
blue flowers. I had never seen or smelt anything so beautiful
and went on many expeditions to the woods with the other
Halgreen kids, because Nan wouldn't let me go alone. Once
there though I always wished I could be on my own in the
beauty and the quiet. We pretended to ourselves that we were
on an adventure by taking 'a picnic', which consisted of a slice
of bread spread with jam and folded over. We used to take
armfuls of flowers home with us, but bluebells are delicate
creatures and they died quickly before we got there. We also
discovered 'the Girnin' Gates', which were really no more
than a large, arched stone gateway that was probably the
remnant of a defunct estate. Once a rumour spread that the
hands carved at the apex of the arch had been seen moving,
and hoards of children gathered at the Girnin' Gates to watch
for a repeat performance. It looked like the pictures we were
shown of crowds at Lourdes waiting for another visitation,
and just like Lourdes nothing more was seen, though those
who wanted to believe still persisted in believing.

In front of 48 Halgreen Avenue was a deep valley that rose
at the other side into another row of houses. On the floor of
the valley ran a burn where we could catch sticklebacks, or
baggominnows, called baggies for short, and on the other
side of the slope stood massive trees that were just made for
rope swings. Launching off from the side you would find
yourself soaring hundreds of feet above the burn. It wasn't
quite flying, but it was the nearest I had ever managed. No
one was ever hurt seriously on the rope swing until Laurie
took it a step further; Laurie always had something to prove.


107


He put the rope higher on the tree so that we could swing
out even more, and inevitably someone fell off and broke an
arm. That was the end of the rope swing. We tried leaving it
till things had cooled down and then put the rope up again,
but the adult bush telegraph was amazingly efficient and
they quickly appeared to confiscate it.

In Blackhill I had discovered the joys of lying in the middle
of the grass triangle and staring at the sky, and Drumchapel
confirmed my preference for the countryside, because at first
there was a lot of greenery around. Halgreen was bordered
along one side by a farm complete with a field full of dairy
cows. Sometimes an adventurous cow would escape into the
street, even occasionally getting into a close, to the loud
enjoyment of all the kids, most of whom had never seen
a cow before moving to Drumchapel. It was great fun, of
course, and we prolonged the entertainment by trying to
return the bemused animal to the field again as slowly as
possible. Because of the wandering cows, Halgreen became
known as the Ponderosa, after the Cartwright ranch in the
TV programme Bonanza.

On Sundays, Laurie and I would get up at 5 a.m. and meet
up with one or two like-minded pals to go to the swimming
baths in Clydebank. We had to walk about three miles in all,
along part of Drumry Road, past the back of the graveyard
and through bombed out ruins beside the railway line then
onto Kilbowie Road. I liked playing in the ruins because the
outlines of the rooms were still visible. I never thought about
the people whose homes these had once been, I didn't know
that the devastation had been caused by bombing because
I was a Post-War child and had no experience of bombing
apart from Nan's memories. The thing I noticed was that
arum lilies grew all through the ruins; probably seeds had
blown over from the nearby graveyard and taken root, and
I remember them because I had never seen them before and
they looked so exotic. Nan was none too pleased though when
I took a bunch of them home to her. If poppies grew on the
battlefields of the First World War it was perhaps fitting
that arum lilies should grow on the scars of Clydebank, a
small town that was as ravaged as any big city during the

108


War, because it stood on the banks of the Clyde and was the
home of many famous shipyards.

We stayed in the swimming baths for hours and then
walked home again, which took till lunchtime at least. Once
I was thrown into the deep end by one of Laurie's pals and
nearly drowned, but an off-duty policeman saved me. It was
confusing to be grateful to a policeman; Blackhill had taught
me that they came from a different planet and weren't to be
trusted.

On Sunday afternoons my father took me to the Barras,
the market place down by Gallowgate. Skip loved the bustle,
the noise and particularly the bargaining. To him it was part
of the Game to beat the stall-holders down, whether he really
wanted something or not. Skip had a liking for bizarre china
ornaments, but if some little curio caught his eye he didn't
bid for it immediately - he would come back again, wearing
his tattiest clothes, and try anything he thought might work
to get it as cheaply as possible.

He once spotted a Satsuma-ware elephant teapot from
Japan, and returned often to the stall, each time with a more
pathetic performance. As the price went down so his clothes
became poorer and his expression more downtrodden. Each
time he sadly counted out the few coins in his pocket that
were never quite enough to afford the elephant teapot. This
went on for weeks, supplemented by heart-wrenching tales
of some imaginary relative now breathing her last, whose
dying wish for some peculiar reason, was to have just such
a teapot. Eventually the stall-holder could stand it no more
and practically gave it away to get rid of him, much to Skip's
delight.

The main attraction for me was the possibility of seeing Uncle Hughie, whose house was within a street of the Barras.
Skip would only visit him, though, if we happened to bump
into him, because Hughie would undoubtedly assume points
if his company was actively "sought. I had absorbed all these
insane, unwritten rules of the Game as I grew up, so I spent
my time at the Barras constantly watching out for the figure
of Hughie, hunched over the old wooden crutch, in the hope
that he would happen by.


109

By this time he shared his house with his brother Pat, who
provided the fourth and fifth legs of the famous sand-dance
with Hughie and Skip. Pat was the least O'Brien-like of the
family still around, and not quite up to the speed of mind
their lunacy demanded. There had been a brother called
John who had disappeared years before, who had been
regarded almost as a changeling. He apparently hadn't a
wit about him and had disapproved mightily of Hughie,
so Hughie used to wait until he had fallen asleep and then
paint John's bald head with black boot polish in vengeance.
John eventually emigrated to Morecambe, where he married
a hotel landlady, and who could blame him? He was never
heard of again, so I was cheated of meeting the strange
mortal who didn't like Hughie.

Pat wasn't quite as bad as John. He was at least aware of
the Game but always made his move a beat or two behind the
others. He was a lifelong bachelor who, it was rumoured,
had had an unhappy experience at the hands of some female
and therefore no longer trusted any of the species. So he
had moved in with Hughie, and the two fought endlessly
and happily for years. If things were dull Hughie would
throw Pat out of the house on the grounds that it was after
all his house, and Pat would then do the rounds of the family
begging for their support. He would take the opportunity
to go over each and every argument between himself and
Hughie since the last time he had been evicted, much to the
enjoyment of the others, then he would go home, by which
time Hughie's mind would be on a different ploy. I always
felt a bit sad about Uncle Pat because he wasn't quite like the
others, but years later I heard a story from a cousin that he
used to go up and down closes, removing doormats, mixing
them up and putting them back at the wrong doors. So he
may not have reached the heights of madness of his brothers
and sisters, but I was pleased for him that he couldn't quite
be called normal either.

Skip was so happy that I seemed to enjoy the Barras that
he took me to his favourite place in all the world, Paddy's
Market. As the name suggests, it started out as a place for
the immigrant Irish to buy and sell whatever they had. It was

situated in lanes and alleyways in the Saltmarket, one of the
poorest areas of a very poor city at the turn of the century. I
was appalled when I saw it, so shocked by a kind of poverty
I had never suspected existed that I could hardly talk. The
people were so poor that they were trying to sell the kind of
things that others would throw away.

Skip loved it, he was at heart a street arab and he had some
affinity with the people there, but I was one generation and
some Clark dilution removed and I hated it. He saw it as a
valid way of life while I could only see it as shameful, and
my reaction was a very major disappointment to Skip. He
had obviously thought at one stage that I was a bona ride O'Brien.

Paddy's Market is still there, in fact it has become a cult.
I don't know if it's still as it was in the mid-Fifties, because I
never went back. Indeed no
one could persuade me or pay me
enough to do so, and if I drive past it these days I steadfastly
look in the other direction. Local colour it may be to those
who have tried to reinvent Glasgow in recent years, but it's
still shameful to me.


Drumchapel was the nearest Nan came to real happiness I
think. The housing conditions and the general environment
were better, at least by the standards of the late 19505, so
she had fewer problems to sort out for other people. She was
still sought out by neighbours with family worries though,
somehow she attracted the telling of deep personal secrets,
but all she had to do was listen. She was particularly fond of
the people next door, the Grimshaws, or as Skip called them,
the Grimshanks. Alexa and Willie had two kids, Margaret
and Alec. They were an eccentric family, but they didn't
have the merest hint of malice or illwill towards any living
soul. Alexa was a thin, friendly woman, always smoking,
talking and rushing about, and always in the midst of some
crisis that Nan had to be tdld about.

There was no heating in the Drumchapel houses, apart
from a coal fire in the sitting-room, so if a natter was required
it took place in the kitchen with the gas oven on and the door
wide open to let out the heat. Nan was often summoned to the


in

no

Grimshanks' kitchen to hear the latest disaster, and always
left laughing. The Grimshanks ate odd meals at odd hours
and seemed to defy convention in an innocent, friendly way,
if indeed they were aware of it. The house was full of all sorts
of animals that Alexa had saved from all sorts of fates. Her
husband worked in the Singer's sewing machine factory in
Clydebank, and his hobby was collecting unusual musical
instruments. He kept them in a bedroom, but he had no
qualms about letting an unmusical and not very careful child
spend hours torturing them.

I discovered the magic of the dulcimer in Willie Grimshank's
music room, and also that I would never be a musician. We
had a huge collection of old y8s, everything from Irish songs
by John McCormack to opera by Caruso, and I used to spend
hours singing along with them; Mario Lanza couldn't have
reached those top notes without me. I then tried to pick
out the tunes on Willie Grimshank's dulcimer and couldn't
for the life of me understand what was wrong with the
instrument that it couldn't do it.

Alexa's parents, the Dougans, spent a lot of time at
Halgreen, and strangely enough they were a perfectly
respectable and genteel old couple. They were as bemused
by their daughter's lifestyle as everyone else was and it was
hard to believe that they were related to Alexa. They never
complained, but occasionally they'd catch your eye as if to
check that it really was as odd as they suspected it was.
Then they'd look heavenwards, shake their heads and smile
slightly.

Once Alexa rescued a huge white rabbit that proved
beyond any doubt that mental illness does indeed affect
the animal kingdom. It went for anything that moved
with fangs and claws bared, but it fitted easily into the
Grimshanks' family life. All the family ran about avoiding
vicious attacks from the demon rabbit, without giving any
indication that they thought this was in any way odd. They
would eat standing on chairs to keep out of its way, with
other chairs strategically placed like stepping stones to other
parts of the house. If anyone went into their house while it
was loose, Alexa would shout 'The rabbit's oot!' and the

visitor had to climb onto a chair too. If all the Grimshanks
and the Dougans were in the house, visitors had to bring a
chair from their own house, to climb on to, or wait until
one became vacant or the rabbit was put back in its cage.
It wasn't unusual to find the entire family watching TV or
holding a conversation while standing on chairs, as though
it were the most normal thing in the world, while the rabbit
snarled and tried to get at them. But possibly the oddest of
the Grimshanks was the son, Alec, a pleasant, cheerful boy
a few years older than me, who even as a teenager took the
cat to bed with him every night, dressed in a long robe. The
cat that is, not Alec. It was that kind of household.


112


113



Chapter Thirteen


I was nine years old when Mickey came out of hospital again
in 1957. At the age of twenty he walked with a strong limp
because of the locked knee and he was now also minus a
kidney, but the TB that had caused it was cured at last.

His final home-coming had been a focus for the family
for so long that I was happy, but the reality didn't quite
match up. It was like having another adult in the family
to tell me what to do, one who had no particular affection
for me as the other adults in my life had. How could he
when he hadn't been around for most of my childhood? I
resented his attitude and he resented the fact that I refused
to accept his authority over me. Mickey was having his own
problems adjusting to family life, especially poor family life,
and all he did was complain and find fault with everything
and everyone around him, chiefly me as I was lowest in the
pecking order.

Peggy was the recipient of all my complaints about
Mickey because my mother wouldn't hear a word against
him. In our private chats over the Moodiesburn Street soup
pot Peggy tried to get me to think about all my brother had
missed and lost in his life, but I couldn't see that any of that
was my fault. I thought he should think about what Laurie
and I had lost because he had needed it, needed it and got
it. It wasn't just the money that had been spent on him, it
was also the lost time we might have spent with our parents
if they hadn't been preoccupied with Mickey, spending
long hours visiting him in remote hospitals. Sometimes
Nan had been overcome with guilt about this and Laurie
and I were subjected to 'treats' to make up. We would be
taken somewhere for the day in the expectation that we
would enjoy ourselves; I have clear recollections Q.a trip to


114

Edinburgh and another of a freezing day in Helensburgh,
shivering in the sea to assuage Nan's needless guilt. None
of this was Mickey's fault any more than it was Laurie's or
mine of course, but it was a fair demonstration of the gulf
between us, and not even Peggy's efforts could bridge it.


As Mickey came out of hospital Uncle Hughie went in. He
was sixty-two and he had TB in his lungs, the disease that
had killed his wife and three of his five children. He was in
Robroyston Hospital and I wasn't allowed to see him though
I never gave up trying. When the family went to visit he
would take their gifts and exchange them before their eyes,
so that they left with whatever the other had brought; he
had an admirable way with insults.

To pass the time in hospital he declared himself to be
a member of every religion that existed, and demanded to
see a representative of each one. He then sent their holy
pamphlets home to me; it was our joke, our way of keeping
in touch, and I sent him notes and drawings via Skip.

Another gift he sent me was his prayer book, which had
a crucifix inside the cover. The lower spar of the cross was
loose, so that it swung under the Christ figure. I still have
it; and every time I look at it I swear I can hear him saying,
'Holy swinging Christ.'

He also used to engage the doctors in deep, meaningful
discussions about the nature and cause of his illness, always
ending by proclaiming, regardless of scientific fact, that
'That Mick Robes is tae blame. You find that Mick Robes
an' soart the bugger oot!' No amount of detailed explanation
could change his mind, and the unfortunate medics left his
bedside in despair. Hughie meant microbes, but none of
the learned and educated men of medicine could see that he
was sending them up for his own amusement, they never
cracked the Game.

About a year after he went into Robroyston, Hughie
began to get worse. The report line was issued, calling all
the family to his bedside to witness his impending demise.
Skip was called from work and arrived with the others to
find Hughie gone. Not dead, but gone. Somehow he had


115


escaped from his deathbed and was found several hours
later, sitting on the window-sill of the house he shared
with Pat, as drunk as a monkey and singing 'Red Sails in
the Sunset.' When Pat had arrived home to be greeted by
this apparition, Hughie had demanded, 'Whaur's ma rent
ya bugger?'

StilF singing, he was escorted back to hospital, where
the report line was hastily withdrawn. Over the months
he managed a repeat performance six more times, and no
one ever discovered how he had managed to cross the city
with the trusty old wooden crutch safely locked up in the
ward sister's office. Skip reckoned he must've bummed
along . . .


116


Chapter Fourteen


Schools were soon built in Drumchapel, first the Proddie lot
and then the Catholic ones. I watched mine go up literally in
my own backyard, with no great enthusiasm I may add. It
was called St Laurence the Martyr's, the same as the church
where I had made my minimal first communion. The name
had ironic connotations for our family of course, because
Skip's standard act was that of the martyr, misunderstood
by the world just for drinking all the booze money could
buy until it either ran out or he passed out.

Finally the awful day came when the Marian closed its
doors for the last time. The authorities came out with the
same guff that they spout today, high-sounding twaddle
about the good of the child and the importance of schools
being situated within the community, but, as ever, the
real consideration was money and damn the kids. Bussing
was expensive. It was true that the Marian had only been
intended to fill the gap until Catholic schools were built,
but it was a good school, a happy school and that should
have counted for something.

I sat at the back of the very last bus on the very last
day, too blinded by tears to see the waving figures of the kindly nuns and Mrs McGettigan. Clutched in my hands
was her parting gift, a book inscribed 'Special prize for
composition, Margaret O'Brien', and earlier she had given
a little speech as she made the surprise presentation. 'I know
the rest of you will forgive me girls, when I say that my
greatest joy has been reading Margaret O'Brien's stories.
One day you will see her words in print and I hope you
will remember that I told you so today.' I hadn't a clue
what she meant.

Contained within the bright green covers of the book was


117

the proof that there was a happy land somewhere, and I held
onto it like a thread through the labyrinth, leading home to
Notre Dame. Once again adults had shattered my world, but
I was determined that I would get it back together. I would
hold fast to my thread and one day I would pass my eleven
plus and find my way back to Notre Dame High School.
That's what I'd do . .".


Meanwhile Peggy had given birth to a daughter, but there
were problems. It had been a difficult birth and the child
was handicapped, in fact she wasn't expected to live.
A week after the birth Peggy came home without her
baby and immediately collapsed with another postpartum
haemorrhage. No one talked about the baby, not even
Peggy, we all pretended she didn't exist. In later years I
would recognize this strategy and despair of it, but it was
the only one the family knew.

The child had been called Anne after my Grandmother,
another appeasement. As the months passed Anne held on
to whatever slim chance she had of life and her handicap
slowly became clearer: she had cerebral palsy, but no one
knew yet to what extent. Sometimes when we were alone I
would quietly ask Peggy how the baby was - she was always
'the baby', never 'Anne' - and Peggy would whisper back
'She's a'right.' She must have visited the child in hospital
but she never mentioned it, and because Nan never spoke
of it at the time, it was many years before I discovered that
my mother had gone with her.

If the child had died as she was expected to do, then her
existence would have been kept very quietly between one
or two. I suppose they thought this might save the rest of
the family grief, but it didn't of course. Peggy's pain caused
us all grief and perhaps if she had been able to talk freely
about her baby we could have shared her pain. But the little
girl survived against all the odds and came home aged ten
months. Anne was an incredibly beautiful child, with fair
skin, blue eyes and silvery blonde hair. She reminded me
of Laurie before his hair had darkened to brown. Peggy
barely left the cot for a second, her entire universe had


118

become centred on the fragile little life that shouldn't have
survived.

As Anne grew and her handicap began to unfold, Peggy
would make me look into the cot. 'She's a'right, in't she?'
she would ask earnestly, 'Ye don't think thur's anythin'
wrang wi' hur, dae ye?' Young as I was I'd shake or nod my
head as she wanted, sensing her desperate need for my lies.
Over the months, as Anne made less progress than normal
babies, Peggy insisted that she was 'jist a wee bit slow.'
Mistaking their anguish for her only as rejection of Anne,
Peggy vigorously defended the dribbling infant against the
rest of the family.

As time passed too, McAvoy felt more and more intimidated
by the Clarks, perhaps sensing their increasing hostility
towards him and sympathy for their sister. After all,
she now had a handicapped child and McAvoy. The Clarks
'think thur sum'dy,' he would declare defiantly, as long as
there wasn't a Clark about. The family's attempts not to
make their dislike of him too obvious, not to look down
on him for Peggy's sake, were probably more damaging
than outright contempt. Honest people, they simply made
bad liars.


St Laurence's was a modern, bright, square-shaped construction,
seemingly made of glass and plastic; it looked
like a rather nasty warehouse. It couldn't compete with
the wood-panelled Marian, set amid leafy avenues and
genteel mansions, and the teachers were nothing like Mrs
McGettigan and the nuns. It also had boys and a wider
mix of abilities than I had been used to, a combination that
brought me my first experience of the tawse.

One boy in my class of ten year olds was James Campbell,
who was nicknamed Bramble, a huge boy more than two
years older than the rest of us. Bramble had spent a year in
a sanatorium with TB "and had been placed in our class to
catch up. He got no real help and in fact being with younger
children reinforced his feelings of inferiority. He came from
a very poor family too and the attitude of the teachers was
easily detectable: he was riff-raff. Quite naturally Bramble


119


reacted to his situation by disrupting the class whenever
possible. Thus he was universally liked by the children and
universally loathed by the teachers, who anyway were only
really interested in the top ten or so pupils.

One day, having struggled with the mind-numbing
convolutions of long-division and seen a glimmer of light,
I was waiting in line to have my attempt marked. I found
myself by Bramble's desk, where he sat as though on the
outside looking in, making no attempt to work. 'Kin you
dae this?' he asked, in a tone implying that a positive answer
was tantamount to disloyalty. 'A bit Bramble,' I replied,
and flushed with the zeal of having seen that glimmer, I
asked 'Wull Ah show ye?' And that's where the teacher
found me, doing what she couldn't or wouldn't do, trying
to help Bramble break into the world of ticks. Three whacks
on each hand she gave me, and as she sweated over her task
I knew she was beating me with her own inadequacy and
that it was a pitiful, if painful demonstration of might over
right. I had the dubious benefit of a lifetime's exposure to
the O'Brien view of life and though I may have had stinging
hands, I knew I had won the points.

I was more popular with the boys at school than the girls.
The boys involved me in their escapades and adventures and
treated me as one of them, so the girls actually had little to
be jealous of, not that this stopped them. To the girls any
attention from the boys was welcome, be it rough horse-play
or winks, because it all meant male attention. They were
already conditioned to become future wives and mothers
rather than people, so any male attention was important
to them.

My compositions were still the talk of the place and the
boys were always my supporters when marks were read
out. The girls would try very hard to make their 'well
dones' sound sincere, which made me laugh, because they
so obviously weren't. There was a little clique of four or five
girls who were always the top group academically and I was
amongst them but not part of the clique. They came from
the better-off families and already had fee-paying secondary
schools earmarked for after the eleven plus and it annoyed

120

them that I was bright yet uninterested in joining their
gang. They were therefore delighted when a new boy, John
Burgess, took over as top of the class and immediately went
into competition with me for top of English, especially
composition.

John was light years ahead of me in the dreaded Maths,
but he could never beat me at composition and to my
delight it irked him something fierce. He used up a great
deal of time and energy trying, and each time he failed
he showed his disappointment so openly that I almost felt
embarrassed for him. Almost, but not quite. Once, to my
immense satisfaction, he was unable to contain himself after
losing again by just one mark and demanded to know why.
Before the teacher could respond Bramble shouted "Cos
hur's is better, ya big shite!', to a spontaneous round of
applause and laughter from the other boys. He received
the teacher's staple punishment for any misdemeanour,
three of the tawse on each hand, for which I somehow
felt responsible and apologized to him. 'It wis worth it!'
he said, dancing around, his hands tucked underneath his
oxters, 'Did ye see his face?' Then he rolled around laughing
and shouting 'Ouch!' at the same time.


Apart from Skip's drinking, Nan's belief in the magical
qualities of Drumchapel persisted, she had even managed
to get as near to a fitted carpet as didn't matter. It was a
large square in blue, black and maroon, a colour scheme
that went with nothing else, and though it lay in the middle
of the living room with a linoleum border all around, she
was delighted with it. A little man had come around the
doors selling terrazzo doorsteps, instead of the council's
nondescript wooden ones, and she had recklessly ordered
one then had to scrimp and save to buy it. Halgreen may
not have been the 'big hoose' of her dreams, but it was
Nan's palace. She still planned a better life for her kids
though, and her fantasy for me was that I'd become the
private secretary to some rich managing-director then
marry him. I treated this as I did Peggy's dream sequences
about weddings, I winced and said nothing.



121


Laurie had struggled through school and left at fifteen
to become an apprentice engineer in the Albion Works in
Scotstoun. Nan was pleased that he'd have a trade and that
he wouldn't become a shoemaker and therefore a drunk
like Skip, something she had always dreaded. Mickey was
working in Glasgow University, which gave Nan no end of
pleasure and she tried to bring it into every conversation.
Neither job brought in a lot of money, but at least Nan had
the satisfaction that her sons were doing well. If that meant
living with the chronic anxiety over unpaid bills, well that
was something she had lived with all of her married life
anyway.	:

Gradually the fields around Halgreen Avenue became
built up with houses and the roads became the only places
for children to play. The main problem with that was that
the roads carried double decker buses and were barely wide
enough for two to pass each other. Even the valley with
the burn, the only piece of greenery left, was filled in and
built on. There were few shops and no social facilities or
employment within Drumchapel; it was just another ghetto,
somewhere to dump those who couldn't afford anything
better. The actual housing conditions had improved, but
life in general hadn't, and like all the other Fifties estates
it gradually went downhill. This gave the planners and the
City Fathers the opportunity to wring their hands in woe;
they had done their best for these people, given them inside
toilets for heaven's sake, and still they weren't satisfied, still
they didn't behave like model citizens! Therefore, it must
be their own fault.

In the last years of the Fifties though, the worst faults of
Drumchapel had yet to materialize, and Nan could see only
blue skies ahead.

Once I came in from school to find her cuddling a little
man, both of them in tears, and apart from the fact that
I didn't know him even by sight, the scene didn't strike
me as all that odd. I later discovered that he had come to
fix our rented TV and Nan had been working about the
house, singing, as she always did. Suddenly he had burst
into tears and asked her to stop. He was a Polish Jew whose

entire family had died in Hitler's concentration camps, and
the tune my mother had been singing was a Yiddish lullaby
he had known all his life. He was the first person I ever saw
with the chilling tattooed number inside his left forearm,
and for me he shrank the world and made fascism and
the holocaust personal. He also became a fringe member
of the family from then on, dropping in for chats and tea
even when our telly wasn't on the blink.

So they came to her still, the people who needed whatever
solace it was that Nan provided. Usually they found her
doing her housework and singing, going from room to
room carrying a shovel on which reposed a tortoise called
Tormy, the last one we ever owned. Tormy was obviously
a tortoise in distress because he worshipped Nan too, and
he attempted to follow her on her rounds on his stumpy
little legs. Despite her resistance to anything connectedwith
O'Brien insanity, she grew fond of Tormy and felt sorry for
him, but she couldn't bring herself to actually touch him.
So instead of lifting him up she carted him around with her
on a shovel, as he gazed up at her adoringly and gulped in
that silly way that even the best-bred tortoises are apt to do.
I don't think she ever stopped to consider what impression
this eccentric apparition made on casual callers who didn't
know us all that well, and that of course was exactly what
made the rest of us smile.

We never had a pet that wasn't a tortoise; whenever we
asked for a kitten or a puppy Skip appeared with yet another
chelonian reptile. It was many years before I discovered
why he was so fond of the little creatures. Apparently the
O'Briens had two of them in Tarbet Street, and whenever
Granda Tom arrived home after one of his sojourns with
his aesthetic friends, Granny O'Brien belaboured him over
the head with the tortoises. It doesn't take a great deal
of psychological understanding to recognize the Freudian
significance of Skip's fondness for tortoises, and it was the
only adverse comment he ever made about his father that I
know of. Tortoises of course do not fare well in the Scottish
climate and none of ours lasted more than a few years. We
buried them all beside the Tarbet Street originals, in the

122

123


amshorn Graveyard in Ingram Street, where the upper
echelons of Victorian society lie at peace under metal cages
to protect them from body-snatchers.

Some century in the future, archaeologists will dig up
the site and conjecture about what the tortoise shells tell
them about Glaswegian burial practices, little knowing it
was confined to the O'Briens. One of my dearest wishes
is that they should if possible be the same archaeologists
who find Hughie's unwanted legs, filled with ashes at the
bottom of the River Clyde - I would love to be around to
hear their conclusions.



124

RChapter Fifteen


Peggy had given birth to another child, a healthy boy
she called John, and apart from the usual postpartum
haemorrhage all had gone well. She now had three children
under four years of age though, one handicapped to a
still uncertain degree, and Nan and George discussed the
situation. After a further talk with the 'Fair Yins' it was
decided that George, the eldest male in the family, should
talk to McAvoy about the wisdom of avoiding any more
pregnancies.

The first mistake that McAvoy made was to take George's
deceptively quiet manner as uncertainty, and the second was
in daring to compare himself with George. 'Ye've goat three
weans yersel',' he swaggered, though George's children were
each separated by more than nine months, unlike McAvoy's.
His next mistake was to take George's silence for surrender
instead of the gathering anger he struggled all his life to keep
under control.

'An' Ah'll dae wi' ma wife whit Ah like!' the little man
swaggered.

In reply George just picked him up and shook him like
a rat. 'Listen wee man,' he hissed, 'You an' me ur no' the
same! An' Peggy wull aye be ma sister, long efter she's
your widda!' He had lifted McAvoy off the ground to get
eye-to-eye contact and was holding him by the front of his
jersey, which was slowly tightening around his neck. The
rest was drowned out by shouts and screams, and I heard
Auntie Annie's voice with the familiar warning, 'Watch
Geordie!' and then my mother's saying, 'George! George
son! Pit him doon! Ye don't waant tae swing fur the likes
o' that insect!' I had taken refuge under the table as usual,
and as George's grip was released finger-by-finger, I saw


I2S



McAvoy slowly sinking to the floor only inches from me. A
long way above, Uncle George's face was ashen with rage,
his hands still clenched with fury. As my eyes locked with
McAvoy's I saw that he was shaking with terror, and I was
glad that he knew I'd seen it.
Within months Peggy was pregnant again.


I was neither happy nor unhappy at St Laurence's; it
was just somewhere to fill the time before I went back
to Dowanhill and Notre Dame. I would have to sit an
entrance exam and then there would be modest fees of
around two-pounds per term. Skip was drinking more than
ever and money was even tighter, but still I contrived not
to pick up the coded messages that I might not get back to
Notre Dame. I still harboured the certainty that it was only
a matter of time.

I was still at St Laurence's when Uncle Hughie died
in September 1958. Uncle Pat had been summoned from
work by the hospital and had gone straight home to find
the windowsill empty. But Hughie wasn't to be outdone;
on his deathbed he informed the assembled family that if
they made him die he'd get even, he'd haunt them forever.
Who else but an O'Brien would believe that the O'Briens
had the power of life over death?

Afterwards Skip, Pat and Norah went to St Alphonsus'
down by the Barras, to arrange the funeral with the priest,
who in a moment of madness left them alone in his study,
along with a store of communion wine. When he returned he
found Skip dressed in various vestments, marrying his sister
to his brother. The 'groom' was handsomely dressed for the
occasion in the priest's chasuble, the richly embroidered,
sleeveless garment worn when giving communion. The
'bride', whose passion for hats was well-known, sported
the black three-cornered biretta with the central pom-pom
at a jaunty angle, and all three were clutching the last
of many half-empty bottles of wine. The priest then sat
down with this motley crew and arranged Hughie's funeral.
Norah disgraced herself by falling asleep and snoring
loudly throughout. The biretta slipped over her eyes,

126


but miraculously her grip on the bottle remained strong.
When the meeting was over, the three O'Briens stood up
and silently divested themselves of the ritual garments,
laying them neatly in a pile before leaving. The priest
had said nothing throughout, which I found puzzling until
Skip reminded me that he was Hughie's parish priest, so
he would have been used to worse. 'Mind you,' he said
disapprovingly, 'Norah ferr gave us a showin' up wi' hur
snorin'.'

Skip, to whom tears were a sign of weakness, sat in
George Square until he got enough control of himself to
come home and tell us that Hughie had died, missing the
ordinary buses and having to wait for the night service in
the early hours of the morning. His eyes though were still
red-rimmed and Nan spotted it instantly and maliciously
accused him of crying. Skip hotly denied it of course, but
the points went to Nan; she had caught him showing human
emotion, crying for his dead brother, and it was one of the
few victories she ever got over him.

'Did your uncle have the last rites?' asked my teacher,
and I glumly nodded. Uncle Hughie had made a fetish out
of having the last rites. Up till then he had celebrated each
reprieve with a few choruses of 'Red Sails in the Sunset' and
the odd bottle of plonk. 'Well that's all right then,' the silly
woman replied, 'He'll be in heaven now.' It somehow failed
to raise my spirits. I didn't want him in heaven; what had
heaven done to deserve having him? I wanted him here to
keep my world bright. Even though I hadn't seen him for
over a year I knew he was still there and so the light of his
lunacy had still illuminated the land. The last time I had
seen him was just after Mickey had come out of hospital. He
ruled the roost so much that neither Laurie nor I were happy
to have him home. We were looking for ways to demonstrate
our feelings, when we hit on the idea of joke soap to turn his
face black. We had no moneyv of course, so we had set off to
find Uncle Hughie, who took us to his one-roomed home,
his single-end in Bridgeton's Stevenston Street, listened to
our story and gave us enough to buy the soap. Now he
had truly gone and there was no adult left in the world


127

who would understand the importance of spending money
on black-face soap . . .

Hughie's funeral was preceded by a family conference
to discuss his threats of long-term hauntings. To be on
the safe side it was decided to have him buried without
the trusty wooden crutch. As he had managed to find
his "way across the city on numerous occasions - and
that while falling-down drunk - quite why they thought
coming back from the next world without it would cause
him any problems I have no idea. But then logic was never
their strong point.

When the coffin, minus crutch, arrived at the church
for the receiving service the day after Hughie's death, the
O'Briens sat as far from each other as possible, because
with very good reason they simply didn't trust one other.
At the end of the service they all moved independently with
one thought in mind, to touch the coffin in a last gesture
of farewell, or as Skip insisted, to make sure the lid was
on securely. There was a sharp intake of breath from the
assembled congregation that always turns up uninvited at
such events, as coincidentally the O'Briens reached the
coffin at the same time. They surrounded it and each laid
a hand on it, in a theatrical, almost cabalistic ritual. But the
effect was nearly ruined when Tommy, who had no time for
the Catholic church or the family's excesses, paused on his
way out. 'Christ aye, that'll be right!' he said sarcastically
from halfway up the aisle, 'Arise an' walk ya auld bastard!'
Then turning to leave he obviously remembered the missing
crutch and turned back. 'Or at least hop aboot a bit!' he
added with relish.

Refusing to be put down by this interruption, the others
were so taken with the effect their performance had created,
that the 'laying on of the hands' became a tradition at
every family funeral thereafter. A piece of genuine O'Brien
folklore had been invented.

When Hughie died I was ten years old and beginning to
show the effects of the dilution of the blood; some Clark
sensitivity had crept in. At the wake I told Skip it was
wrong that we should be having a good time while Hughie


128


lay alone in the cold, dark church. Skip was aghast; ho
family member had ever mouthed such obscenities before
in his hearing. 'Don't be daft!' he exclaimed, 'It's the first
time in ma life that I've goat the better o' the auld bugger.
An' if it'd been me insteed, him an' that crutch wid be up
here the noo, dancin' aboot, as drunk as a monkey. An'
besides,' he added, looking furtively about, 'How dae ye
know he's no' here tae?'

Next day, the family, attired in their Sunday best, filed
into the church for the final service before burial, and
behind them extra mourners arrived unexpectedly. Every
down-and-out and wino in the vicinity was there, and
arriving last they left first after Hughie had been carried
out to the waiting hearse. They took up position on foot
immediately behind the hearse and along the route more
joined in. This made it impossible for the posh cars provided
for the family to take their rightful place of prominence
because they were falling further and further behind.
Eventually the cars were abandoned and the family had
to follow the unofficial mourners, none of whom had been
any too fastidious about their personal hygiene or attire.

'He's planned this!' I heard Skip mutter in delight, 'An'
he's roon' the coarner noo, laughing at us!' The same
thought seemed to strike the rest of the family and they
all started laughing, which put a nice finish to a very odd
funeral. I'm sure they were right too; no one had ever won
the points from Hughie while he was alive, what possible
difference could a little thing like death make?
'. 'Ah'm sorry aboot yer Uncle Hughie hen,' said Peggy
softly, and cuddled me to her. Then she pointed to the
sky, where shafts of sunlight pierced the clouds. 'See that?'
she said, 'That's God sendin' doon pathways tae heaven fur
people that's jist died, mebbe Hughie wull be oan wannae
thaim.' Even at the age of ten I had to smile at Peggy and
her hopeless, undying romanticism. If I knew Hughie he'd
be selling spaces on God's pathway to those bound in the
opposite direction . . .


Pat, now alone in Stevenston Street, was haunted by


f 129


Hughie's 'twin' behind the door, but he finally summoned
up the courage to dismantle Louis and then tried to lose his
leg, the last artificial leg in existence. Not for him the formal
handing over of the leg to the relevant authorities though,
instead he tried to burn it, but it wouldn't burn. He left it
in a hospital waiting-room and it came back to him next day.
He Abandoned it on a bus and it was returned the same day.
He put it out for the binmen and they left it propped against
the door, so that when Pat opened it the leg fell across his
feet. 'Ah'm tellin' ye!' he wailed to the others, who were
enjoying the whole business hugely as his paranoia grew,
'It's him! He's efter me!' Finally he tried Hughie's own
solution to the unwanted second leg problem, and it joined
the rest, filled with ashes at the bottom of the Clyde.

The hauntings weren't finished though, because Norah
reported doors and windows opening by themselves. The
others, delighted at the opportunity to add to the family
collection of myths, decided that they had noticed the very
same phenomenon. Soon every and any odd happening
came to be attributed to Hughie, and so generations who
were never privileged and fortunate enough to have actually
known him, look up as the breeze blows a door open, or
when they lock themselves out, or if there's a power cut,
and say 'It's Hughie again!' He managed it after all, not
just gone and not forgotten, but gone and very much still
here. And if that isn't immortality, I don't know what is.


130

Chapter Sixteen


In my entire school career I only got the tawse twice,
both times at St Laurence's. The first was for trying to
help Bramble do his sums, but it would be years before
I understood why I got it the next time.

I went home every day for lunch, partly to satisfy myself
that Nan was all right, and partly because we couldn't afford
school lunches, and Nan would have died rather than apply
for free meals. Free meals were a badge of poverty and the
kids who qualified for them were told to stand to one side,
just to reinforce the point that they should be both ashamed
and grateful, and to let them know that everyone else knew
of their crime.

At the end of one lunch-break Nan had a fit and by the
time I had got her to bed, where I knew she would sleep
soundly for a couple of hours and then be fine, I was late
for school. Late corners had to report to the deputy head,
who invariably beat the living daylights out of them, but
this time I thought I had the perfect reason. 'My mother had
an epileptic fit, Sir,' I explained, 'And I couldn't leave her
until she had come out of it.'

'You evil-minded madam!' he yelled, and went at me with
the tawse like a man possessed. I hadn't a clue what had happened
to him and simply assumed that he had gone bananas,
as we all knew teachers were wont to do from time to time.

Something else happened at school that wasn't cleared up
until the first incident was solved too, which also involved
Nan. I had gone home on "another lunch time to find the
house covered in blood and Nan staggering about almost
comatose, begging 'Help me, help me.' A few days earlier
she had been given new tablets by the GP, Dr Fields, who
had been reminded at the time that she was already on


131


medication to control the epilepsy. He had become quite
annoyed at this, 'I'm the doctor here,' he'd said, 'You're
only the patient Mrs O'Brien.' When I found her that
day she had fallen semi-conscious against furniture and
walls and her face was badly injured. I knew immediately
that the new tablets were to blame. Growing up with a
condition like epilepsy you develop an instinct for pitfalls
and learn to identify problems quickly, but I didn't know
what to do about it. We had no phone and neither did any
of the neighbours, so I had to leave her while I ran back
to school to ask the headmaster to call a doctor. I put Nan to bed first, which in fact was probably the wrong thing to
do, but had I left her out of bed she would certainly have
hurt herself more.

The headmaster was very sympathetic when I told him
my mother was ill and rushed along to the school office to
phone a doctor, while I trotted at his heels telling him the
full story. When he heard that Nan had epilepsy he stopped
in his tracks and refused to make the call. So I had to run
home again, take money from one of Nan's secret stores and
find a phone-box to call Mickey at work, the only number I
actually knew because it was at the top of a letterhead that
Nan had kept. Mickey called Dr Fields and we sat by her
bed all day waiting for him to arrive, which he never did,
and it was, I'm sure, sheer luck that she recovered. Dr Fields
arrived the next day and took the new tablets away, but he
didn't make any comment and certainly he never admitted
his part or apologized for it.

Over the years I would replay the incident in my mind
and wonder what had happened. Had I explained it wrongly
to the headmaster, had he somehow misunderstood? Why
else would a learned, educated man react that way except
if he had misunderstood? I was an adult before I learned
that epilepsy was regarded by the general public as a sign
of being possessed by the devil, that epilepsy sufferers were
thought to be mad, unclean or given to excessive sexual
appetites, and I could hardly stop laughing. Then another
mystery from the past suddenly fitted into place.

One day we had been going to see Peggy. We were about

132

to get off a tram in Parliamentary Road when Nan had had
a fit. I was nine or ten years old, and there I was trying
to prevent her falling off the platform of the moving tram
onto the road, and no one would help me. The conductor
and passengers stood back watching, but not one of them
would help, and when the tram stopped they all insisted I
had to somehow get her off. This was a situation I could
have handled blindfold within our own four walls, but she
had never fitted outside before and it took me ages to
persuade her to go home with me. She was so confused
that she couldn't cooperate and I remember her saying over
and over again, 'Ah don't know whit tae dae . . .'

She had brought me up to believe that her condition was
a nuisance, nothing more; for her it meant inconvenient fits
and the necessity, the indignity, of depending on tablets.
For me it meant coping with the fits and trying to make sure
she didn't cheat on her dosage. Beyond that it curtailed our
lives not at all. But to the good people of Glasgow she wasn't
safe to touch, to the deputy head it was an insult, and to the
head, well God knows exactly what he thought. Strange to
think that Nan had so respected learning and education, yet
a man who represented it so ably was a bigoted idiot and not
one hundredth the human being she was.


133



Chapter Seventeen


In the Winter of 1958 we had a family wedding. One of my
cousins was getting married, the son of Nan's sister Vicky,
the eldest Fair Yin. Vicky had 'turned' to marry a Catholic
and so her son had been brought up in the religion. Now he
was marrying in St Mungo's, and much to Peggy's delight
it was to be a white wedding. Nan, Peggy and I went out
to buy wedding finery for the two of them at a club store.

A little man called Arnold White had come to the entire
Clark family for as long as I could remember. For an agreed
weekly sum he would issue a line to buy clothes from one of
two warehouses he dealt with. The prices were high and so
was the interest paid, and it meant there was little choice of
where to shop, but it was the only way we could ever afford
anything for the wedding. Mr White had issued Nan and
Peggy with lines for both warehouses and off we went. It was
a good day, full of fun and laughter, even though Peggy was
pregnant again. They tried on everything in one warehouse
and then tried on everything in the other, just for the fun of
it. Peggy wanted Nan to buy me a fancy dress too, because
she knew one of my 'Fair' cousins had a new rig-out, there
was 'Dark Yin' honour at stake. I'd been given a pink dress
for my tenth birthday a few months before though, and Nan
was having none of it. Feeling sorry for me, Peggy gave me
a necklace to wear, a cheap plastic popper of pink flowers
with a glittery rhinestone in the centre of each one. Nan
eventually settled for a blue dress and Peggy for a pink one
with an all-over pattern of pale blue flowers. In the centre
of each blue flower on the bodice was a glittery rhinestone,
just like the necklace.

When the wedding day came around they had swapped,
as they always did; Peggy was wearing the blue dress and

134

Nan the pink. Being Proddies they hadn't a clue what to
do during the wedding service, and tried to follow my
knowledgeable movements, kneeling, sitting, standing and
generally bobbing about. Eventually it became too much
for them and they collapsed against each other, laughing
so much that the tears ran down their faces and the
familiar creaks of merriment echoed all the way through
the ceremony. And the more they tried not to laugh the more
they did. They were like two schoolgirls, and I remember
reflecting that had I behaved like that I'd have had a severe
dressing down. Once outside at the end they mopped their
eyes and told each other what a hoot it had all been, which
set them off again of course.

That night, at the reception, after the bride and groom
had gone, I went upstairs and heard singing coming from
the room where the bride had changed out of her white
dress and veil. And there sat Peggy at a dressing table, the
wedding head-dress and veil on top of her curly hair, staring
into the mirror and singing 'Mexicali Rose' very quietly to
herself, lost in her dream of being a white bride. Somehow I
knew enough not to disturb her; I left her alone to enjoy her
fantasy and crept downstairs again, but the picture became
imprinted on my memory forever and I see it still all these
years later. Peggy as the bride of her dreams . . .






i35



Chapter Eighteen


It was I9th December 1958; I know this because it's
recorded in my ten-year-old script on the back of a plastic
calendar, the kind you keep in a wallet. We were watching
TV at home; it was a nature programme, something about
birds, and the wind was howling outside. There was a
knock at the door, and when I answered it I found Alexa
Grimshank standing there in her usual agitated state.
'Thur's a fire through the wa'!' she said, and returned
to her own house.

I closed the door and sat down again. 'It wis Mrs
Grimshank,' I said, 'She said thur's a fire through the
wa'.' Everyone nodded; Alexa was known to fly the odd
kite and we all knew not to accept what she said as gospel.
Still, something made me get up and look out of the window,
where there was a lot of debris flying about, then I ran out
onto the verandah, Laurie close behind, and Alexa had been
telling the truth.

The top floor flat in the next tenement, which adjoined
the Grimshank house, was well ablaze. We did what anyone
would do in similar circumstances, panicked a bit, tried to
figure out what to save, came to the conclusion that there
was very little, then grabbed our coats and left the house,
knocking on all the other doors on the way down. We stood
outside in the cold, night air, watching sixty foot flames
shoot into the sky, waiting for the fire-engines to appear.
It was deja vu, shades of Balmano Brae.

The house belonged to the Ramsays, a family of shy,
attractive children, two boys and a girl. They were a
quiet, respectable family and both parents worked, so
the grandmother, who lived with them, looked after the
children. That night, it was thought that the youngest boy,


136

,'


who was about five years old, had been playing with matches
in bed and had set the house on fire. The two boys and the
grandmother were safe, but there was no sign of the middle
child, Ella, who was the same age as me. Ella rarely played
with the other children in the street. A pretty child, with
blue eyes, short, curly blonde hair and a shy smile, she was
always well dressed and we thought her mother wouldn't let
her out to play for fear of getting her nice clothes dirty. We
felt sorry for her because she was a pleasant girl and we all
thought she would have liked to play with us more often.

The adults were knocking on doors up and down the
street and in the facing block of tenements, trying to find
her, while the rest of us huddled in the cold, watching
the firemen being raised on turntable ladders with hoses
going full-bore into the flames. A Daily Record reporter
took Laurie and I into his car and gave Laurie a slug
of whisky to heat him up, and from there I saw Alexa
Grimshank. She had her hair in rollers and was wearing
her fur coat over her nightie. On her feet she had an ancient
pair of slippers over ankle-socks, and looped over her arm
was a handbag containing all her money. In one hand she
carried a budgie in a cage and clutched a dog on a leash,
and in the other was the killer rabbit in another cage, plus
the inevitable cigarette sticking out between two fingers. I
wondered where she had secreted all the other animals, the
cats with sore paws and the birds with broken wings, for I
had no doubt that she had them with her too. It was the
sum total of everything Alexa held dear enough to rescue
from the flames, the clearest statement imaginable of what
made her tick, and despite the drama being played out in
front of me that night, the sight of her made me laugh.

The Ramsay parents arrived home within an hour or so
and had to be held back from rushing into the burning
building. I remember Mrs Ramsay's voice clear against the
noise of the fire-engines, the crackling of the flames and the
howling of the wind, screaming 'Ma weans! Ma weans!'

It was nearly 4 a.m. before the fire was out and the people
in our part of the building were able to go back to their
houses, but still Nan and the others looked for Ella. Then


137




the firemen lowered a black box by rope from what was left
of the Ramsay house. 'Whit's that?' Nan asked a fireman,
'It's the wean,' he replied, 'We found the wee lassie in her
bed.' On the ground below the windows lay the Christmas
presents the Ramsay children would have got in less than a
week and I remember a doll lying there, grotesquely twisted
from the flames and matted with mud.

The smell of burning was everywhere, a characteristic
smell that lingers in the memory still, different from any
other kind of smoke. Our house wasn't damaged but Alexa's
house was. The room where I tortured the dulcimer was a
blackened shell and water had penetrated the places that the
flames had missed. The chimney was unsafe and part of the
roof between us was open to the sky, so the firemen covered
the hole with a tarpaulin and sat up for what was left of the
night making the chimney safe so that the families below
could go to bed. That night was the start of my admiration
for firemen. During my working life I would have cause to
admire them over and over again. They remain to me the
finest human beings ever to draw breath.

Nan couldn't sleep and spent the night making soup and
tea for the firemen. By the first light of morning she was on
first name terms with them and when they finally left it was
like losing friends we had known for years. I was allowed
to sleep on into the day after the fire, which annoyed me,
because I had badly wanted to go to school to tell everyone
about it. As it was a Friday I wouldn't be able to tell them
now until after the weekend. Being me, though, I had to
write it down. I used the plastic calendar, the first thing I
could find, to record the event in very small script.

Next day the basic details were on the front pages of every
Glasgow newspaper and I was concerned that Peggy might
think we had been hurt. After all, it was reported that an
unnamed girl of my age had died in a fire at Halgreen
Avenue, and maybe Peggy would think it was me. When
we saw her as usual the next day, though, she said she hadn't
been worried.

'Ah knew it wisnae you,' she said, 'Ah knew ye wur a'
a'right.'

138


'How?' I asked.

'Ah jist knew hen, that's a',' she replied with a shy
smile.

Later I asked Nan how Peggy could have been so sure.

'She tellt ye hen, she jist knew,' she said, smiling the
exact same smile.

We never saw the Ramsays again, they were moved to
another part of Drumchapel and never returned to Halgreen
Avenue. Occasionally a neighbour would report bumping
into Mrs Ramsay and that she had walked past them, and
I found that very odd. With hindsight though, I can see
that she just couldn't take any more reminders of what had
happened on that December night.


139


Chapter Nineteen


Christmas and New Year 1958 passed in the usual mixture
of family celebrations and drunken arguments with Skip.
But I remember it particularly because of an incident that
will remain with me for ever.

A few days after New Year Skip took me with him to see
an uncle and his family. They lived with his wife's parents,
because her mother had been an invalid for years and was
totally bedridden. I liked going to sit with the old woman
because the stories of her childhood were like history to me
and I loved to hear them.

That night I left her bedroom and walked down the long,
dark corridor towards the living-room, where the rest of the
family were talking and laughing. Suddenly the old lady's
husband stepped out of the darkness and grabbed me. He
had obviously been waiting for me and pulled me against
him, his wet mouth all over me, the smell of stale booze and
cigarettes making me feel sick. One hand held me tightly
while the other one was fumbling about in my pants and
I could feel something hard pressing against my stomach.
I froze completely. The living-room was inches away but I
was so shocked and confused that I couldn't summon up the
fight to get away from the old man to safety. What shocked
me most was that I had known him all my life. He was an
old drinking pal of Skip's and my cousins' grandfather. I
couldn't believe he was doing this to me. Then the door
handle turned and he pushed me away.

We both went into the living-room, where the party
was in full swing. I felt physically sick and disorientated;
everyone had been enjoying themselves without the slightest
suspicion that inches away, on the other side of the door, the
old man had been sexually assaulting me. When we were


140

leaving he tried to give me money and I put it on the table
and left it there. When he asked for a kiss I refused and Skip
was annoyed, so once we were outside I told him what the
old man had done to me.

Skip's response was a mixture of anger and annoyance,
as though I had broken some unwritten social code by
mentioning it. It wasn't that he didn't believe me, it
was that he didn't want to know. It was as though these
things happened, but they shouldn't be mentioned and he
was ashamed of me for not adhering to that social nicety.
His ten-year-old daughter had been sexually assaulted by
someone she should have been safe with, but it would upset
his life to acknowledge it or do anything about it.

I felt ashamed, dirty, unclean, and Skip's reaction had
reinforced all of it. It must have been my fault, something
to do with how I behaved or looked, or else Skip would have
done something . . . wouldn't he . . . ? I didn't tell another
soul, not my mother and not Peggy, who anyway, was now
out of bounds. Peggy was expecting a baby in early May,
my mother had told me, and I knew how sick Peggy got,
so I mustn't annoy or upset her. So I kept my dirty, nasty,
guilty little secret to myself. It had been all my fault, and
even if I could have told someone I don't think I would
have, I was just too ashamed of myself.


Every excuse was dragged out to explain why I couldn't
sit the entrance exam for Notre Dame. Skip wanted me to
go to Garnethill Convent near St Aloysius, because Granda
Tom had had close connections with the school. Suddenly
it seemed we were to honour the name of dear, departed
Granda Tom, whose name hadn't been mentioned in years
because no one cared anything for him. Couldn't I just try
the exam? There was no point, I was told, even if I passed
I wouldn't be going there, 'family duty' meant I had to go
to Garnethill.

So the little clique of top girls at St Laurence s went to sit
the entrance exam and returned with the papers. They had
all passed. The teacher read out the questions and I was the
only one, including the clique, who got all of them right.


141


And I'd have walked the composition too. I didn't think it
was possible to be so unhappy, but I was only a child then;
time would teach me that there are troughs and depths of
unhappiness not even hinted at in the worst nightmares of
a disappointed, almost eleven-year-old . . .


By this time Mickey had found a way of escaping from
weekends in Drumchapel. Working at the University he
had met up with a crowd of people who went to the
hills instead of spending their weekends in the city. Being
Mickey he soon amassed the equipment he needed to go
with them and every Friday he would disappear and every
Sunday night he would reappear. All of this was welcome in
a way, because I now heartily loathed the sight or thought of
him; the gulf between us had never lessened. He just wasn't
one of us yet he controlled all of us. Nan still adored him
unconditionally, I think she felt guilty about all those years
he had spent in hospital, as though somehow she had been
to blame.


Workmen had dug a deep hole in the road leading to
Halgreen. Skip had been warned to watch out for it as he
left for work that Friday morning, warned several times.
'Ye'd think Ah wis a drunk!' he protested indignantly. That
night, coming home drunk as usual, he fell down the hole
and couldn't get out for hours. Nan sat up waiting for him,
but I had a feeling he was down that hole. He managed to
scramble out in the early hours and we heard the familiar
sound of him crawling up the stairs. He had broken his nose
and his face was covered in blood mixed with the sandy-red
soil, but he was in playful mood. As we tried to clean him up
he would slip under the table and shout Teeka boo!' When
we turned our backs he hid in a cupboard and shouted 'Ye
cannae find me!' Next morning after his 'anaesthetic' had
worn off he suffered. Apart from the broken nose he was
covered in bruises from the fall and from falling back again
everytime he had tried to clamber out.

It was one of the few occasions when he didn't win the
points. But Nan did, she went around smiling for days!


 142


Chapter Twenty


It was around this time that Skip became a businessman.
Looking back, it had all the elements of farce that were as
necessary to his daily life as booze. Somehow he managed to
rent a shop near Gallowgate and set up his own shoe repair
business. He had no capital and of course had done nothing
to find out whether such a business was needed or wanted
in the area.

Every Monday and Tuesday evening Laurie and I would
be sent around the doors of countless houses throughout
Drumchapel, asking the occupants if they had dny shoes
to be mended. These would be carted home, often very
late at night, and next day Skip in turn would cart them
to his shop for repair. On Friday, pay night, we repeated
the process, only this time returning the mended shoes and
collecting the money. Again it would be very late by the
time we got home and carrying the money laid us open to
all sorts of dangers. There were times when we were scared,
and one night we were certainly followed by two men. There
were police houses nearby, so we sat in one of the closes for
half an hour, knowing that if the men did intend to rob us
they wouldn't do so anywhere near the police. When we
came out the men had gone and we ran home. We never
told Nan anything of this, she already disapproved of the
arrangement but had been won over by Skip's assurances
that all would be well, and it was only for a little while until
business picked up. And anyway, the kids liked it.

Luckily for Laurie and I, the experiment into big business
was headed for failure after only a few months. Skip had
taken on someone to help him mend the shoes, but from
what was coming in he could only pay one wage and that
went to the other man. Together they would drink that,


143


plus anything more that Skip might have, and soon he was
back working for someone else again. All his life he insisted
that if he had had another twenty-five pounds he could have
made the business pay, but in truth it was like all of his fads,
doomed to failure through short-lived enthusiasm and lack

of thought.

".	;

Peggy wanted a home delivery. With her obstetrics history

of difficult labours and haemorrhages, Nan had been sure

that she wouldn't get it. The GP would tell her that it

would be best if she went into hospital to have the baby,

and Peggy would follow that advice. So it was a shock

when he agreed to Peggy's request. It seemed impossible.

Peggy was looking after Maw Clark, running the house,

caring for three children under the age of five, one of them

handicapped, and coping with McAvoy. Peggy was worried

about leaving her children, so the other Clarks offered to

care for them while she was in hospital. But McAvoy refused

to let my mother, or any of the Clarks for that matter, take

the children, either singly or together. Nan tried talking to

him, and then arguing that Peggy needed to be in hospital,

that she always had a bad time, and that she also needed

rest. But the little man decreed that he would look after his

own family.

When Nan told the rest of the Clarks they glanced
knowingly at each other. 'When did he come up wi'
this idea?' Uncle George asked sarcastically, 'He's never
bothered aboot lookin' efter thum afore.'

'Leave it,' Peggy pleaded, 'Jist leave it. Don't annoy him,
ye know whit he's like.' Anything for a quiet life, that's what
she meant, she had to live with him and it was easier if he
wasn't upset. And besides, the last baby, John, had arrived
without any fuss or trouble, this one would too. Anything
to keep the peace ... It became another reason to despise
McAvoy, as though another reason were needed.

George and Nan talked about how to deal with the
situation, but they knew there was nothing to be done.
McAvoy should've been thinking of his wife instead of
using her to get one up on the family, they said, but


144


My Auntie Peggy in 1943, aged 21.


their hands were tied. 'Ah'll tell ye wan thing,' George
said darkly, 'This is the last wean. She shouldnae be hivin'
this wan, bit it'll be the last yin!'


Something was wrong with Nan. It seemed as though one
minute we were all talking, thinking and worrying about
 Peggy, and then without anyone noticing, Nan became ill.
There were sobs and screams every night and often we
would find her re-doing housework in the early hours,
afraid to sleep and face whatever demons lay in wait for
her. There was about her a frantic cheerfulness, a tendency
to be jovial and talk too much, but never to meet your eyes.
Then she would lapse into a deep silence, as if the pretence
of communication was over, and having concealed whatever
it was that she was hiding from everyone else, she could now
brood on it alone. Dark circles appeared under her eyes,
her skin took on a yellowish tinge and she aged rapidly, yet
she refused to see a doctor. Every nightmare was explained
away next day and became transformed in the telling into a
funny story. It was as though she had surrounded herself
with a protective wall of false laughter to deflect those who
knew her and were close to her, a kind of emotional radar
jammer.


'Ah hid this dream,' she told us one day, 'Aboot oor
Peggy. She wis wearin' a long, white dress, an' cairryin'
a big bouquet. Pink they wur, big pink roses. An' you wur
therr,' she told me excitedly, 'An' ye wur fussin' roond
aboot hur. Ah tried tae talk tae hur bit she jist stared
straight aheed, widnae take any notice, it wis like it wis
jist the two o' ye and yese wurnae botherin' wi' anybody
else! Then she drapped her flooers and ye picked thum up,
and she took wan o' the flooers oot o' the bouquet and gied
it tae ye!'


Having lived all of my life with Peggy's wedding fixation,
I was keen to tell her. 'She'll like that story!' I enthused, and
was stung by the immediate change of mood. 'Ye'll no' tell
Peggy! Ye'll jist leave Peggy alane!'

These spells of dark, brooding silence were followed by
others of scaring hyperactivity, and she would hustle and


145


bustle around, organizing, directing and then abandoning
whatever she had been so engrossed in. She alternated between
snapping viciously and greeting with over-enthusiasm anyone
she met, and all the time there was that haunted, driven
expression in her eyes.

There was no balance in her life or in her behaviour.
Although I was about to sit my eleven-plus exams she would
suddenly decide to keep me off school and we would set off
together to visit Peggy, usually on the day of her antenatal
appointments with the McAvoy family doctor. For some
reason Nan waited for the results of these appointments in
a state of tension, but often after setting out on the journey to
Blackhill we would turn back and return home instead, once
only yards from 6 Moodiesburn Street, without seeing
Peggy. There was never any explanation, probably because
she didn't have one. I was barred from 'annoying' Peggy,
now in the last three months of her pregnancy, so Uncle
George was the only one I could turn to. 'She'll be worried
aboot Peggy hen,' he told me, 'Ye know whit hur an' Peggy
ur like. It'll be a' right when Peggy's better again.' Despite
all this Skip didn't seem to notice anything wrong.


Easter Monday fell on 30 March in 1959, and at nearly
eleven I could easily find my way alone from Drumchapel
to Blackhill, so I had gone on my own to see Peggy. She
was pale and quiet. The warm times, the funny times had
gradually faded away during her pregnancy, but we still had
our own private times together.

She decided we would walk to Hogganfield Loch, a mile
or so away. I'd been there often with Laurie and David.
We used to go on the pleasure boats or feed the ducks and
swans, and we'd collect wild rhubarb for Nan to make pies
or give us to suck raw with sugar.

It was overcast and chilly that Easter Monday, as Peggy
struggled to fasten her coat over her growing belly before
we set off. It was a green coat that had belonged to Nan,
only Nan had become convinced that green was an unlucky
colour, just as she was equally sure that keeping a lock of
baby's hair would bring bad luck. Although she was by no


146 ;ti


means certain that the bad luck wouldn't follow the coat,
reluctantly Nan had let Peggy have it.

Peggy was unusually quiet, in fact she didn't say a word
as we walked along. I picked up a stick and started hitting
stones along the ground and she made me stop. At the
Loch I practised skiting stones; I was never any good at
it, two bounces across the surface of the water was a major
achievement for me, and I needed all the practice I could get. She stopped me doing that too. We had brought along
some bread for the birds, but she wouldn't let me feed them.
I began to wonder why she had wanted to come. On the way
back she wouldn't even let me collect any rhubarb; it was
as though she needed me to be there with her, not to talk,
to play or pass the time, just to be there. It was something I
nearly understood at the time, but not quite, like so much of
what was going on. It was a time of restlessness, of waiting,
without knowing what was being waited upon, somehow.

I was just reflecting on what a washout the day had been,
when she did something truly puzzling. Our way home took
us by Riddrie Cemetery, and she knew I was scared of it.
Nan and I had to pass it on Saturday nights after our visits
to Peggy, to catch a bus into the city centre, and to tease
me, Peggy would laugh and make ghostly noises at me as
we left her house. It was a place I would walk miles out
of my way to avoid, and if I had no choice I'd hurry along
with my eyes averted, breathing a huge sigh of relief when
I was safely past. But on that Easter Monday, Peggy went
inside, and I felt the hair on my neck bristle.

'Ah'll meet ye at the other gate Auntie Peggy,' I said,
and made to hurry along the road.

'Naw hen,' she replied, 'C'moan in wi' me,' and with that
she put an arm around my shoulders and propelled me into
the graveyard. I was horrified. She knew I was scared of
the place and I couldn't understand why she was doing this
to me. I fixed my eyesyjn the the wall that separated the
cemetery from the road and tried to calculate how quickly
I could get over it, but again Peggy had other ideas.

As I hurried on, she dawdled, stopping to read the
headstones on the way, and all the time I was struggling


147


to keep my nerve and not bolt for home. I was torn; I
knew I had to take care of her and go slowly because she
was pregnant, yet every fibre of my being was screaming at
me to run. I was angry with her, and the longer she took
the angrier I became. She looked up at me as though she
had heard my panic and laughed softly, then she put her
arm aout my shoulder again and hugged me to her. I was
almost crying with the confusing mixture of emotions, fear,
anger, hurt - feelings I wasn't used to having about Peggy,
all mixed up with the closeness, the oneness, I always felt
with her. Then to my huge relief, we left by another gate,
and without a word of explanation from Peggy, we made
our way back to the house. McAvoy was there when we
returned. He looked at me. 'His she no' goat a hoose o'
her am?' he asked Peggy, 'She's aye here.' Peggy glanced at
him and replied, 'You kin talk when it'syour hoose she's in!
She's merr right here than you!' I was amazed; I had never
heard her answer him back, but she'd been tetchy all day.

Later, back home in Halgreen again, I told Nan about
Peggy's detour through the cemetery, and she was as
puzzled as I was. There was no one buried there that Peggy
had known, she hadn't after all been raised in the area, there
were no schoolfriends in it and no family either.

'Wis she wearin' that green coat?' Nan demanded, narrowing
her eyes suspiciously, and I nodded. 'Ah shoulda
burned that green coat!' she said with conviction, as though
this explained everything, and Skip laughed.

'Did that green coat shove Peggy in the gates?' he asked
in exactly the same suspicious tone of voice that Nan had
used, 'That green coat's a bad bugger, a sneaky bugger! It
aye goes lookin' in graveyairds so it dis!' He had narrowed
his eyes too and was squinting about theatrically. Nan tried
not to laugh but she couldn't help it.
'Ah jist don't like green!' she protested.
'Christ aye, we a' know that!' Skip laughed, 'Yur a' the
same you Proddies, ye'd like the grass better if it wis blue,
or orange mibbe!'

'Ye know whit Ah mean!' Nan was chuckling, but still
trying to stand her corner.

'Aye,' replied Skip, 'Ye jist don't like green! Ye tellt us!'
In the cold light of Drumchapel, it seemed funny and we
all laughed.

Skip's greatest, and, perhaps, only talent was laughter
and he could convert almost any situation into hilarious fun.
This was a perspective the Clarks lacked; because they cared
more deeply, they often took the world more seriously than
was good for them.

Nan's superstition was already the subject of one of Skip's
favourite jokes against her. Once his sister Norah, the family's
self-appointed psychic, dragged Nan off to a spiritualist
meeting. Nan wasn't happy as it was, but her discomfort
had been increased when the medium had approached and
told her she had an aura. Giving a detailed description of
Da Clark, he urged Nan to come back to receive a warning
message from her father. Nan was petrified and came home
white as a sheet, but Skip was merciless and Nan's aura
became a fixture. 'How's yer aura the day?' quickly became
one of his sayings, 'Watch oot noo,' he'd say as she went
downstairs, 'Don't fa' an' break yer aura!' In company he'd
suddenly announce 'Did ye know ma wife's goat an aura?'
He'd then go on to describe it, 'It's a wee thing, aboot so
high,' he'd say solemnly, holding his hand a couple of feet
off the ground, 'It's orange of coorse, wi' six legs an' it's
covered in blue fur. It disnae bark or growl, it sings "The
Sash". Bit it's a pedigree aura ye understaun', nae rubbish
. . .' Given his way with Nan's aura, her thing about green
was mincemeat.


Nan's dreams went on, and curiously, the more manic her
behaviour became, the quieter Peggy grew. We saw her not
only on a Saturday but also whenever the mood moved
Nan, and although the two of them talked they didn't
seem to communicate. I would watch these two women,
who together had raised m, looking from one to the other
as they spoke without connecting, trying to put my finger on
what was wrong. Sometimes it seemed I nearly understood,
then it would slip away from me before I could grasp it. In
turn I would feel Peggy watching me, and smiling quietly;



148

149


as if she knew that we were all three of us part of the same
restless, waiting, waking dream.

The loth of May 1959 was my eleventh birthday and
Peggy's pregnancy continued. She was now a week overdue
and and as the month wore on she suffered the traditional
remarks of, 'Ye still here yersel'?' 'No' better yit?' with
her us.ua! quiet, good humour. Nobody in those days
referred directly to the baby or to childbirth; pregnancy
was regarded as an illness that was cured by the totally
unexpected appearance of a baby, and even that much was
talked of in hushed tones. Children were left to understand
by osmosis that the baby was inside in the growing stomach
of a pregnant woman, and if this was actually mentioned by
a child it was treated with great embarrassment. So hidden
was the whole subject that I can remember wondering where
babies did come from, because by the reactions of the adults
around me, they obviously couldn't come from where they
obviously did. If that wasn't the baby inside Peggy, I
wondered, what was it and where then was the baby?

Monday the 25th of May was a public holiday and Nan
had decided we were going into town together. Then she
changed her mind and we ended up in Peggy's house. It
was unusually hot that May and Peggy was sitting by the
window, her folded arms resting on a small table in front of
her. The sun was streaming through the window, putting
her face in shade and lighting the outline of her curly hair
in a fuzzy halo as she turned towards us. She was very quiet,
becalmed in the final days of a long pregnancy that had tired
and drained her even without the hot weather to help. So
she didn't see us out, and we stood by the living-room door,
winding up the conversation before we left.

'See ye oan Saturday,' Nan said, 'If yur still here that
is!'

Everyone laughed.

'Cheerio Auntie Peggy,' I said. There was about her an air
of fragility, of vulnerability and reacting to it I impulsively
ran across the room to hug her. Everybody laughed again.

'Cheerio hen,' she smiled, holding me so that our two
cheeks were crushed together, 'Ah'll be seem' ye!' ;

150

"-"-.


I rejoined Nan at the door and together we looked at
Peggy, not seeing her smile because of the sunlight, but
feeling it. Walking down the road to the bus stop I saw
tears running down Nan's cheeks. I didn't say anything; I
was by now used to all sorts of bizarre behaviour. Over that
week her nightmares continued unabated and the weather
remained too hot for comfort.


The following Saturday my mother suddenly decided that
Peggy's baby was arriving, and much earlier than usual I
was rushed along the road to begin the journey to Blackhill.
Nan was very bright, her eyes shining.

'How dae ye know?' I asked, because we had no phone,
few people did in those days.

'Ah jist know!' she replied cheerfully, and caught up in
her excitement I could hardly sit still on the bus.

As we went in Peggy's door we were met by an aunt, one
of the'Fair Yins'.

'It's Peggy,' she said.

Nan and I looked at the closed bedroom door.

'His she hid it yit?' Nan asked, 'Is she a' right?'

As Nan sank slowly to the floor I was already moving
away, our different movements in unison, triggered by
the same knowledge. The aunt's arms closed around me,
holding me so tightly that I could hardly breathe. I felt
a terrible force rushing towards me, something was going
to happen and she wouldn't let me go. So I punched
and kicked, trying to get to the outside door, desperate
to escape before it found me. I didn't hear the words, I
felt them coming at me from a long, long distance before
they were actually said, if indeed they were. In that split
second I knew that Nan knew, had known all along, and
I felt totally betrayed by her.

Out the door and leap down the eight back stairs to the
backcourt. My ankles hurt with the jarring impact, but run on. Run! Across to the midden and dive behind the
dustbins, lie flat among the garbage. Stop now to listen for
them coming after me, only I couldn't hear anything because
there was a thudding in my ears, drowning everything out. I


151



turned my head to left and right then back again, but I could
still hear only the pounding. Through a gap in the concrete I
could see an illegal bookie paying out in the corner close, his
minder at his side. The crowd milling around him seemed
to be miming; heads thrown back laughing, arms waving,
all normal except no sound apart from this thudding in my
ears. The demons of hell were after me, the same demons
that had pursued Nan all these months and I had to escape.
Had to!

I crept out, zig-zagged between the air raid shelters and
into a close to the left and sat down till the noise in my
ears cleared and my chest stopped hurting. Think. Think! It
was Saturday. Everybody came to the house on Saturday, so
Uncle George would be here later. All I had to do until then
was find somewhere safe to wait, somewhere the demons
wouldn't think to look for me; so that ruled out the playpark
and the pond.

Beside the bus-stop was an old ruined house that the
local kids knew was haunted, we used to dare each other
to go inside. The crisis had exorcised the ghosts, so I made
my way there. I didn't think about anything, only waiting
for Uncle George, that was all, not why. Hours must have
passed, I was cold but it didn't matter; it was growing
dark and he still hadn't come off any of the buses. Then
I saw him, standing on the platform of an approaching 102
trolley-bus. I ran to meet him.


'Hullo wee yin,' he smiled, jumping off before the bus had
stopped, 'Whit ye up tae?'

'Jist muckin' aboot,' I told him. I kept my eyes from his;
if he read my eyes it would give him a clue and that might
make it come true.

He looked at the grazes and the dirt on my clothes. 'Hiv
ye been fightin' or sumthin'?'

I shook my head. He put out a hand and touched a
long scrape down my arm. 'Christ hen, ye're freezin'
cauld!'

'Ah'm a' right Uncle George.'

'Ye comin' in wi' me?' he asked softly, beckoning with

152

his head towards the house. I shook my head again, still
looking down.

'Well, don't stey oot here too long eh?' He stood looking
at me, puzzled. 'See ye then,' he began to move off, his
cigarette half-raised to his lips.
'Don't go in there Uncle George,' I said.

'How no' hen?'

Thur sayin' daft things,' I replied, still looking at the
ground.

'Daft things? Who ur? Whit kinna daft things hen?' He
stared at me for what seemed like hours, then his face
seemed to freeze. 'Is it Peggy hen? Oh Jesus Christ! Is it
aboot Peggy hen?'	i

The cigarette fell from his hand and he was running
towards the house, the words still hanging in the air where
he'd been. Later, as I watched from my cold sanctuary, I saw
him set off to look for Skip, who was drinking somewhere.
Uncle George was a 'Dark Yin', he had always looked
like my mother; now he looked like the shadow she had
become over the last few months. He had become part of
the nightmare. Maybe it was true then . . .

Hours passed and he came back alone; Skip always knew
how not to be found when engaged in his favourite pastime.
We met up with him again as usual in High Street on our
way back to Drumchapel. The 'Fair' aunt had come too
because my mother was in such a State, which enabled me
to sit well away from them on the bus, untouched by what
had happened. I don't know what words they had used to
tell Skip, I had walked away to look in a shop window, but
my mother had collapsed again.

It was then decided to take her to the aunt's house for
the night, because it was nearer and she couldn't have made
the long journey to Drumchapel. At this news I threw an
uncharacteristic tantrum. I hated staying in other people's
houses; no matter what I always had to get home and
especially on that night, to reclaim some kind of normality.
So though I knew I couldn't win, I cried and screamed
in protest. Nan was mortified that I should create such
a scene, but I didn't care. I felt totally detached from


153


everyone in the world and couldn't have cared less about
Nan especially. She had known this was going to happen,
had known it for months and had pretended she didn't.
Well the nightmare was of her making and she could have
it, I'd take no part in it.

Next day I sat as far away from my parents as possible on
the bus home to Drumchapel and concentrated on the 'big
hooses' I had first seen the day we had moved. As usual I
gazed down the road that led to Notre Dame, trying to see as
far along as possible before the bus passed and it was out of
sight. At the Drumry Road bus stop I ran ahead of Nan and
Skip and up into my bedroom. Laurie came in to ask why
we hadn't come home last night and I ignored him. Later I
heard Skip's voice in the room next door that Laurie shared
with Mickey; it was muffled through the wall, but I knew
what he was telling them by the tone. I climbed into bed
and hid under the blankets, imagining myself somewhere
else until it was over.


That Sunday morning we quickly changed our clothes and
then returned to Peggy's house, where I eavesdropped as
snippets of information were passed in whispers from one
shattered relative to another. I wasn't being chased anymore
I decided, the demons had after all accomplished their work,
but if I kept my eyes down I discovered that I became
invisible. That way I could hear without being told and
could thereby not know if I chose not to. Only if I lifted
my eyes would someone reach out to me, only then would
I become part of their awful reality.

Peggy had apparently gone into labour on Saturday
morning and the doctor had been called, but he wasn't
there and a locum had come instead. In fact 'he wisnae
a real doacter', and Peggy had screamed all day. The
doctor had locked the bedroom door and only opened it
to demand more towels and sheets. Maw Clark had to knock
on neighbours' doors and ask for any they had when her own
had been used up. I overheard her telling someone that 'the
screamin' stoaped aboot four,' and she had gone out into the
street and stopped two passing policemen.

154

The doctor who 'wisnae a real doacter' had refused to
unlock the bedroom door, so the two policemen had broken
it down, and when they saw what was happening inside they
had sent for an ambulance. Peggy was barely alive by that
time; the towels and sheets had been used to soak up a
massive haemorrhage. At the Royal Maternity Hospital at
Rottenrow she was taken straight to theatre in an attempt
to save her unborn baby, but it was found to be already
dead. Fifteen minutes later, so was Peggy. She was two
months short of thirty-seven years old.

It was easy to avoid my mother over the next couple of
days. She was locked in her own private world, but her
eyes were docile now instead of frantic and her voice flat
calm. It was like the end of a storm. Family activity centred
on Peggy's home, now oddly quiet and empty, despite the
rooms overflowing with people, and to my great relief they
had little time for me. Now that Peggy was about to return
once again to the room where she had suffered and died, the
mirrors in the house were covered in keeping with tradition.
This was to prevent her spirit seeing its own reflection and
deciding to remain in the house. The white sheets covering
the windows were a symbol of cleansing against the pollution
of her death. It added to the unreality of the situation and
helped me reject all of it. Nothing made any sense.

I spent most of my time on top of the old red-brick air
raid shelter in the backcourt, out of reach of anyone, twelve
feet above the ground. I lay on my back on that Sunday,
determinedly concentrating on the clouds that were bringing
an end to the hot spell. Some people see castles and things in
clouds, but I never did; clouds were fine enough illusions in
themselves. As I lay there, bright shafts of sunlight broke
through, Peggy's 'pathways to heaven' and I told God what
to do with them in no uncertain terms, and what I thought
of Him just as candidly. I used every 'bad word' I had
ever heard. 'Bastard!' I yelled, 'Swine! Git! Shite! Pig!',
and then to make sure He knew I meant business, the
ultimate insult, 'DRUNKEN IRISH PIG!' There was a
sudden commotion and the door to Peggy's house burst


155


open. Uncle Willie bounded down the stairs and was noisily
sick in the backcourt, then he sank to his knees and wept,
his forehead against the grey stone of the tenement. On
top of my refuge I calmly turned my head away and my
attention back to the sky; whatever was happening was part
of the adults' world. None of it had anything to do with me
and I didn't want to know . . .

Orr the Monday I had to endure a visit to a shop to buy
shoes for an event I had no intention of attending. I still
hated Nan and wouldn't talk to her or make her lot any
easier if I could possibly help it. She tried coaxing me into
conversation, but all I wanted was to be left alone forever.
And I didn't want her rotten shoes either.

'There's a nice perra black patent yins,' she said, 'Try
thaim. Ye know ye like patent yins,' hinting at the famous
shoe quest when she had sent me with Peggy, who had
been warned to buy only good, serviceable school shoes
for me. 'Don't let hur talk ye intae anythin' fancy,' Nan
had ordered, and Peggy had nodded firmly, full of resolve.
We came back with a pair of bright-red patent shoes
with ankle straps that fastened at the front with a single
red button, and they made a clicking noise as I danced
along the pavement. Sitting on the trolley bus on the
way home to Blackhill I had kept my feet stretched out
in front of me in case someone stood on my beautiful,
magical shoes. As I stared at them in wonder Peggy
laughed and kept repeating, 'Yur ma wull kill us, ye
know! She'll kill the baith o' us stone deid when she
sees thum!'

If Hughie was the only adult who understood about
black-face soap, Peggy was the only one who understood
that just once in every girl's life she needed bright-red,
patent shoes that clicked when you walked. I became Ginger
Rogers; for the duration of the red shoes I danced along the
streets, the shoes didn't allow walking.	'"

I wore the red shoes long after they fitted comfortably,
and one day the local priest stopped me as I tapped along
the pavement.

'These are awful red shoes ye have,' he said in his soft


156

Irish brogue. I wondered what he meant; awful red, or
just awful?

'I suppose your Proddy mother let you have such vain
things?' I hadn't a clue what he meant; they were red not
vain, whatever that was.

'Naw,' I answered proudly, 'Ma Auntie Peggy, bit she's
a Proddy tae!'

The priests always had a go at my Proddy relatives, who
they knew for a fact were hellbent on destroying my good,
pure, Catholic, eternal soul. Well, eternal as long as my
Proddy relatives didn't win that was.


'Jist try thum,' Nan pleaded, holding the black patent
shoes.

'Naw! Nawl' I shouted at her. I was behaving in a way
that I had never dreamed I was capable of, but there were
no boundaries any longer. Normal life had been suspended.
Nan bought the patent shoes anyway, no doubt hoping to
win me round. Next day, as I climbed the midden and
jumped up onto the air raid shelter, I deliberately scraped
the toes of the new shoes along the bricks. Then I lay down
to concentrate on the sky, which was thankfully dull and
overcast; God had taken the hint, not a pathway of sunlight
to be seen. From there I could keep an eye on the comings
and goings at Peggy's door, mainly callers in Brogan's vans
delivering flowers. I remembered the Brogan's van that was
always parked in Frankfield Street, on the route between
Acrehill Street and Moodiesburn Street when we still lived
in Blackhill. It had a huge basket of flowers painted on
one side, and I used to run over, 'pick' the flowers and
present them to Peggy when we reached her house. To tease
her sometimes I pretended to forget and she would say,
'Where's ma floors then?' Then I would hand them over;
it was our private game, our little bit of nonsense that no one
else knew about, except Nan of course. Now Brogan's vans
were bringing Peggy flowers that she would never see ...


From the door I heard a cousin being dispatched by an aunt
to find me.


157


'Yer waantit,' a voice said from below.

'Beat it!' I growled.

'Ye'd better come doon ur yur fur it!'

I jumped down from all of twelve feet, landed on my
cousin and thumped him about the head.

'Noo beat it!' I snarled, and climbed back up on the
sheltef. He lay below crying, 'Yur daft you!' he shouted,
'Yur daft! Everybody knows it tae! Ma mammy says ye
don't care aboot Auntie Peggy, yur jist oot here playin' a'
the time because ye don't care!' I made to jump down again
and he got up quickly and ran.

'Your mammy's a "Fair Yin",' I told him, 'So whit dis
she know aboot any thin'? You go back in an' say ye cannae
find me ur Ah'll get ye later!'

As I lay back down on the shelter roof I could hear him
in the distance, obediently reporting that I was nowhere to
be found.

Later I made another invisible sortie into the house to
keep tabs on the situation. The 'fair' aunt pounced on me.

They'll be takin' yer Auntie Peggy away soon hen,' she
said, 'Dae ye waant tae see hur?'

'Naw.'

'It's a' right hen, it's no' frightenin' nor nothin'. It's jist
like she's sleepin'.'

'SHUTUP! NAW!'

Her hands were coming towards me as I backed off in
panic, making for the door and pushing past Uncle George
as I ran, my aunt's voice protesting behind me.

'It's no' right! That lassie meant a lot tae Peggy! She
should be made tae pey her respects insteeda playin' ootside
a' the time!'

'Leave the wean alane!' Uncle George's voice was low
and angry.	f

'An' she tellt me tae shutup tae!'

'Ah said leave the wean alane, ya stupid bitch!'


158


Chapter Twenty-One


From the top of my shelter fortress I could see movement
out of the corner of my eye. Cars had arrived at the front
of the house, and with a growing sense of panic I felt reality
closing in. I wasn't ready for this; I'd thought I could keep
it at bay by ignoring it, but it was happening anyway.

Still trying to maintain my cloak of invisibility, I slipped
off the shelter and ran through a close at the side. A crowd
had gathered outside Peggy's house, blocking the whole of
Moodiesburn Street. Keeping my eyes down I found a way
through and suddenly came upon my uncles and McAvoy
carrying the coffin out of the close-mouth.

My instinct was to turn and run, but before I could I
realized that though I was only inches away from them, they
couldn't see me. I was totally detached, watching as though
I had no more part in this than the huge throng of onlookers
all around us. The muscles of Uncle George's pale, drawn
face were working furiously, the way they did when he was
trying to keep his temper. He stared at the ground, the
coffin resting on his right shoulder, his eyes wet. Skip was
in front of him opposite McAvoy, and behind was Uncle
Willie, always the most emotional one, sobbing noisily, his
face awash with tears. Keeping in step, I followed behind
and watched them slide the coffin into the waiting hearse,
the only sound Willie's crying.

An eternity seemed to pass and from inside the house I
could hear Nan wailing as I watched the men pile flowers
around the coffin. Suddenly aware that time was running
out I instinctively put one hand on the coffin, the O'Brien
farewell, just to say 'Peggy, it's me!' As I did so a bouquet
fell off into my arms and as I put it back hands gently guided
me onto the pavement again. I put my hand against the cool


	159


glass of the side window, and as the hearse moved away I felt
it slowly slip across my palm. The car behind was filled with
flowers, tributes from people all over Blackhill that they
could ill afford. The whole community had turned out,
many of the women crying softly, and with quiet dignity
they saw Peggy off on her last journey.

The cortege didn't go into the nearby Riddrie Cemetery,
it was bound for some place I didn't know. I stood on
tip-toes to keep it in sight as long as possible, and as it
finally faded from view, I felt something in my other hand.
It was a single pink rose from the bouquet that had fallen
from Peggy's coffin. Later, when I showed it to Nan she
said the bouquet had been from me. She had ordered flowers
from herself and had asked the florist to send something
from me to Peggy. For some reason a bouquet of pink
roses arrived. 'An' know whit?' she said, her voice flat
and defeated, 'Peggy wis wearin' a long, white dress tae.'

I found that I no longer hated my mother, I realized that
deep down I had known all along too; how could I not?
And Peggy, watching me as I in turn watched the awful,
unstoppable tragedy being played out between the three of
us those last months, deep down did she know too? How
could she not?

I remembered that Easter Monday, only two short months
ago, when Peggy and I had gone on our odd walk to
Hogganfield Loch. She had been wearing Nan's unlucky
green coat tightly stretched across her stomach, and on the
way back she had made me walk through Riddrie Cemetery
with her. What had she been doing, I wondered, laying
ghosts for me? If she knew then that soon I would only be
able to visit her in a cemetery, did she also know it would
take me more than thirty years to bring myself to do so? I
took all those years to discover what had really happened to
her on Saturday, 30 May 1959. I didn't find her again until
I was an adult, older than she lived to be, standing by her
grave with a bunch of pink roses, saying once again 'Peggy,
it's me!'

While the men were at the cemetery the women removed
the covers from the mirrors and the white sheets from the

160

windows and prepared a meal. I was safely back on top
of my shelter again, and hours after the men arrived back
another car drew up outside the house. A tall, dark-haired
young man got out and I watched him knock on the door
and then walk in. There was a wild roar of raw animal rage
from inside the house and Skip emerged, pulling the young
man behind him. He pushed him into the car and shouted,
'Git oota here son, ur sure as hell ye'll git killt!' Later I
heard that the young man was the 'doacter' who had been
with Peggy. He had wanted to apologize, but Uncle George
had come within a few feet of killing him.


The day after Peggy's funeral I went back to school. Nan
had written a note for my teacher explaining my absence;
I didn't read it as I normally would have because I didn't
want to know what it said.

'Your aunt died in childbirth,' the teacher said, 'That
means she would go straight to heaven.'	. ?

'She's a Proddy,' I stated, defiantly.

'That doesn't matter. If she died having a baby she would
go straight to heaven.' I thought she was the stupidest
person I had ever come across.

'Would you like us to say a prayer for her?'

'Naw.' Like every other child in Scotland I usually spoke
Lowland Scots outside and 'proper English' at school, but
none of that mattered anymore and 'proper English' could
go hang itself, along with this silly woman and her prayers.
First I was supposed to be grateful that Hughie had gone to
her heaven and now Peggy; if I ever came across this heaven
I'd blast it to hell with the biggest gun I could find. Later it
was noticed that I was withdrawn and quiet and the Parish
Priest, Father Sheridan, was called in, the same one who
gave me my First Communion.

'We're going to say a prayer for Margaret O'Brien's aunt
and her wee baby who died last Saturday and are now in
heaven watching over us,' he announced to the children,
and I walked out of the class and out of the school. It was
the only time in my life that I 'plunked' school.


161


With the eleven-plus over we were assembled in class and
handed out notes with the name of our next school. I knew
mine said Garnethill Convent; it was the alternative to Notre
Dame for those who weren't quite good enough or rich
enough. For a moment the thought surfaced that I'd tell
Peggy on Saturday, then I remembered that I couldn't.
There jvas a deep, black emptiness that stretched as far
as I could see and feel and imagine . . .


162


Chapter Twenty-Two

The months after Peggy died passed somehow and are etched
on my memory like an endless tunnel of pain that left the
Clarks unable to think or act coherently. There was no
conversation save for the occasional reluctant syllable when
there was no alternative, and everyone seemed locked in their
own distracted silence that didn't connect to any other.

There was no fatal accident inquiry into the circumstances
of the death, as there undoubtedly should have been. Though
the family were aware that there were questions to be asked,
they were unable to summon up the strength to ask them.
George, who had struggled with his emotions all of his life,
now descended deeper into a preoccupied anger that he never
truly emerged from, and Nan floated without direction, lost
without Peggy.

At first we still visited Moodiesburn Street every Saturday,
where McAvoy and the children continued to live with Maw
Clark. There was no plan, we went because that was the
pattern of our lives. Saturdays meant returning to Blackhill,
it was that simple. I hated those visits and stayed outside
the house as much as possible because there just wasn't
any reason to go there any longer. Within a few weeks we
stopped.

There was no way through the huge, awful void that Peggy
had left, and the paralysis spread to everyone so that they
simply could not function normally. There would be no
recovery because the injury was too massive and life would
never, ever be the same again.

On what was to be our last visit to Moodiesburn Street,
though we didn't know it at the time, Maw Clark gave me the
decoration that had stood on the top tier of Peggy's wedding
cake. In 1953 I nad waited outside the Proddy church and


163


handed over a silver horseshoe to Peggy. To that small extent
I had taken part in Peggy's wedding. I was also Peggy's
favourite; perhaps Maw considered the cake decoration to
be an appropriate memento. In the years since, it had stood
at the top of the living-room press, the cupboard where the
special china was kept, on the little triangular shelf formed
by the wy the press was built across the corner.

It had' started out as a sugar bride and groom on top of a
latticework dais, but Skip had made a cardboard horseshoe
to stand behind the bridal couple, and painted it white and
silver. It's an O'Brien trait to gild the lily, but it fitted in
with Peggy's liking for all things extra-fancy, and she had
been delighted.

I took it home to Drumchapel and examined it in my room.
It had lost its sharpness over the years, the little figures
seemed to have melted when you saw them close to. I didn't
want it; it was a symbol of how, when and why Peggy's life
had become a nightmare, so I smashed it to bits then threw
the bits in the fire. I never, ever wanted any reminder of
Peggy's disastrous marriage. To this day, whenever I see a
decoration on top of a wedding cake, I can't help thinking
of that one and what it signified. When I married, I decided,
there would be no wedding cake.


Nan gradually withdrew after giving up the pretence of the
Saturday visits, and by Peggy's birthday in August she had
become a recluse. There were no more family gatherings;
no decision was taken, it just happened. It was as though
the heart and soul of the Clark family had been ripped out
by Peggy's death and Nan's withdrawal, and the rest of
them then withdrew in turn into their respective families.
The pain of losing Peggy was intensified by being together
without her, and it was simply more than they could bear.
Peggy's name was never used again, except as a means
of fixing time. In the same way as people talked of events
happening before or after the War, the Clarks talked of events
before or after Peggy died, but she herself became a closed
subject. Her laughter, her kindness, her gentle good humour
and her hopeless romanticism, and by association the loss of


164

these, became banned by an unspoken, mutual agreement.
Better, they decided, to pretend that she had never existed
than to accept her death, and Nan's self-imposed exile
handed them another brick with which to build a wall
around their collective pain.

It became accepted that 'Nan isnae well,' and therefore
wasn't to be upset. They would cite this as a reason not to
see her, because she did become upset at seeing them, as they
did at seeing each other. Grieving together would have been
the healthy way to deal with the pain, but it hurt too much.
In that manner they contrived not to face it, and so it would
remain a raw wound within them forever.

Nan, at barely forty years old became a shadow of herself,
nervous of people, afraid to go out and cut off from her
family, and so it would remain for the the rest of her life
until her death at sixty-one. Nowadays her symptoms would
be recognized as the grief of bereavement, but in the late
fifties and early Sixties there was no diagnosis for what she
was going through and therefore no treatment.

Skip was incapable of understanding what had happened
to her because it was so foreign to his own nature. He was also
incapable of getting help, even if he'd thought of it. Nan was
the help-getter and always had been. Worn out with years of
coping with the effects of Skip's drinking, she was now hit
by the biggest blow she had ever faced. There was no one to
turn to. Peggy had been her solace and support all of their
lives, and Peggy had gone forever.

Had I been older I might have helped, but I was only
eleven. With my brothers so much older and starting independent
lives of their own, I was left to run the house, look
after myself and my mother. I remember waiting for Skip
to take over, but he never did. His life in fact was easier;
he could stay out as long and as often as he liked, drink as
much as he pleased and come home or not as he chose. Nan's
attempts to bring order to his way of life had imposed some
boundaries in the past, howyer weak. Now these were gone
and he had a daughter to step in as housekeeper. He wasn't a
bad man, he was a child and children think only of their own
needs. Just as I had, till then . . .


165



Chapter Twenty-Three


Garnethill Convent came as a shock. Instead of the leafy,
genteel avenues of the West End where Notre Dame was
situated, Garnethill was a seedy, red-light area in the centre
of the city, deprived in ways that Blackhill would have been
ashamed to stoop to. Leaving the bus from Drumchapel at
the main road, there was no alternative to the uncomfortable
walk through the Garnethill streets to get to the school.
There were in the city two shops that sold porn magazines,
and I would walk miles to avoid passing them. There was
something about the men who hung about outside that made
me feel a kind of sick fear, and if I had to pass them I dreaded
it all the way there and felt incredibly relieved when it was
over. Walking through Garnethill gave me the same feeling;
I never became accustomed to it and had to steel myself
for that walk to and from school every day. If the nuns
had come here to convert sinners I decided, then they had
failed dismally.

The nuns were called the Sisters of Mercy and there again
they failed dismally to live up to that description. One,
Sister Annunciatta, carved her way through the children
by lashing out at bare legs with the long, leather strap that
hung from a belt around the nuns' waists. You could always
tell where she had been from the weals on the children's
legs, her own peculiar version of 'Excuse me please.' It
always made me laugh to see the outsized rosaries falling
from around the sisters' waists, accompanied by the thick
leather strap, the sole intention of which was to beat the
hell out of children: the perfect picture of their Christian
values, suffer little children to come unto me, and by God
you'll know you've arrived!

The headmistress was Sister Aquinas, a pale, skinny


166

Irishwoman of indeterminate age, with the palest blue eyes
and thin lips which I never once saw break into anything
resembling a normal, human smile. She had chosen to teach,
and her starting point was the belief that all children were
intrinsically wicked, evil, wily and permanently engaged
in finding ways to sin. Her philosophy for dealing with
her unfortunate charges, therefore, was simple: always be
suspicious, always believe the worst regardless of evidence
to the contrary, and always punish hard, whether warranted
or not. I had her for English for one very long, hard year.
While other teachers tried to draw from me any hint of
imagination Sister Aquinas did her best to bludgeon to
death any spark of creativity I had. Anything I produced
was returned blue-pencilled to death and accompanied by
detailed critiques in her tiny, pinched script, informing me
that all my ideas and thoughts were 'sinful'.

'Kindly remember,' she wrote on one of my compositions,
'that your body is a temple created by God and must be
treated accordingly and not defiled.' I didn't have a clue
what she meant then and I still don't; I can only imagine
she had been secretly reading Lady Chatterley's Lover and
somehow got it mixed up with my innocent meanderings.

Eventually I worked out the kind of thing she wanted
and wrote a morally uplifting piece of candy-floss about
a straying Catholic returning to the fold. She loved it; it
was the nearest I ever saw those martyred features and
that thin, bloodless mouth get to a genuine smile. Having
satisfied myself on her level of literary appreciation, I never
descended to it again, and thereafter she should have bought
shares in whatever company specialized in blue pencil
production. She couldn't understand what had happened,
kept saying I had shown that I could do good work, so why
did I persist in producing such offensive material? For one
so versed in the evil workings of children's minds it always
surprised me that she nevert realized my sole intention was
to offend her.

Another of Sister Aquinas' great obsessions was the
monarchy. It was, she said, the Catholic church's last
bastion against communism and we all had a duty to


;::	I67


Yport it. This was an amazingly generous endorsement,
  the prohibition on Catholics succeeding to the throne,

Vt I loved to point out to her whenever she had worked

,.self up to her usual emotional frenzy when giving her

yi-communism lecture. In her bid to keep the monarch

Mr to our hearts she kept a large, regal portrait of Her

Ujesty outride her office, and had the task of turning

VHght-side-out or wiping a moustache off it, depending

'' which mood I had been in when I passed by. Once

nanaged to hide it under the school altar in the main

'Aembly hall. There, addressing the entire school, but

Sking directly at me, in her truly Christian fashion she

lled down God's curse on whoever had taken the portrait,

d all the while it was no more than three feet away from

t.r. What she didn't know of course was that God and his

iVses held little fear for me. He had done all he possibly

;'mld to me already and I had survived. After a fashion at

iy rate.

She also set herself up as a censor, telling us what books
Jot to read and thereby ensuring a rush on them. DH
Ivawrence was right out, the man being morally depraved.
obert Burns was a fornicator and a Proddy, and James
'oyce was even worse. Not only was he a Catholic, an

rish Catholic, but he was filth personified, though it was

iever quite clear where she stood on this issue. She could

lever make her mind up if being an ordinary Proddy was
Worse or better than being a filthy Catholic, so she did the
ecumenically correct thing and heartily hated and despised
them all, which managed to take in most of humanity. She
seemed to me the opposite of the Irish people I had grown
up among, a joyless, life-hating mutant, an O'Brien gone
warped, and I couldn't resist taking her on.

'Have you read any of these books?' I would ask, 'And
are you, a bride of Christ, now corrupted?' Her rage was
a delight to behold.

'So Hitler was right?' I asked on another occasion when
she was in mid-tirade against some other literary transgressor.

'Yes he was!' she spluttered. She was, without doubt, the


168

maddest, saddest, most repressed creature I have ever met,
and she used to say that she had to be especially hard on me
because I reminded her of herself at the same age. Apart
from being a gross slander on me, this was, on reflection,
a pitiful declaration of self-loathing, and the poor woman
clearly needed more help than she would ever get in the
convent, or from me.

Every now and again, when she could restrain herself
no longer over one of my many indiscretions and was in
danger of seriously attacking me, she would send for my
father. After she had recovered HM's portrait and her world
was thus safe once more from the influence of Marx, Lenin
and Trotsky, he was summoned to listen to the details of my
latest heinous crime. To my delight he put on his 'humble
Irish Catholic' routine, which was almost as amusing as his
sand-dancing.

'Bit Sister,' he said in deferential mitigation of my
misdeeds, 'Hur mother's been ill recently.'

'My mother died when I was ten!' she raged, 'And I had to
look after nine younger children!' This explained her hatred
of children to my utter satisfaction.

'But Sister,' I said, 'You grew up to marry God, you're
a saint, while I'm just a half-Proddy heretic.' Beside me I
could hear my father trying not to laugh as Sister Aquinas
performed spontaneous combustion.
'Your grandfather would be ashamed of you!' she seethed.

'Well that's OK,' I replied, 'I've always been pretty well
ashamed of my grandfather as it happens. The Catholic one
anyway.'

Later my father said reflectively, 'Ye mibbe went a wee
bit too faur there.'

'She's off hur heid,' I replied, 'She deserved it.'

'Aye,' he mused, 'Right anuffF As I said, he wasn't a
bad man, just a rotten father, but every now and again he
got something right.


When school finished at four o'clock I would have to rush for
the bus home and then immediately set off in search of the
mobile grocery van that was prepared to give us tick. It had


169


stopped outside our close earlier, but Nan wasn't able to get
downstairs to it and anyway, she was so nervous of people
that her speech wouldn't have made any sense to them.

Finding the van was pretty hit and miss, because I only
had the vaguest idea where it would be at any given time,
and there was always the fear that I wouldn't find it. If I
didn't,jthen we didn't eat unless Nan had managed to keep
a little cash back, which in those days was unusual. If there
was money I would have to walk to the nearest shops some
two or three miles away, join in the long queue and then
walk back. At that time Nan could still manage to work
around the house and to cook, but slowly she stopped
doing even that. I found that I had little time or energy
left for homework, and though I started out in an 'A' class
at Garnethill, before long I had slipped down the 'B's.

Nan's withdrawal meant, of course, that she couldn't
buy clothes for herself or anyone else, so I took that over
too. The only way we could afford anything was with a
Provident check, which was made out for a set sum, five
pounds perhaps or ten pounds, with weekly payments plus
interest, paid to an agent who called every Friday - pay
night. The week's debts to the mobile van were settled then
too, so though Friday night felt like money night, it wasn't
by the time everyone was paid off.

Only certain shops accepted Provy checks and the goods
in these shops were inferior and more expensive than
elsewhere. So I found out early on how the poor are kept
poor and felt the shame creeping over me if a shop didn't
display its Provy sticker and I had to ask. If the assistant
said 'no' then I felt even more ashamed to have revealed
our poverty.

I was very young and at an age when I needed a mother
to guide me and look after me, but instead I was looking
after my mother. Nan took no part in buying my first bra
for instance, in fact by that time I was buying hers, and
no part in the agonies of puberty. She never asked about
my periods and when they arrived out of the blue I was
terrified but knew I couldn't confide in her. And of course
there was no one else any longer for me to go to, so I learned

170

from other girls at school, trying all the while desperately
to put two-and-two together from the usual playground
half-truths, and pretending I knew it all already so as not
to look a fool. Looking back, it was the most confusing and
dismal time of my life, more so than it usually is for any girl.
I used to wonder why it was all happening and if it happened
to others, and if it did, how come they coped so well?


M



171


n


Chapter Twenty-Four


We called Mickey's new friends the Crowd. They were
part of a working-class movement to get into the hills
and countryside during the depression of the 19205 and
1930s, when most were unemployed and penniless. Until
then the outdoors had been the preserve of the gentry.
With cheap transport and short working hours for those
who had it, even shorter for those who didn't, and nothing
to fill the endless days, the countryside became accessible
to all. For the natives of Clydebank, the Old Kilpatrick
Hills were the starting point, then the 'Bankies as they were
known gradually moved further afield, forming the core of
the movement.

Laurie had followed Mickey's escape route out of Drum
chapel and our weekend hell to join the Crowd by the hills
and the lochs. As soon as he had served his time as an
engineering apprentice, Laurie had joined the Merchant
Navy. Shortly afterwards Mickey had married at twenty
four. He had spent very little time with our family and had
got out as soon as he could, marrying one of the Crowd. I
was thirteen at the time and that's my first clear memory
of Rab, my future husband, though I had been vaguely
aware of his existence before that through stories I'd heard.
Mickey and Rowena had married in a Registry Office and
then had a ceilidh at her house afterwards instead of a
wedding reception. My grandmother had been invited, but
luckily she didn't stay long, because if she wasn't the centre I
of attraction she didn't hang about. If she had staged one
of her dying swan acts in front of the Crowd they would
have stepped over her and continued with the ceilidh. We
had songs and chat, and sleeping-bags were put down in a
separate room for sleeping off the effects.


172


It was 1961 and I had shopped for new clothes then
managed with great difficulty to get my mother out of
our house and settled down at the ceilidh. As the crowd
assembled and the festivities started, she wanted to know
one thing, 'Which wan's Rab?' I pointed to him standing
against a wall, whisky glass in hand, and at that moment he slowly slid down onto the floor, one of the things he was
most famous for. It was odd to think of my mother sitting
there being entertained as I wondered how we could keep
her calm among all the people. A few years before she would
have run this show and revelled in it, she and - no, that era
was all finished.

At five o'clock the next morning I was trying to persuade
someone out of a sleeping-bag so that I could get in, when
a voice said, Take mine.' It was Rab, the master of
sliding down walls, and I gratefully accepted his offer.
'Fool!' I thought, as I snuggled down in the warmth he'd
left behind and leaving him shivering on a couch I fell
instantly asleep.

I had my first taste of how good weekends could be after
that. Until then the Crowd were just names that I heard
occasionally, but Laurie was home on leave for the wedding
and he bought me my first pair of hiking boots. From
somewhere I acquired a cast-off rucksack and an old
sleeping-bag, and one Friday in late September we took
a bus together from Buchanan Street to Drymen. From
there we caught another to Balmaha on Loch Lomondside
then walked the seven miles to Rowardennan, where the
boatshed stood.

The shed was owned by the Scottish Youth Hostels
Association and had as its commodore a little man called
Freddy. He was English and looked it, with his long khaki
shorts and knitted bobble hat, and he was unfortunately
unable to pronounce his 'r's. So Fweddy he was to one
and all, including himself. There was a strict rule banning
sleeping in' the boatshed, a rule made to be ignored, as
indeed it was. So sleeping-bags were laid out on the floor
between the canoes every weekend when the Crowd were
in residence. Many a snap inspection was carried out by


i?3


Freddy to make sure no one was sleeping in the boatshed, wich of course they were. He never seemed to figure out what to do about this blatant flouting of the rules, so basically he did nothing and he therefore was held in S0lie esteem by everyone, even if his authority was totally
ored.

. . Thaf first Saturday morning we paddled up the loch to
'°lli another party who were camped halfway up, at the
p jor's Land. Then later we all paddled to Ptarmigan's
P °int at the head of the loch and camped there. I remember
f as in the front of a double canoe, the first time I had been m a canoe in my life, as Laurie steered from behind. I was w.earing one of his sweaters and the water that flicked off nis paddles had soaked the arms, making them trail in the water. I was wet through, my arms and hips ached from the
accustomed exercise of paddling and I was more tired
n I had ever been in my entire life. While Laurie put tn tent up I sat by the camp-fire with Ronnie, who had
Srwn up with the wall-sliding Rab in Clydebank, as he mde up a curry. I had never had a curry before either, and even if I had it wouldn't have been anything like this
Pne. He just threw everything he had into a pot and tossed m an eye-watering amount of curry powder. I was tired, so"e, wet, cold and hungry and I wolfed the curry down
Stefully. I remember Ronnie watching me from behind his
flck glasses and shrugging as I devoured his concoction, as
JUgh no one had ever done so before. Later I discovered tnt no one had . . . and why.

The deer were rutting and the night air was full of the
tjoaty barks of stags; it was late to be at the loch. I
ttnk Nan had agreed to my going in the expectation that 1 ould hate it, but if that was her plan it back-fired. I was cattivated. It wasn't just getting away from the especially awtul weekend drinking bouts of my father, it was the S1nce of the loch early in the morning that hooked me, a ilence so loud I could hear it, and it was the Crowd,
f schologists say that if you have bad family experiences it 18 Possible to offset the damage through a substitute family
grup - and that's what the Crowd was. I was the youngest

i?4


by some years and was therefore treated as a younger sister,
but one who was accepted and quietly protected, much more
than I had been with my natural family.

The only problem for me was my brother Mickey. I was
always on trial with him, over-conscious of what I said, did
or looked like. He was forever on the lookout for something
to criticize about me, and his sarcasm could be stinging. He
even had Skip's frown of impatience, and whenever I made a
mistake there it was. The others in the Crowd often stuck up
for me when he zoomed in on one of my many imperfections,
laughing and telling him to leave me alone. It was as though
I only existed in Mickey's eyes as a reflection of himself, and
he saw me as a constant embarrassment.

It was many years before I saw that he acted as he did
because of his own insecurities, but even if I had realized
it at the time I could have done nothing about it because
of my own. Behind me was the great, yawning wound that
Nan had disappeared into and all I had to do was look out
of the corner of my eye to see it clearly. My life had become
a constant struggle not to be swallowed up too, yet no one
else seemed aware of this and, therefore, of the effect it was still having on my life. I suspect that it would anyhow have
come under the heading of 'pull yourself together', whether
I could or not.






175


Chapter Twenty-Five


Laurie married six months after Mickey, only his wedding
to Ellen, also one of the Crowd, took place in a Catholic
church. It seemed to me again to be an attempt to win
Skip's approval, at least in part, though I'm still not sure
if Laurie realized it at the time. I found weddings a drag,
I was never a creature made for ceremony and protocol,
and a Catholic service provides lashings of both. The
Crowd assembled afterwards at what was a fairly traditional
wedding reception, and Skip maintained tradition too, by
disappearing to the nearest pub so that he could drink at
his own speed.

For Nan the very long day had held more terrors than
the more homely, relaxed wedding ceilidh that Mickey
and Rowena had chosen. She regarded Laurie as her
weakest cub, the one who had to be given extra care and
consideration, so she was already more on edge. None of
this deterred Skip from abandoning her among strangers
though, which made me so angry that I went to the pub to
drag him out again to support his wife. It was raining when
I found the place and even my resolve and anger were held
in check by the convention that females, particularly young
females, did not enter pubs. Then I heard Rab's voice.

'Where ur ye gaun?'

'Ah'm gaun' tae drag that auld swine oota there!' I replied,
'He's left ma mother sittin' at the reception by herself!'

'Leave it,' he said quietly, 'Ah'll get him oot.'

He went into the pub and then came out again, saying
that one of the Crowd would bring Skip back to the hall.
Then he took his jacket off and put it around my shoulders
and walked with me up the road in the rain. I didn't know
how to react to this. Giving me his sleeping-bag at Mickey's


176

wedding was one thing, but his latest gallantry puzzled me.
What puzzled me even more was my own reaction of no
reaction. I was used by now to having to rely on myself.
After thirteen years of living with the reality of Skip, there
were no fairy-tales in my mind about men and chivalry.
To say that I could be prickly if patronized would be
an understatement, yet I accepted Rab's protection and I
couldn't have explained why, not even to myself.

After his marriage Laurie took to his in-laws with a
vengeance, they were the best people who had ever drawn
breath apparently, and we saw considerably less of him. It
was understandable, of course, he had escaped and now he
had a fresh start with a new family where he had never
been hurt or found wanting. We all do what we must to
survive.


Garnethill Convent was suddenly interested in world politics.
The reason was simple; in 1960 John F Kennedy was
elected and in 1961 he had been sworn in as President of
the United States. JFK was a Roman Catholic!

I was in Art class when news of the election result
was conveyed to the entire school by a specially selected
messenger who ran round every room. I sniggered and the
Art teacher assumed I was smiling with pleasure. 'Yes,' she
said, 'Isn't it wonderful? A Catholic President!'

In fact I was quite taken with JFK but like most of
America I had to overcome anti-Catholic prejudice to keep
supporting him. Here was a politician who seemed to listen
to what young people said and thought, who rehabilitated
idealism while the older, supposedly wiser lot shook their
greying heads and told us we'd grow out of it eventually.

None of this mattered to Garnethill though. To them he
was simply a Catholic and could therefore do no wrong.
During the 1960 campaign, while old Joe Kennedy wisely
trusted in securer methods like buying votes, Garnethill was
offering daily prayers for JFK's success, and on that cold
January day in 1961, when he was sworn in, the whole school
was allowed home earlv.


i?7



My favourite teacher at Garnethill was Miss Johnstone. She
taught Geography but had been forced to teach English as
well, a subject at which she did not shine. We all grew up
caught in the dichotomy of language, speaking standard
English to teachers and the Glasgow version of Lowland
Scots to each other and at home. Miss Johnstone though had failed fe absorb the particular rules governing this and spoke
her own peculiar pidgin version that strangely encompassed
the two. 'I'm giving oot forms about the school trip,' she
would announce, 'And I waant youse to take them home,
fur tae be signed. Youse'll see that the train has a buffet,'
which she pronounced as in 'tuffet'. To emphasise her little
local dialect difficulty we of course spoke to her only in the
best BBC English.

Miss Johnstone was a tiny, bird-like soul of about sixty,
with badly dyed blond locks and thick glasses. The
glasses put her at a disadvantage when it came to applying
make-up and nothing ended up where the fashion magazines
recommended. Lipstick was applied lop-sided, halfway up
one nostril on one side and nearly to her chin on the
other. Eye-shadow was always a disaster, landing anywhere
between her forehead and nose, and we avoided a lot of
work by helping her sort it out. There was about her a
disorganized, distracted air, as though she was permanently
in a rush to be somewhere else, and her black academic gown
invariably hung off one shoulder and trailed on the ground.
She would come in determined to work very hard, after a
lesson the day before had deteriorated into a beauty session
instead, then someone would produce a new eye-liner. 'Noo,
put that away,' she would say, full of resolve, 'We huv goat
to work today!' 'But it would suit you Miss Johnstone,' the
devious one would say, 'I bought it specially for you!' 'Oh
well,' she'd say, her eyes by now glued to the item, 'Mibbe
jist a little look, and then we must git back tae the lesson!'
We could have sent Miss Johnstone out into the world like
a painted hussy, but the truth was that we were fond of
her, and though we frequently distracted and teased her,
we wouldn't have hurt her.

Another ploy we used was to muse out loud about


178

the number of unmarried teachers we seemed to have
at Garnethill. 'Funny how all our teachers ended up old
maids,' someone would say with a theatrical sigh, Tm sure it
wasn't because nobody fancied them,' another would chime
in, 'I mean some of them are still quite passable . . .,' Miss
Johnstone knew what we were up to, but she could only
take so much before launching into a spirited defence of
her feminine attributes. 'Ah've hud my chances!' she would shout, 'Don't you worry hen! I have hud them lining up oot
there! A twinty-inch waist I had, and a perra - a figure like
an oor-glass!'

She married a farmer when she was in her sixties, the
widower of a friend, which provided us with unlimited
entertainment. 'Did you always fancy him Miss Johnstone
- sorry, Mrs Crane? Did your friend know, or did you
keep it secret?' She would get herself into all manner of
predicaments trying to explain that love had blossomed
amid the pong of manure only after her friend had shuffled
off, and were we suggesting that there had been something
going on while her friend was still alive? No, no, we'd saw,
we just hoped it wasn't on the rebound for him in that case,
and it was a pity she had to settle for someone secondhand,
that was all ... she had had all those suitors waiting in
line, unused so to speak, a bit of a come down . . . And
was she having any, you know, difficulties adjusting to
married life? 'Like whit?' she would demand, eyeing us
suspiciously. Well, it must be difficult adapting to certain
things at her age, doing certain things that she hadn't done
before, or that we presumed she hadn't done before when
she was Miss Johnstone, especially as Farmer Giles had been
used to having certain services for so long . . . "Whit do
youse mean?' Well, cooking for more than one, for instance,
washing smelly socks; why, what had she thought we meant,
what else could we have meant,? Next day she would deliver
a little sermon before work,,started; she was having no
distractions today, she knew iexactly what we were up to
and she was having no more of it. 'You're looking tired this
morning Miss John - sorry, Mrs Crane,' someone would
remark, 'I don't know what you've been up to, but look


179


at those shadows under your eyes!' 'Noo, I'm no' having
that!' she would smile slyly, thinking she was right on top
of the situation, 'I know whit youse is up tae . . . shadows ye say?' A make-up bag would immediately be produced and the rest of the lesson would be spent repairing her ravaged
countenance. It never failed.


V
At home life continued. Nan became more settled in her

isolation and Skip, more entrenched in his drinking. I went
away every weekend possible, after Nan said she didn't
mind. It was of course exactly what I wanted to hear, and
I'm ashamed when I look back now and imagine what her
weekends were like. She would be alone with the TV while
Skip was out drinking, with no one to talk to and nothing
to do, and when he came in he would be in whichever
mood the booze had produced. That was how she would
spend the days and nights when I was away enjoying my
freedom, enjoying missing what she was forced to endure.
If I felt guilty at the time I can't recall it, being away ws like breathing fresh air for the first time.

Skip's family was dying out now and more than once I ws
required to attend the funeral of someone on the O'Brien
side that I had never met because of one of their many
feuds. O'Brien funerals were fun though, totally unlike the
other one I had gone to in 1959, the one we never talked
about. Then Uncle Pat died. Inevitably, after all the years
he and Hughie had lived and fought together, he too had
contracted and died of TB.

Their sister Norah was there in a flash, laying claim
to everything in the house, each item being apparently
tailor-made for some niche or other in her own home. In
fact, if she wasn't very much mistaken, this or that, and
probably both items had been long-promised to her. The
remaining O'Briens exchanged disapproving glances but
said nothing; there was more than one way to sort Norah
out after all, and they knew them all.

Uncle Tommy arranged the funeral, and after what was
known in O'Brien talk as the creamy-tartar and to other
mortals as the cremation, he assembled the survivors to go


180


over the financial details. At the end of the discussion he
slapped a half-pound slab Of lard on the table in front of
his sister.

'An' that's fur you Norah ' he said

The Tommy? Whit fur?'


'Well Norah,' he said with relish, 'Ye claimed everythin'
else, so we thought ye might as well hiv whit wis left when
we burned him tae!'


After the laughter and jollity of the funeral, something
happened that was to scar my relationship with Skip forever.
Coming back later that night with a long-lost cousin, Skip
walked with him into the Crystal Bells pub, a favourite
O Bnen haunt in the Gallowgate, leaving me outside.
There was no warning, So j had no chance to protest.
It wasn't the safest area to leave a thirteen-year-old girl to
stand alone and it was getting dark. I was already feeling
scared and humiliated, when a man suddenly came out of
the pub and tried to talk to me. I ignored him, my heart
thumping, and to my great relief he walked off, but then
turned again to watch me from a short distance away. I
was desperately watching the pub door, hoping Skip would
come out, willing him to come out, but even when the man
came nearer again I had absolute certainty in my mind
that nothing would happen. He wasn't watching me, I was
imagining the whole thing. Only, I wasn't.

He grabbed me from behind, his forearm across my
throat, and dragged me backwards through a close and into
a derelict tenement. I have heard of women fighting bravely
to protect their honour, but with me it was blind panic, not
a thought-out response. As I fought against hirn, some mad
desire to keep my dignity stopped me from screaming. Some
Clark point of decorum told me I had to get out of this not
lust alive and as unharmed as possible, but without drawing
attention to myself. The only reason I got away from the
man was because he was drunk and that had made him less
coordinated than a panic-stricken, teetotal girl.

I immediately ran into the pub, unheard of behaviour
for a female of any age at that time. Everyone turned and
stared in sudden silence as I entered. The cousin had gone


181


and Skip was drinking alone. He looked up, calmly drained
the remains of his whisky into his beer, drank it and walked
out with me. As I told him what had happened he said
impatiently, 'Ye know no' tae go intae a pub, yur auld
anuff tae know better than that!'

I tried again to explain what had happened, but I was
wasting my time. He had no intention of listening or of
going after the man. Instead he kept walking towards John
Street, where the Drumchapel buses left from, all the time
keeping up a perfectly normal, but one-sided conversation
with me. He went over the events of the day, laughed at the
jokes and insults, made comments of his own, and carefully
edited out any reference to the minor fact that his daughter
had been attacked and assaulted while in his care.

I couldn't think of anything to say. My mind whirled with
the twin shocks of what had happened to me and Skip's
surreal reaction to it. Then gradually I felt the physical
things, like the bruises and gashes. My clothes were ripped
and torn and my hands were stiffening up because the skin
across my knuckles had been scraped off; my knees were
grazed and the hardened, dried blood stood out like shiny rivers down my legs. There was blood running down my
throat from my nose, and over my chin from my split lips,
and one eye was so swollen that it was closed. As Skip
ignored it all and fell asleep on the bus, I could see my
reflection in the window and could well understand why
the other passengers looked at me curiously. My obviously
distressed appearance also explained the sudden silence
when I ran into the pub earlier. As we got off the bus to
walk the short distance to Halgreen Avenue, Skip made his
only reference to the incident, then or ever. 'Ye'd better tidy
yersel' up,' he said disapprovingly, with that characteristic
frown expressing his distaste, 'An' we'll tell yer Ma that ye
fell doon the stairs oan the bus. Nae point in upsettin' hur,
is thur?' No; no point at all really . . .	:

Just as in the earlier incident with his old drinking pal,
my uncle's father-in-law, I felt ashamed, but not this time
of myself. I was ashamed that this man was my father.
Curiously, all his life he liked to pretend that there was a


182	n;ii

special bond between us, but if there was, it was a bond of
shame forged during those terrifying incidents. I found it
impossible to meet his eyes after that time, because I had
such contempt for him. For the rest of his life, whenever
we talked about anything, I always thought of the assaults
with a kind of furious wonder that he had managed to wipe
them from his memory.

Adult perspective later brought some understanding,
though I have to say no forgiveness. To have taken the
incidents seriously he would have had to address the cause,
which was his drinking, and to have done that would have
threatened the man's very existence. He was an addict, he
needed booze to live, and everything else came after that.
This included the health and well-being of his wife, the care
of his family and the protection of his child. Somewhere in
his soul I think he knew this, and he didn't have to see the
contempt in my eyes to know that it was there, because I'm
sure he held himself in the same contempt.

Like any child I had a right to better. The world may
not have owed me a living, but Skip owed me care and
protection, and I never got it. Though all my life I have
tried to be logical and place the blame where it belongs, my
self-esteem has remained dented by those assaults and the
fact that Skip didn't care for me as much as he cared for the
bottle. No matter what happened later, regardless of what
I achieved or what others may have come to think of me,
the shame and the guilt of being so debased and worthless
in the eyes of the first man in my life, somehow linger on.


':;.


183



Chapter Twenty-Six


Garnethill had its share of sexual incidents too. The area
around the school was frequented by prostitutes of both
sexes and the ugliest, least convincing transvestites I have
ever encountered. Because of this there was a constant
police presence and we were encouraged by the Sisters to
report any suspicious characters we saw hanging around.
Unfortunately, when we did so they invariably turned out to
be undercover policemen, and we then embarked on games
of'spot the polis' instead. This prompted a request from the
police that leering convent schoolgirls should desist from
sidling up to their officers and offering them a good time.

The Sisters had a curious mixture of attitudes towards us.
On one hand we were pure, innocent, vulnerable Catholic
maidens who had to be protected from men at all costs,
because men were evil. On the other hand we were scheming
madams, who given half a chance would tear off our chastity
belts and fornicate in the middle of the street whilst wearing
a school tie. Regardless of which was true we had to be
kept away from any temptation of the male persuasion
and convinced that men were the enemy. The image they
tried to create for us was of men as sexual time-bombs,
ready, willing and able to explode into sexual activity at
any moment and without much encouragement. We were
therefore advised not to make eye contact with any male,
anywhere at anytime, and not to wear patent shoes, lest the
creatures caught sight of the reflection of our knickers and
be inflamed beyond control. It was little wonder really that
Convent schoolgirls had the reputation of being sexually
active at the earliest opportunity and promiscuous with it,
there being no fruit so sweet as that which is forbidden. And
there was another embargo that I have never understood,


184

on whistling, which for some reason made the Virgin Mary
cry . . .

On one occasion, the Sisters seemed to be proved right
about our 'wickedness'. There was a flasher in the cobbled
lane between the school and the convent who was somewhat
surprised, it must be said, to attract an avid audience
shouting, 'Show us yer willie!', 'Fling it ower yer shooder!',
Ts that the best ye kin come up wi'? and other such
maidenly encouragements. Out came the Sisters of Mercy,
whipping everyone in sight with their belts, including the
unfortunate star turn, who was attacked with such ferocity
by these paragons of virtue that he would certainly have
been rendered unable to raise as much as a smile for some
considerable time, if ever. They beat the holy bejezus out of
the poor creature and he limped off, bent double and with
grounds for charging the Sisters with GBH at the very least.
This incident gave Sister Aquinas a most welcome, and some
might say a Godsent, opportunity to become quite flushed of
face and hoarse of voice from denouncing the lustful, sinful
nature of the male of the species, and it was noticeable that she did so with unnecessary frequency. I never did discover
if she had personal experience of the male transgressions that
she spoke of with such eloquence, though it was not for the
want of asking. Taking deep offence she would then send
for Skip, to remonstrate with him about the sexual nature of
my questions, which from every point of view was a bit like
taking coals to Newcastle. Apart from his contribution to
my knowledge of the subject, wasn't he, as a representative
of the lustful, sinful crew the wrong person to stop such
questions?


I was as much a puzzle to the other girls at school as they
were to me. It was the swinging sixties after all and they
spent all week talking about boyfriends, pop music and
fashions while waiting for the weekends to get to discos.
I went through my weeks waiting for the weekends too, to
get out of the city and off with the Crowd. Every Friday
I took my hiking gear into school and come four o'clock
I changed in the toilet into trousers, boots, anorak and


i8s


rucksack and dashed down to Buchanan Street to catch
the bus. My schoolmates considered this to be bizarre in
the extreme and never shrank from telling me so. Needless
to say I found their preoccupations every bit as bizarre, but
then, I had been too well brought up to say so.

During the summer months we headed for Loch Lomond
and theeight mile walk to where the boatshed stood. Inside,
the canoes lay in tiers along both sides of the long shed,
supported by wooden struts. At the top was the stove,
that roared so loudly that from the outside the boatshed
looked and sounded like an enraged, wheel-less, abandoned
steam train. Inside there were two tables covered in leftover
paint from numerous canoes, and painted on them in bright
blue were the words, 'WUR TABLE' and 'PEASANTS'
TABLE'. We still laid our sleeping bags on the floor
between the serried ranks of canoes, except for Ronnie,
who slung his hammock from two beams above.

We went away for the peace and to act the fool where
civilisation couldn't protest. My favourite time at Loch
Lomond was very early in the morning, when the silence
and the light had a special quality that seemed to extend
the senses. I would creep over the sleeping figures, like
giant, snoring maggots, and make my way to a rock beside
the water and there I would sit until sounds of life came
from the boatshed. A maggot would shuffle and hop onto
the pebbly shore and collapse again, having been kicked
enough times to make it move out of the way, or needing
to escape the smell of cooking.

Once Rab, the wall-slider, who was a shipyard worker in
'real life', lost his way in the forest. In his befuddled state
all the man knew was that he had to keep going upwards,
because the loch could become suddenly and dangerously
deep in parts and he was a non-swimmer. He was discovered
next morning, twenty feet up a Caledonian Pine, fast asleep
across a bough, and an animated discussion took place
underneath about how the best use could be made of this
diversion. Some suggested yelling loudly in unison so that he
would fall out in shock before he realized where he was, and
though this plan held undoubted attractions it was decided


186

to leave him alone, after taking photos, of course. There
wasn't the slightest chance that anyone would climb the tree
to save him, in fact the possibility wasn't even raised. When
he finally made his way down no one mentioned where he
had spent the night and neither did he, until the photos
were developed.

Rab's main contribution to the Crowd was to cause
furious anger and severe irritation whenever possible. Every
topic was debated around the camp-fire for however long
it took, and the disagreements were bitter and noisy. Rab
would start out with a belief that was guaranteed to be at
odds with the majority and at the end of several hours
of serious discussion he would say with a grin, 'Ah don't
care, Ah still think the same!' He did this even when
his argument had been comprehensively demolished and
proven invalid hours before. He had never been known
to change his mind on anything, so he was a constant
challenge that the others couldn't resist. Invariably the
night would end with frustrated oaths being screamed
into Rab's impossibly smiling face, as we all crawled
into sleeping bags at 4 a.m. There was no doubt about
it, the man understood about scoring points and he won
every time. I went away every weekend hoping he would
be there and would be disappointed when he wasn't. I felt
this about other favourites, but though I thought nothing
of expressing my hopes or regrets about them, I kept quiet
about Rab.


187



Chapter Twenty-Seven


Just after New Year's Day 1962 Uncle Willie turned up
in Drumchapel; I opened the door and there he stood.
It seemed a lifetime since I had seen him - but then it
was. We greeted him with delight and settled down to
a night of laughter and jokes. Skip put a record on our
ancient radiogram, an old 78, and Willie said, 'Ah like
that!' Skip said 'Dae ye Wullie?' removed the record from
the turntable and smashed it over his head. Willie smashed
one over Skip's head, and so the evening continued until we
had a heap of black jagged shards on the floor and Willie
was laughing and mopping up the tears. Sheer vandalism,
in fact, and we lost a lot of the records I had learned to
sing to. Hours of my childhood I had spent by that old
radiogram, duetting with Mario Lanza in 'The Drinking
Song' from The Student Prince, John McCormack singing
'Danny Boy' and of course, 'Red Sails in the Sunset'. Now
they were all gone in one mad evening.

It all ended in tears, of course, because it reminded us too
clearly and poignantly of similar occasions in years gone by.
When the bottle had been spun and the party-pieces trotted
out, the thought in each head was of the song that wouldn't
be sung, that night or ever. 'Mexicali Rose' would never be
heard again, but it hung there more strongly than those that
were. We always recognized that the sentimental words had
fitted Peggy perfectly, but since her death they had taken
on a deeper significance. 'Mexicali Rose, I'm leaving . . .
Mexicali Rose stop grieving.' They echoed through every
heart and mind, so that we each withdrew deeper into our
separate shells with our memories.

During the evening I heard Skip complain to Willie in
a serious tone that I wasn't up to scratch as a housewife,


188

that I didn't devote myself entirely to scrubbing floors for
instance. 'It's a' fits an' starts,' he said, in the tone of a man
sure of getting support for his complaints. 'Fur Christ's
sake Laurie,' said Willie angrily, 'She's only a wean, she
shouldnae be daein' hoosework at a'!'

At the end of the evening he and Nan clung to each
other and wept. It had been an all too painful, bittersweet
reminder of life once upon a time and it wouldn't be
repeated.


Sometimes, however, my godmother, Auntie Annie, came
to see us and occasionally there would be a spur-of-the
moment visit from a group of three or four of the family,
in a desperate attempt to recapture what they had lost.
She stood there between them all though, the one who
would never be there again, and no matter how exciting
and happy the reunion had been, there was a sadness, a
shared poignancy at the end, and no words were needed
to explain why. Once my brother Laurie's wife asked who
Peggy was. 'I keep hearing about before she died or after she
died, but who was she?' To my amazement I found myself
giving her the Clark treatment, by behaving as though she
had made an unfortunate social gaffe. From Nan there was
icy silence as she turned her head, staring into the distance,
and I had to force myself to reply, 'She was an aunt, Nan's
younger sister. She died young.' It answered the question
she had asked, but it didn't begin to explain the raw, painful
world that we had been trapped in since. Somehow there
were no words for that.

Shortly afterwards we heard that McAvoy had placed
Peggy's children in care. The two boys went to Quarrier's
Homes at Bridge of Weir and the girl to Eastpark Home in
Maryhill because of her handicap. It was the final twist of
the blade. The only person who could have coped with the
three children and would once have fought McAvoy for the
right to do so was Nan, and Nan was no more. She knew this
too and I watched her wilt further into herself at that time.
It was to be a guilt Uncle George would carry for the rest
of his life too, that he hadn't taken Peggy's children as his


189


own. But he shouldn't have blamed himself. He and Annie
already had three children all closer in age than Mickey,
Laurie and I, and he was just an ordinary working man with
an ordinary pay packet. Quite apart from that, McAvoy was
the only one with the right to make that decision and he
would never have let any of the Clarks have the children.
Rather fehan do so he chose to place them in institutions for
their entire childhoods.

For myself, at thirteen and too young to be able to affect
what was happening, I could only feel that I had let Peggy
down by accepting what was being done to her children.
Nothing had gone right for her in life and it seemed th.-t
even in death she wasn't getting a fair deal. Something
took hold in me then, a determination to get the kids out
of the institutions McAvoy had sent them to, a resolve to
put things right some day.


At Garnethill I was struggling. Looking after the house, Nan
and myself obviously took its toll on my schoolwork, but I
never told my teachers why I wasn't coping with work I was
really perfectly capable of doing. Keeping secrets is normal
life for the families of alcoholics and this was just one more.
To the Sisters of Mercy I was simply a non-trier, except in
English, History and Art, the subjects I liked.

Stressed in every aspect of my life I had subconsciously
decided to rely on the things I found easy, rather than
struggle with the ones I found harder or less interesting.
In a twisted way, too, I began to accept my position as fair
payment for the years of being feted as 'one of the bright
ones'. I had always felt acutely embarrassed by the glory I
received for excelling at what came naturally, when I knew
from my sufferings in Maths that it was possible to work
hard for little or no result.

By the third year I had gone down to a 'C class, much
to the annoyance of my English teachers apart from Sister
Aquinas who knew I read books voraciously and scored
consistently high marks in their classes.

My classmates had all been in 'C' classes from the start
and had been learning shorthand and typing from the first


190

year, regarded as only fitting for the lowest form of academic
life, while I had been learning Latin. Sister Aquinas had
reeled with shock and horror when I explained in first year
that I wanted to learn shorthand and typing too because
I wanted to be a journalist and a writer. My request was
denied with all the disgust she could muster, and the good
Sister could muster a lot. Two years on, those regarded
as natural low-achievers were thus better off than I, and
as I dropped Science, Latin and French, I had the gaps
filled with more English and Art. It seemed that just
like Granda Tom, I was escaping from my home life by
immersing myself in Literature and Art, and I became so
good at design and screen printing that the Art Teachers
and School Inspectors bought my work. Endless discussions
then ensued about whether my work was mine to sell, the
school's or the Education Department's. Not that it really
mattered, because characteristically I lost all interest in the
finished article and gave it away to whoever wanted it.

'I don't understand you!' I remember one of my Art
teachers saying, 'You have this talent and so many people
recognize it, but you don't seem to care!' I didn't understand
it either, but now I do. It was low self-esteem; whatever I
achieved wasn't up to much, because I wasn't up to much
in my eyes. If it was mine, it had no value. It was that
simple. For similar reasons I was doing what Laurie did
with his Maths ability, making it mean nothing because it
was my skill.

My excellence in a few subjects was enough to make me
top of the class, which understandably irked the others,
because I didn't compete at all in the subjects they were
good at. Looking back, it should have been obvious that
this was a bright child in some sort of trouble, but the
Sisters' minds didn't work like that. I was different from
the others and that was as far as their insight reached. The
aim of the other girls was right on target, to get married as
soon as possible to a good Catholic boy and to start a good
Catholic family with all due haste. This wasn't my ambition
and I resented the constant attempts to force it on me; I
resented the relentless religious bias of the school in a way


191


that the Sisters and the good Catholic girls understandably
objected to.

One week out of every year was dedicated to Nun Recruitment.
We would be subjected to non-stop propaganda about
what an exciting life lay ahead of us in a convent, a career
second only to giving birth to hordes more of the faithful.
We had talks in which we were urged to search the deepest
recesses of our souls for the merest shred of a vocation, and
endlessly shown films of nuns taking their vows at different
stages of the process. While the others found the wedding
ceremony, complete with wedding attire and gold bands,
but minus a groom, a thing of beauty, I could barely contain
my astonishment.

Missionary Nuns would arrive to tell us of their good
works among natives of various descriptions, and how
these people had been made into good Catholics as a result.
Couldn't the good works be done without conversions, I
wondered; was it strictly necessary to be a Catholic in order
to be saved from starvation? Soon they were warned to
accept no questions from the unbeliever, so that avenue of
discussion was cut off. I was only trying to cause trouble, I
was told, which suited the situation perfectly: for discussion
read trouble. For the hell of it I would seek out Sister
Aquinas and express an earnest belief in a vocation. She
would glare at me, as she had done the previous year, and
the one before that, and tell me that mockery was a sin,
for which God would surely punish me. I thought He had
already done so in advance, by sending me to Garnethill.

Newly ordained priests were regularly sent to us to get
used to being adored, but in reality it was a baptism of
fire. The idea was that we would anonymously submit
questions and receive replies wise beyond reason, and
these sad young lads would stand before us in their new
outfits, which were always several sizes too big, trying to
look confident, paternal and pious. It never worked. The
girls saw them as the nearest thing they would ever get
to human sacrifices and the double entendres flew. They
were only lads and the girls knew it, so they would
flutter their eyelashes, lick their lips, suck their pencils,

4

192

8"



wink - anything to put the new priest completely off
his stride.

I, on the other hand, had to take them on in earnest,
which spoiled the fun for the others. If the Pope was against the Pill for destroying human life, why didn't he
join CND, to stop mankind being wiped out by nuclear
war? By the time I got on to the holocaust and the blind eye
turned by Pope Pius XII, the fledgling had usually flown
to Sister Aquinas for protection against the anti-Christ. My
classmates were quite rightly furious, because they had
every right to their fun and I always cut it short, which
was my fun. Then I would be hauled before Sister Aquinas
and castigated for questioning The Will of God, which in
turn led me to question the existence of her God, leading to
the old argument about communism and the monarchy.

She beat me on the young priests, too, eventually, first
of all by censoring the written questions in advance to
eliminate the O'Brien ones, and then by banning me
entirely from attending the sessions. So instead of talking
seriously about serious issues, the young priests reverted
to being the sexual playthings of the good Catholic girls,
the girls enjoyed themselves again and all was right with
the world. Me? I went to Art or the library, which were
of course enormous-punishments to fit my terrible crimes,
and I suffered mightily.

Though Nan had no time for any religion, all of my
pagan thoughts were of course put down to my having a
Proddy mother, and prayers were frequently sent heavenwards,
entreating some saint or other to arrange for Nan's
immediate conversation to The One True Faith. Only then
would my good, pure, eternal Catholic soul be saved.

The Catholic faith permeated every subject and minute of
school life. Indeed it was the Maths teacher who was most
devout in her entreaties for Nan's conversion, more so than
in the teaching of Maths. Her method of enlightening us
into the mysteries of her subject was to write some obscure
formula on the blackboard and have us copy it down. If she
was asked to explain she would exclaim, T've just written it
on the board!' Little wonder really that she never succeeded


193

A



in having Nan turn into even a nominal Catholic. I'd go
home and tell Nan that any minute now her entire life would
change, that the divine power of St Someone-or-other was
about to strike, and she'd laugh uproariously.

At least twice a week the entire school would be marched
down ,to St. Aloysius church, where Granda Tom had
received his pantomime send-off, for whatever religious
service was in season. It became clear well before I reached
third year however, that if forced to attend I could, and
would, put on such a convincing performance of choking
from the pungent smell of incense, that I might well expire
from over-acting. A tacit agreement was therefore reached
that I could instead make my way to the nearby Art College
to watch the screen printing in progress. This left both the
school and myself to our own individual acts of worship, but
it really did annoy Sister Aquinas. Had she been a different
kind of Irish she would have understood the Game and not
let her annoyance show. There was no real satisfaction in
beating someone who didn't know about scoring points, but
I was so dismally unhappy at Garnethill that I'm ashamed
to say I took what little was available.


'lA


194



Chapter Twenty-Eight


JFK was killed in November 1963. Garnethill went into
mourning for a martyred prince of the church, cut down
in his prime. With hindsight there were elements of farce
and irony about the Sisters' reaction, because had they but
known it, JFK was an especially fine example of the lustful
male whose sexual appetites were out of control, the kind of
male they spent so much of their time protecting us from.

I was inconsolable; it felt like the end of the world, and
as I watched events unfolding on TV I identified with them
so much that I felt I was actually there. Even all these years
later and with Camelot uncovered as Shamelot, the memory
of those events still affects me. That JFK was just the same
as every other politician I have no doubt, in fact I now think
he was worse. A generation's ideals and the glimmer of hope
that JFK represented, that those ideals could be made to
count for something died that day on Dealey Plaza. I get
that same lump in my throat when I hear the old pacifist
folk song, 'The Strangest Dream', because it represents the
same age of innocence as JFK did to us then.

Everything that we know now about JFK wasn't of
course common knowledge at the time. He was a young,
handsome hero who had been cruelly murdered in front of
the world's appalled gaze. We were given time off school
to watch the funeral, of course, but Garnethill's reasons
for mourning JFK were not mine. I wrote a great deal of
very bad poetry about it, and won new respect from Mrs
Crane, nee Johnstone. It wa.so excruciatingly bad that she
thought it was good and at first refused to believe I'd written
it. Thereafter she regarded me with deference as a genius
and often asked me to read and explain the significance of
poems by real poets, as though I had something in common


195


with them. I got away with a lot, because she was not a
good English teacher and had very little understanding of
words, spoken or written. So I used to make up ludicrous
explanations that made a travesty of great works and she
agreed with every one.

It was a valuable lesson to me of how easily fools can be
made o look like sages. Since then of course I've seen it
happen many times. You only have to look at any area of
public life, especially the House of Commons, to see living
examples of that particular phenomenon.


I had my only serious illness in 1963. It started up at
Loch Lomond and at first it seemed like sunstroke. My
head ached all Sunday, but when I got home it eased off
and then on Monday it got worse again. Within hours
I was vomiting and light hurt my eyes. The GP arrived
and asked me to touch my toes, which hurt my back,
but I told him that it was the strain after a weekend
in the canoe. Luckily he listened to his own instincts
rather than me and diagnosed meningitis, and almost
before I knew it I was taken by ambulance to Ruchill
Hospital.

The Clark attention to dignity won out even in this situation
and I refused to be carried on a stretcher. Before the
ambulance arrived I struggled upright, washed and dressed,
and when the crew knocked on the door I walked past them
to the ambulance, leaving them in the house looking for
this seriously ill patient. Nan looked desperate, but still
she couldn't summon up the strength to leave the house,
so Skip went to hospital with me. Despite my bravado I felt
really ill in the ambulance, but Skip typically turned away
from me as we drove to the hospital, unable to handle any
human attempt at communication.

In the hospital meningitis was quickly confirmed, which
struck fear into Nan's heart. One of my cousins had had
it when he was a child and had been treated with the new
wonder drug, Streptomycin. In those early days the dosage
of the drug wasn't certain, and he got too much, destroying
his hearing and leaving him completely deaf for the rest of


196

his life. I only had the viral strain of the illness, but it was
bad enough. Within a week I was home again, but weaker
than I would have believed possible. I wasted what energy
I had getting angry because I had so little of it. During my
week in hospital Skip had been run off his feet doing all the
chores I usually did, and despite my weakness he instantly
and gladly handed them all back to me.


I went back to Garnethill for my fourth year to take my O
levels. The Education Department had given me a grant in
the form of a cheque to buy a uniform, and as we didn't
have a bank account Skip took the cheque to one of his
pubs to have it cashed; naturally that was the last we ever
saw of it.

I have no idea why Garnethill put up with me in what
was to be my final year. Skip had decided that as I would
just get married anyway there was no point in staying on
any longer. What he meant was that if I was earning he
would have more to spend on drink, but my mother, who
once would have fought such a nonsense, was no longer
able to do so. I remember looking at her for some sort
of reaction as he announced his decision, the three of us
knowing what he was really saying, but all she could do was
lower her eyes. Though she had long ceased to function
as the woman and the mother I had known, sometimes
I still had expectations and so was often disappointed. It
was illogical of course; like expecting her to live without a
beating heart. All of the problems she had were symptoms
and without diagnosing the source she would never get well
again, but facing the cause would be too painful. What if
she died from the cure?


At lunchtime one day one of the Crowd passed my school
on his motorbike and stopped to chat. I was aware of one of
the Sisters watching us, and assumed she was ready to attack
him if he turned out to be easily inflamed and exploded into
a sexual frenzy. Later I was told to report to Sister Aquinas,
who wanted to know who he was. She couldn't handle the
fact that he was a friend; males couldn't be friends, they


197


were sexual time-bombs or they were nothing. No other
kind of male existed.

'You were seen touching him!' she seethed. I hadn't a
clue what she was talking about, but then that wasn't an
unusual experience, as far as I was concerned she spoke
Sanskrit with a Russian accent most of the time.

Totoched him?' I asked, wondering if his masculine
powers stretched to hypnosis of a maiden in order to make
her unwittingly commit obscene acts in front of a nun.

'You put your hand on his arm!' she stuttered, 'Don't
deny it! You were seen!'

I could think of nothing to do but laugh, in fact I didn't
even think, I fell about in front of the wizened old crone
and shook with mirth. She didn't know it of course, but
the weekend previously, and many more before, I had
slept beside him and numerous more males, our sleeping
bags actually touching for hours on end! She didn't know
how to handle laughter, so she stomped up and down her
study, delivering a lecture on morality, then she ordered
me to go to confession. I'd had enough of her over the past
four years. 'Get burnt,' I replied, and walked out, fully
expecting, indeed hoping, that she would expel me this
time and let me out of the madhouse for good. But she
didn't; I have no idea to this day why not. Maybe I was her
challenge, sent by her God to test her, maybe she just liked
touching fire by associating with my extreme brand of evil.
But it wouldn't be long before she was rid of me and I of
her. As soon as I took my O Levels in English, History
and Art, the only subjects I now studied, I left Garnethill
forever.


198


Chapter Twenty-Nine


I didn't fight Skip's decision that I should leave school after
my fourth year because I hated Garnethill so much, so I
can't lay all the blame on him. Having said that though,
I know perfectly well now, as I did then, that any protest
would have failed.

Before I left I saw Sister Aquinas for the last time, by
accident on my part at least. She wanted me to consider
something: that those who are the strongest rebels often
have the strongest vocations and are trying to fight their
destiny. The shallowness of the woman's understanding still
surprises me and I'm more than old enough now to know
better. It was one of those occasions when I actually did have
the right reply instead of thinking of it later and wishing I'd
said it. 'See you in hell,' I said as I walked out.

The sad, not to say tragic, thing, was that a fair proportion
of my schoolmates did become nuns, most joining the Sisters
of Mercy, brainwashed by the false glamour that the nuns
deliberately projected. Most of them left later, once years
of their lives had been wasted in discovering that there
was no such thing as the much-vaunted vocation that
we heard so much about during the annual recruitment
week. In my opinion it was no better than the kind of
indoctrination tactics used by the Moonies, tactics the good
Sisters would rightly have condemned. Together with the
nuns' silliness, their insensitivity and dislike of humanity
in general, the wasted years of those young girls remains
my lasting memory of the unhappiness I associate with
Garnethill Convent.

Many of the girls who didn't become nuns married
quickly as soon as they left; one, a bubbly, vital girl called
Anne-Marie, married the following week. All through our


199


school years she had come in with gifts and enormous cards
from her boyfriend, for her birthday, Easter, Valentine's
Day, Christmas or whatever. I met her a few years later,
pushing a baby in a pram and holding a toddler by the
hand. She was nineteen-years-old. She appeared happy, but
all I felt for her was profound pity, and anger at those who
pushed Catholic motherhood as a gift from God and a duty
to Him.

There was yet another group who had always seemed so
much more worldly-wise than the rest of us. Their zest for
living had been held in check so long that any fool could see
the danger that it might one day burst forth with unknown
consequences. Girls like Jan, who had been at every school
with me since the days of the Marian, a slim, pretty girl who
knew it all. Her group were the ones whose skirts were just
that bit shorter and who wore make-up so discreetly that it
was undetectable, even to the nuns who had a sixth sense for
anything on their banned list. While the majority of the girls
lived for discos and dates, Jan's little group of sophisticates
had gone further along the path to adulthood and had left
such childish things well behind many years before.

I used to envy Jan and her little group their knowledge
of life, their easy acceptance of all the things that made me
feel awkward. They didn't experience puberty, their bodies
simply caught up with their existing mental maturity without
any apparent trauma or effort. They had no problems
with males, in fact they had mastered the art of manipulating
men very early on and had a confidence years beyond mine,
and certainly light years beyond anything the Sisters could
have dreamt up in their worst nightmares. For that little
group marriage and kids had never been an option, but
unlike me they hadn't made it a battle-ground; they had
simply served their time as quietly as possible until they
could leave it all behind them and start their adult lives.

As soon as they left school they disappeared into the
upper reaches of city life without any discernable pause in
the transition from the schoolgirl stage. Jan went to London
and became a model, and every so often I'd see that pretty
face with the secretly knowing expression smile at me from

200

the pages of magazines. Garnethill had done nothing for Jan
except contain her till the age of sixteen, but at least she
had survived it, she had made a successful life for herself
and done what she wanted. I had never been close to Jan,
she had always been too mature for me, even when we
were both eight-year-olds in Mrs McGettigan's class, but
I always envied and liked her and I was secretly pleased
that she at least hadn't fallen for the lies and become a
nun or a breeding machine. I had this mental picture of
Jan in my head for years; she was wearing black patent
shoes, staring men straight in the eye, and I could almost
hear her whistling!


In the Summer of 1964 I left school at the age of sixteen,
and we also moved away from Drumchapel, one of the worst
decisions for my mother. At 48 Halgreen Avenue she had
neighbours who, if not quite in the Balmano Brae class,
were as near it as possible. On the bottom flat lived Mrs
Boyce, who regarded the entire close as her own property
and dashed out to shoo away anyone who lingered on the
stairs for longer than she found acceptable. Across from
her were the Hannahs. Mr Hannah, as everyone knew, was
hen-pecked. He was a tall, thin man with steel-grey hair
and a quiet, long-suffering manner. Everytime he entered
his own home he had to take his shoes off at the outside
door, and we were all used to his wife's screams if he actually
touched anything inside. Then one day he disappeared and
we discovered that for years he had enjoyed a secret romance
with a much younger, and richer woman, and they had now
left together for a new life in Spain.

Mrs Hannah, now left on her own, showed no outward
sign of grief and continued in her houseproud ways, refusing
as ever to admit anyone into her shrine. No one noticed
very much that she hadn't been around for a while because
no one saw her normally, Then the smell alerted the
other inhabitants of 48 something was wrong. When the
police broke down the door they discovered that Mrs
Hannah had been dead for a couple of months at least.

On the first floor lived the Williams family. Mr Williams


201


was severely disabled but he still managed to father seven
daughters and only stopped when Mrs Williams' reproductive
life did. Next door were the Wilsons, who mysteriously
changed their name to Connor, which did nothing to improve the life of Mrs WilsonConnor, who was a slim,
beautiful woman of incredible sadness. Below us lived
the Billies, another family of girls, three this time, all
vivacious, dark females, one of whom was addicted to El vis
Presley and for some reason Rennies antacid tablets, which
she chewed like sweets. I don't know which aberration
amazed me most, though these days I certainly rank curing
heartburn above listening to Elvis.

Beneath Alexa Grimshank, on the third floor, lived
the Rankins, and it was Mrs Rankin's proud boast that
her husband had not been allowed his conjugal rights
since the conception of their fourth child fourteen years
before. Sexual relations were regarded by her as indecent,
and any respectable woman would be morally bound to
bring them to an end as soon as possible. She disappeared
too, under a huge coat that covered her from
head to foot, before she tearfully confessed to Nan that
at the age of fifty she was about to produce Rankin
offspring number five. Mrs Rankin never came to terms
with being caught out as a lying fornicator, much to the
amusement of the other women in 48, and made up all
sorts of stories to cover what she maintained had been
her only lapse in fourteen years of unblemished purity.
There were dark hints that she had been ravished, which
gave us all a new perspective on Mr Rankin, a quiet,
unassuming electrician in Singer's sewing machine factory,
who didn't remotely resemble Rudolph Valentine.

So 48 was a place where people still knew other people
to varying degrees, and when Nan became unable to
leave the house the other women continued to come to
see her and bring her up to date with the news. With
both Laurie and Mickey now married, the house was one
bedroom too big, but I don't know whose idea it was to
move out of Drumchapel. After eight years, the conviction
took root that we lived too far away from the centre of

202


Glasgow and were too isolated. If we lived within the city,
or so the argument went, the family on both sides would
visit more; Skip's argument I'm sure. My mother had a
different agenda of course, she hoped that by moving to
the city again Skip would come home more often. Nan
was still looking for Utopia. Both hopes were unrealistic
of course. After she heard that we were moving, Alexa
Grimshank sobbed every time she saw Nan, and on the
day we moved out of Halgreen she took herself off to her
mother's at the crack of dawn so that she wouldn't have to
see us go.


A few miles north-west of the city centre a new housing
estate had been built on the site of Mary hill Barracks. It
was a mixture of high rise and of the traditional tenement
blocks that existed in' Drumchapel and elsewhere. The
boundary wall of the Barracks had been retained, which
proved that whatever lack of judgement and imagination
governed the design of homes for people to live in, someone,
somewhere, must have suspected there were things from the
past worth keeping. Part of the old barracks' wall ran along
Wyndford Road, so in a ludicrous attempt to give the estate
an upmarket image, it was called Wyndford Estate, though
to everyone in the area and all who came to live in it, it was
known simply as The Barracks.

Twenty-four families lived in our block of one and two
bedroomed flats in Kirkhill Place, and we never came into
direct contact unless we met in the lift. There were no
young families, indeed most of the new tenants were OAPs,
so there was little life about the place, and none that could
penetrate the vast number of doors separating the flats. It
was like a maze.

The days of washing greens had long gone, but the
memory lingered on in the token provision of a small
area on the roof that coujd be used for drying clothes.
It seemed so unnatural, though, that no one ever used it,
and it was troublesome too because it meant going through
the inevitable labyrinth of doors, up in the lift and then
unlocking the door leading to the drying area. The flats were


203

heated by electricity that was too expensive to use for long,
and there was a large, heated airing-cupboard, like a huge
tumble-dryer without the tumble, that was equally costly.
If they didn't have washing-machines and tumble-dryers of
their own most people went to a laundrette. Comparative
affluence, it seemed, was bringing a breakdown in social
contatt in the city, but the collective folk memory remained
somehow, and the laundrette served as a meeting place for
those reluctant to give up that contact.

For Nan the move to Kirkhill Place was nothing short
of disastrous, because for a start Maryhill was an area
of the city we knew nothing about, it was as foreign to
us as Drumchapel had been but without the attractions
Drumchapel had at first. She knew no one and because
of the way the flats were laid out she got to know no one.
She saw no other soul and spent all of her time staring out
of the kitchen window as traffic and life passed her by two
floors below. When I went out her face was at that window,
and regardless of when I came in again, it was still there.
There were many pubs in the area, too many for Skip to
contemplate passing, so his drinking habits didn't change
significantly. He'd come out of work, head for a pub, hop
on a bus home and head for another pub. He usually slept
some of it off for a couple of hours before heading out for
the pub again in the evening. In some ways his frequent
non-appearances while we lived in Drumchapel had been
a blessing, because now he was just as drunk but he was
around more, and it was impossible even to think of bringing
anyone home. This of course bit deeper into Nan's isolation;
I at least met people during the day when I went out.

I often asked my mother why she had married Skip and
she'd reply, 'Ach . . .', and turn her head away; I don't
think she understood why herself. He had been looking
for a mother I think, and who better than Nan Clark, a
famed earth-mother? He was just another sad, lost child
who had found his way to Nan but unfortunately no
one had arrived to claim him back again. And how was
she to judge? She was seventeen when they married and
had no other relationship because he had always been

(r)

there, waiting, needing to be mothered. She hadn't a
chance.


The world it seemed wasn't wide open to receive a sixteen
year-old journalistwriter with O Levels in English, History
and Art, even if I threw in Mrs McGettigan's special
prize for composition into my application. It was all I
wanted to do, although my Art teachers had been keen
for me to go on to Glasgow School of Art to study textile
design. This would have meant staying on at school to
take more exams, which had already been ruled out, of
course. In any case, no matter how much I enjoyed Art,
it was never in the same league as writing. It was more
'something to do' when not writing. A pastime, not an
instinct.

By this time Mickey had built up a good career in medical
electronics and he mentioned that jobs were going in the
Eastern Infirmary. I had absolutely no hankering to do
hospital work, but it could bring in a few pennies while
I waited for my great literary skills to be discovered,
something even I had to concede might take a while.
Meantime I had to find money to live on, cash for the
necessities of life, like a tent, a groundsheet and some
climbing socks. When I turned up for the interview I
hadn't a clue what I was being interviewed for and cared
considerably less. If I got it that would be fine for a little
while, if not then something equally temporary would do.

The Consultant Cardiologist interviewed me with the
Hospital Secretary, who it was clear didn't matter greatly
in the proceedings.

'I see you went to a convent school,' said Dr Alexander
Cunningham, 'Presumably this means that you are of the
Catholic faith?'

'Does it hell!' I replied, 'It means that my father is. I
had no choice in the matter of where I went to school but I
see no reason why I should take his religion any more than
his politics. It's bad enough that I'm lumbered with his
Irish Catholic name without an intelligent man like yourself
making objectionable assumptions!'


204

205


He smiled politely. 'And the assumption that you are a
Catholic is objectionable, is it?'

'In other circumstances you might well have been invited
outside to settle the insult with claymores drawn!'

Just as well I didn't care about the job I thought.
As I left I had a mental picture of the two of them
immediately dropping to their knees, rosaries in hand,
to offer up hundreds of Hail Marys to cleanse them from
listening to my blasphemous outpourings. Next day a letter
arrived asking me to start within a week. Dr Cunningham,
it transpired, was a mite anti-Catholic, and he was to turn
out to be the nicest, least prejudiced bigot I have ever met.
I wasn't remotely qualified for the job, I had no Maths or
Science qualifications and would have to study at night
school just to get what I should have started with. I'd have
to go to college to take the standard technician's course, all
while working in the hospital. Because of my anti-Catholic
remarks Dr Cunningham decided I could do it, while I
didn't really care, because long before I had to do it I'd
be a famous writer . . .

Sandy Cunningham was a very shy man and a brilliant
doctor; a man of deep passions and even deeper moods.
He had fallen foul of the medical mafia that ran the
health service in Glasgow and had therefore been denied
both power and influence. His brilliance remained, but he
regretted that he had never mastered the art of dirty dealings
and in-fighting essential for a successful career in medicine.
Had he learned to be as unscrupulous as the rest he would
have advanced further and as he saw it, could have achieved
more, 'got things done', as a result. He was a very humane
man though and could no sooner have fought dirty than
applauded a goal scored by Celtic Football Club; it simply
wasn't in him, he was too decent.

To get him through board meetings, where he was
inevitably in a rebel minority of one - doctors forget
loyalty to friends when it means being looked upon with
disfavour by those above - he took the odd tipple. This of
course only gave the mafia another weapon to use against
him. 'Blown it again!' he'd mutter, 'I've blown it again!


206


What a bloody fool I am!', and he really didn't object
if you agreed with him. Then he'd brood in his room
for however long it took for the mood to pass, until the
next time.





207



Chapter Thirty


On my first day as a Student Cardiological Technician, I
was taken by an experienced technician to 'Thor's ward'.
As we entered the huge swing doors, Marie let them go
again ever so quietly, and tiptoed around the ward. 'It's
OK darlings,' said a voice, 'The old bastard isn't here yet,
you're perfectly safe!' Marie sighed with relief. 'Thanks Dr
Patel!' she smiled, and as we walked on down the ward she
whispered, 'His name's Patel, but we all call him Petal. He's
a bit, well, you'll find out!'

We stopped at the bedside of a man in his sixties and
Marie rubbed a gel on his ankles and wrists, then fixed
rubber bands around, and screwed wires to the small,
hooked metal plates holding the bands together. The wires
ran to an EGG machine, and when the dial was flipped,
various different tracings spewed out of the machine. They
made no sense to me, but Marie explained that the patient
had suffered a heart attack a few days before and the leads
recorded the electrical activity in different parts of his heart.
By comparing the tracings taken over the last few days it was
possible to chart the rate of damage, recovery or otherwise.
Then another lead attached to a small suction device was
moved to different positions across the patient's chest and
more tracings spewed out.

When we had finished we removed all of the equipment,
placed it back in the drawer under the machine, remade
the bed, and then just as we were about to pull back the
screens we heard an army of footsteps marching across the
long ward. Marie winced, put a finger to her mouth to
silence me and then very carefully, like mime artists, we
crept out of the ward, pushing the EGG machine in front
of us. I let the door go behind us with as much care as


208

Marie had when we went in, but from inside the ward a
voice bellowed after us, 'Who's that crashing through my
ward? Who is it? I know there's someone there! Come out
you bugger!'

Marie grabbed my arm, propelled me and the machine
down the corridor, turned right down another and through
a doorway. Behind us feet crashed along in pursuit as the
voice continued to yell demands and threats, but whoever it
was hadn't been quick enough to see us go in the door. With
great aplomb Marie walked out again, humming gently and
going very slowly in the direction we had just come from
at high speed. We passed the owner of the voice, a very
tall, thin man with thick, steel grey hair and a hawklike
face. He was striding along the corridor with several
other white-coated males in tow, going in the opposite
direction to us.

'Good morning Dr Murray,' Marie said smoothly.

'Good morning, Miss ... er ... Did you by any
chance pass some blighter coming from the direction of
my ward?'

'Why no,' she replied, all calm innocence, 'I don't think
so. Did you notice anyone Meg?'

I shook my head dumbly, wondering what in hell was
going on.

'Are you sure they didn't use the other lift Dr Murray?'
she offered helpfully, 'The one beside your ward?'

T . . . um . . . don't think so, Miss . . . um . . . But then
again . . .'

'I think it's disgraceful,' Marie continued, 'Disturbing
you like that Dr Murray. I'd never go into your ward during
rounds!'

'And I appreciate your consideration,' the voice boomed,
'Not everyone in this hospital is as professional and considerate
as yourself, Miss .  . um . . .'

With that he barked us another good morning and we
made our way to the lift 'the blighter' might have used,
passing Dr Patel on the way. He wrapped his white coat
around him, folded his arms theatrically across his chest
and said, 'Nice performance darlings, your secret is safe


J

with me!' He was the campest act I'd ever seen, as he
disappeared down the corridor, half-heartedly 'searching'
for whoever had upset Dr Murray.

'Now you know why we call him Petal,' Marie sighed,
'And it breaks my heart, he's so gorgeous and he's out of
reach, unless you're six-foot-four, have a beard and happen
to be a bloke!'
'Who . . . What was that all about?' I asked.

'Oh thatr she said, 'That's Thor, he's the chief of this
unit and he hates people being in his ward. In fact he hates
people, to be honest. No one is allowed to think loudly when
he's doing his rounds, but if we don't have an up-to-date
EGG to show him he blows up.'

'Well what are we supposed to do?' I asked, 'How do
we get tracings for his ward rounds if we can't go into
his ward?'

'Well we do go in silly!' she replied, 'Then we get out
while his back's turned of course! Haven't I just shown you
how to do it? Don't you think Petal's gorgeous? I'd give my
all for him, if only he'd take it!'

'Why is he called Thor?'

'Oh him. Well his name is James Thor Murray. He was
born nine months after his parents' marriage and honeymoon
in Iceland. They met this good-looking young man
there, called Thor, became friends, and when the monster
arrived he was called James after his father and Thor after
this good-looking friend.' Marie laughed, 'Well that's the
story Thor tells, because that's the story his mother told
his father and him, but we all think the original Thor was
probably much more than a good friend, and mummy gave
him both names to cover all options. It would certainly prove
what we all know to be the truth anyway.'

'Which is?'

'That he's a complete bastard of course!' She continued
humming as we walked into the lift and pressed the button
to close the doors.

'D'you think it'd be possible to turn him?' she asked, her
mind still on the unattainable Dr Patel, 'I mean, surely if
Petal experienced the love of a good woman, someone just

210

like me? Of course I'd have to get him drunk first and talk
in a deep voice. What do you think?'


Nan had been delighted that I was going to work in a
hospital, it was so respectable, so learned, so close to all
those single young doctors who came from 'big hooses'. If
only she knew, I thought, if only she knew . . .

It was in the hospital that I was first called Meg. There
were already two other Margarets in the department, a third
would cause too many problems, it was decided.

'We'll have to call you something else,' said Sandy
Cunningham, and I kept quiet about being called Rita,
because I hated it. 'How about Peggy?' he asked.

'NO!' I almost shouted.

'OK, keep your hair on! It's a perfectly decent name, but
if you don't like it we'll think of something else!'

'It's not that I don't like it ... it's just ... I'd rather
not. . .'

'OK, OK! Meg then, how about Meg?'

And Meg it's been ever since.


Going to and from work at the hospital every day I passed
Eastpark Home, where Peggy's handicapped daughter had
been sent five years before. The sign on the main road
outside, with breathtaking tact announced 'Eastpark Home
for Infirm Children', and though I loathed cigarette smoke I
always went upstairs on the bus so that I could look through
the windows. I don't know what I expected to see, a small
cousin, perhaps, holding a placard proudly proclaiming our
family link. It was on my mind constantly as the months
passed, then one day I got off the bus at the Home and
went in.

I explained to a nurse that I was Anne McAvoy's cousin,
that I'd only recently moved to the area and could I see her
please? Anne was ten yeaA old by then, and she slept in a
long dormitory. There was a locker by each bed, and in hers
she had every birthday, Christmas and postcard that she had
ever received. She had on display every present and every
postal-order - uncashed - that she had ever been sent, a


211


gesture of reassurance to her that she existed, that she
mattered. I found her bright and cheerful, showing off her
visitor to the other kids without the slightest suspicion that
her visitor felt ashamed of being accorded the honour.

Seeing her was incredibly painful on all sorts of levels.
Firstly there was shame that I hadn't been to see her
before. She was, after all, Peggy's child. There was also
the awful frustration that she simply shouldn't be there.
This thought, of course, skirted the edges of the reason,
the unspeakable reason that we still hadn't faced, the loss
so unacknowledged that we couldn't mourn it. I still hadn't
shed one tear over the events of 1959.

She was still there you see. Peggy. As a way of coping
the family had unconsciously decided that she hadn't lived,
therefore she couldn't have died. Their logic may have been
tortuously faulty, but it was understandable.  knew that she
had lived though. Peggy and Nan had made me what I was;
I was the living proof of her existence. So I had secretly
kept her alive somewhere deep in my soul, suspended in
an emotional infinity. She was just as I last saw her on
that Monday in May, and every now and again I would
check that she was still there, smiling at me, her hair lit
by the sunlight behind her. I suppose I must have known
by some kind of instinct that we all had to let her go some
day, and we could only do that by mourning. Sometimes,
without planning it, I would push against the edge of the
wound until it became too painful, then I would back off,
returning her to where I kept her, until the next time.

This was to be the only lime I saw Peggy's child. When
I went back to the home McAvoy had been told about my
first visit and had banned any more. The Eastpark staff
were embarrassed but I was relieved, though it still makes
me ashamed to admit it. However much the visit may have
meant to the child the awfulness of the Home and of the
situation had paralysed any good intentions I may have had.
I was no better than the Clarks, my latest push had reached
the painful area and it was just too much.

But the scenario stayed etched in my mind no matter how
I tried to flush it away. Peggy's child shouldn't have been

212

raised like that, not Peggy's child, not any child. When
the children had been placed in Homes I had decided
that one day I'd get them out again, but reluctantly I
accepted now that I never would. I amended my list of
things to be done in the future though: one day I'd find
out the truth about Peggy's death, and added to that aim
was a determination to get children out of institutions. All
children in Homes became Peggy's children to me and
though I never mentioned the items on my list to anyone,
they lived quietly in my mind. They weren't ambitions or
exciting goals to reach, but certainties that would happen,
one day.


Though I had drifted into medicine, I found to my astonishment
that I worked well with sick people and coped in
a stressful world where crises were routine. I didn't have
as many Saturdays free to go away with the Crowd, but
that turned into a minor irritation rather than a disaster.
Besides, the others had started to pair off and get married,
so those of us still single met in the couples' houses. I saw
Rab in Laurie's house sometimes and he was one of the few
it was safe to allow into my own house. He would arrive out
of the blue and whether I was there or not he would stay,
making Nan laugh. She admired his clear, blue eyes, saying
for some reason that they were 'sailor's eyes.' 'Naw thur
no',' Rab would reply, 'Thur mine!' and Nan would giggle
like a girl.

What kept me in the hospital was Glasgow, or rather its
citizens. Like every Glaswegian I had always been of the
opinion that it was the finest city in the universe; it didn't
matter if the universe didn't agree, we took no offence, we
were that sure of ourselves. It was only when I worked
in the 'Eastern', as it was known locally, that I saw why
Glaswegians were so special though. They will lay before
complete strangers the most intimate details of their lives;
if they feel a story comingupon them, then a story you will
hear. Out-patients that I would see at a clinic for perhaps
ten minutes of their lifetime, treated me like a member of
the family, privy to all aspects of their personal lives.


213


One woman in her late forties came in for a routine
EGG, and as I was explaining the procedure to her she
said, 'Stockport! Whit dae ye think o' that? Stockport!'

I knew better than to make any comment at this early
stage. She undressed and lay on the couch, and as I started
to attach the electrodes she got down to the tale.

'Ma man's goat hissel' a joab in Stockport! Stockport!
Whit dae ye think o' that then hen?'

I made a non-commital noise; I had no idea yet where
this story was going.

'That's oota Glesca, in fact oota Scotland!' I marvelled at
the breadth of her vision; Glaswegians rarely acknowledge
that their city is actually a part of any land, even Scotland.

'Naw, naw,' she stated, 'Nae Stockport fur me, he kin go
if he waants, Ah'm steyin' whaur Ah belang! Mibbe that'll
pit an end tae a' these weans!' I had a fleeting vision of
hundreds of xenophobic children clinging to every inch of
her, all of them refusing to go to Stockport.

'Ah've goat wanna twinty-five,' she continued, as my little
machine churned out her paper heartbeat, 'Wanna twinty
three an' wanna five! Terrible intit?' She was overcome by a
spasm of laughter that destroyed the EGG, so I waited till she
had recovered and then tried again. 'Y'know,' she continued
thoughtfully, 'Ah've oaften thoaght, if Ah'd hid some Kit
Kats in the hoose that day he'd probably have settled fur a
cuppa tea insteed! That'll teach me tae forget the biscuits,
.eh hen?' I could see a whole new Glasgow advertising
campaign on family planning, with hoardings throughout
the city proclaiming, 'Gie's a brek - hiv a Kit Kat.' With
that she put her clothes on again, said 'Ta ta hen!' and
disappeared forever, leaving me still wondering after all
these years, what became of her and her Stockport-bound
spouse. Her EGG incidentally, was clear.

If Glaswegians are communicative at the best of times,
I discovered that illness rendered them positively verbose.
Being sick stripped them to their raw best and characteristics
I had been aware of became somehow enhanced, making
me look at them again, surprised that I had passed over them
so lightly before. Working with ordinary Glaswegians, if

214

there is such a thing as an ordinary Glaswegian, took
me back to Blackhill, and in a way that made sense,
because the people of Blackhill had been fighting for their
survival too.

A large part of my working day was taken up with acute
heart attacks and we drew many of our patients from the
Clydeside shipyards and the heavy industrial works in our
part of the city. I was constantly surprised by them and
surprised at being surprised too. A welder from Browns
turned out to be an expert on Spanish poetry, a riveter
from Fairfields was an authority on Renaissance Art, and
Charlie, a shipyard electrician, knew everything about the
works of Robert Burns.

He was in his fifties and his face was grey with pain. The
EGG showed a massive heart attack, yet apart from his pallor
he was showing no real signs of discomfort.

'Are you OK Mr Thomson?' I asked, always a silly
question but it opens the score sheet.

'Ca' me Charlie hen,' he grinned, 'Mr Thomson wis ma
farther!'

'OK Charlie; how's the pain?'

'Bloody awful hen, bit Ah've goat ma am wey tae deal wi'
the bugger.'
'Eh?'

'Well, ye know thaim wimmen that concentrate oan
sumthin' else when thur havin' weans? Ah'm gaun ower
in ma heid everythin' Rabbie ever wrote. Mind you, it's
gettin' a bit cheeky oan it noo, Ah wish Rabbie hid wrote
a bit mair!'

'We'll give you something for the pain then, give Rabbie
a rest.'

Over the next few days I got to know Charlie and learned
more about Burns in the process. Charlie's knowledge was
immense, because he loved every line the Bard had written.
I used to try to trip him up, regarding myself as a more
than passable Burns buff, but he came through every
time. 'Ye'll never beat the champ!' he'd grin, and I never
did. If he had some pain he'd call to the nurses, 'Wee,
sleekit, cowerin', tim'rous beastie!' and as the pethidine


215


hit home he'd serenade them with 'My love is like a red,
red rose.'

A week after the first heart attack he had another and we
could do nothing for him; there was too little left of his heart
muscle. He died reciting 'A Man's a Man for a' That.' As we
worked on him, knowing it was utterly hopeless but having
nothingt,more than effort to offer, his voice trailed away,
'. . . the man's the gowd for a' that . . .' From a poetic
point of view, and doubtless also from Charlie's, it was a
fine way to go, but I never got over the feeling that we lost
something special every time someone like him died. Yet a
few weeks before we would have passed each other in the street without a second glance.

They were the kind of people I had grown up with and the
more I knew about them the more I respected them. I was
always the last to give up on cardiac arrests. 'Christ Meg!'
the rest of the team would argue each time, 'You have to
accept it, we've lost this one!', but I always wanted to keep
trying and afterwards I would analyse the whole event for
something we could have done that we hadn't.

The doctors were representatives of the monied classes,
everything about their backgrounds kept them far removed
from the people they dealt with. As a rule, unlike the vast
majority of their patients, they had gone to fee-paying
schools, had lived all of their lives in wealthy, high-amenity
areas and they spoke differently. Living on a different level
they often missed the true worth and richness of the people
that Charlie represented, while I was one of them and so I
knew exactly what was being lost. Maybe that was why I
hated giving up and why I fought harder each time; it was
after all what I had been brought up to do, to fight for those
who couldn't fight for themselves.


216


Chapter Thirty-One


At this time the Crowd would meet up every Thursday night
to decide where we were going the following weekend. For
years our meetings took place at the Continental Cafe in
Sauchiehall Street, until it was raided and we discovered
that it was a notorious centre for drug dealing. We'd never
noticed what had been happening around us as we argued
over who was paying for the espresso.

Every August the diverse strands of our weekend life met
up at the Cowal Highland Games in Dunoon. Even if we
had gone in very separate directions throughout the rest of
the year, we always met up at Cowal. The main attraction
was the rolling ceilidh from the camp-sites through every
pub and hotel in the town, taking in the famous march-past
of hundreds of pipers after the Games. For the tourists the
march-past was the climax of the day, but for us it was all
just beginning.

The Crowd would swell as we walked about the streets
picking up people we hadn't seen since the previous year.
We didn't even actually have to see each other. Once,
walking past the George Hotel we heard the strains of
'Morag's Faerie Glen' sung in a fine tenor voice. We knew
that only one man sang that song and in that voice, so he
was collected and on we went. We ended up that year at
a ceilidh given by the Rose Fletcher Women's Pipe Band
from Dagenham. It was held in the Innellan Village Hall, a
few miles outside Dunoon and I have clear recollections of
several of the Crowd beinj up on the stage singing, and the
usual 'lasting friendships" being struck between strangers
destined to remain so.

In the early hours of the morning we were to be found
making our unsteady way back on foot and in the rain to


217.

the camp-site some miles away. Inevitably we lost some
along the way, who had 'decided' to sleep it off in ditches
or wherever, but the triumphant band who were able to
continue suddenly remembered as they approached the
camp-site that it was inconveniently situated on top of a
hill. As we struggled upwards to the comfort of the tents,
singing raucously and dragging the more moribund behind
us, a voice shouted 'HALT! WHO GOES THERE? GIVE
THE PASSWORD!' High above us, silhouetted against
the skyline, were four Highlanders, Pringle's Nightwatch.

Nobody knew much about Wullie Pringle, though it was
rumoured that he was a failed welder from Go van. Nobody
knew either how he and his followers got from A to B; they
just appeared then disappeared. There was a theory that
they were the result of a failed 'Brigadoon' experiment,
that they had once been perfectly ordinary half-wits but
had wandered along just as the button was pressed to start
the process. They were thus trapped in time, condemned to
roam the earth for all time, dressed like Highland clansmen
and transformed into tartan half-wits.

Wullie believed himself to be the reincarnation of Bonnie
Prince Charlie and therefore always dressed in full Highland
regalia. More curiously, his band of followers also believed
his claim to the throne and they gathered around him, all
dressed in heavy caped coats over kilts, with long feathers
attached by silver clan crests and pinned to the glengarries
they wore on their noble heads. Wherever Wullie went
they arranged themselves around him, long cromaks at the
ready, sgiann dhus sharpened, prepared to protect the royal
personage from any insult or injury.

Not only did these retainers cook his meals, but they
tasted them too, presumably in case they had inadvertently
spiked them with arsenic. Before the Prince entered a pub,
two of his senior followers would check it out for the ; 
presence of enemies, and once inside they would stand
around him, eyeing the company suspiciously, just in case.
At night they mounted a guard around his tent as he slept,
four men at a time for four hours each, through wind, rain,
hail and snow. Needless to say they were a bizarre bunch,

m

and they wore their very warm clothing all year round. For
some reason on that Cowal weekend, they had honoured us
by pitching camp next door while we were having a jolly
time in Innellan with Rose and her girls.

'FRIEND OR FOE?'

'Whit the f--?' somebody demanded of Wullie's protectors.

'STATE THE PASSWORD OR DIE!' boomed the
caped half-wits, cromaks in one hand, drawn sgiann dhus in the other.

'Away tae buggery!' suggested a half-asleep, wholly
inebriated voice, and above us the spiritual remnants of
the '45 still barred the way to our tents. In the darkness it was difficult to judge with any accuracy what happened
next. There was a claim later that it had all been a ghastly
accident, but I know that I heard giggling in our ranks first.
Someone, or two, certainly grabbed Wullie's guards by the
ankles and pulled them down on top of us. Naturally this had
a domino effect, and we all rolled back down the sodden hill
we had only just managed to climb up, landing at the bottom
in a large heap. There was a great deal of laughter, several
of the company being in that peculiar stage of intoxication
where everything seems funny, even rolling down a hill in
the rain and dark, with large sticks and sgiann dhus about.

'Wait a minute!' shouted a voice, 'Wanna Pringle's mob
is wearin' Y-fronts under the garb! That's no' right!'

'Yer lucky!' yelled another, 'Ah've goat a big bare arse
stuck in ma face!'

A bloodcurling scream rent the air as the said big bare arse
was soundly bitten. It took some time to sort the situation
out, because every time we climbed up the hill the memory
of what had happened the last time overcame us and we
all ended up laughing and falling down again. Meantime,
of course, the Prince was unprotected in his tent.

Next morning, or whenever we awoke, the Young Pretender
and his following pretenders had slunk off in disgrace
as we slept. Whenever we spotted them again after that
embarrassing contretemps, we never mentioned their defeat
at the hands and teeth of a bunch of drunks and a teetotal


218


219

girl; that would have been unnecessarily cruel, and possibly
treasonous. Perhaps the humiliation had some effect
though, because not long afterwards Wullie emigrated to
Australia, leaving his stunned henchmen to mourn for
their 'Prince across the Water'. They wandered about,
still in full theatrical garb, lost and lonely, looking for
someone to follow, like extras in search of a Scottish Tourist
Board film.

Some time after Wullie's emigration, on a sweltering hot
day, one of the Crowd, Calum Young, happened upon Tam
the Druid, on the walk to Rowardennan. Tam, a devoted
member of Wullie's entourage, was in his twenties and had
a serious heart complaint. As a matter of honour he refused
ever to remove his caped coat, which was a warm item
to cart around on top of a kilt, especially in the middle
of summer. Normally pale to the point of translucence,
Tam the Druid had the extremely disconcerting habit of
coughing and turning blue. To be fair to him this was
hardly his fault, but it could be frightening for bystanders,
especially as Tarn's honour also prevented him from resting.
He may have had no Prince to protect anymore, but that
wouldn't stop him dropping dead for the cause, whatever
it was. And that was exactly the performance he seemed
about to visit upon poor Young that Saturday when Tam
the Druid suffered a harsh fit of coughing.

With sweat running down his blue face and presumably
the rest of his anatomy as well, Tam refuted Young's
suggestion that he remove the topcoat. 'I never take off
my coat!' he stated, staring enigmatically towards the
horizon, as heroes are wont to do, then he collapsed in
another coughing bout. Young had had enough; the last
thing he could have coped with was a dead Druid, so he
jumped over a wall and found an alternative, solo route to
the boatshed.

Tam survived that episode, but the last we heard of him
and his fellow abandoned Pringle-ites was that they were
trying to raise money to bring the Prince back from the
Antipodes, where, it was said, he had become incapacitated
by homesickness. Apart from being barking mad that is.


220

Chapter Thirty-Two


Youth Hostels weren't quite our scene, except for the
'Den', where one of our own, Jack Savage, was Warden.
Jack kept 'K' Dorm for our exclusive use, something the
average hostelite resented but could do nothing about. If
Jack said 'K' Dorm was fully booked, then 'K' Dorm
was fully booked. Apart from this justified and perfectly
understandable little foible, Jack was the most honest man
ever to draw breath. Every forgotten item, no matter how
small, insignificant or useless, was carefully logged and
kept in the store in case the owner came back to reclaim
it someday. Even discarded bottles were collected and the
deposit of a few pence redeemed, the money joining the rest
of the lost booty in the store. We all nagged him about this
- and then came victory day.

In the store lay an old pair of disreputable white sandshoes
that had been left behind years before; anyone else would
have assumed they had been thrown away, not forgotten.
Anyone except Jack. The day came when Jack needed a
pair of 'sannies' and the shops were miles away. 'Dae ye
honestly believe the bloke's gonnae come back fur thum?'
we nagged, 'Be serious Jack, a tramp wid refuse tae wear
thum. Ye take these things tae the pointa fetish Jack!' We
condemned his elitism, his determined show that he was
more honest than the common man, knowing that this
would really hurt, because Jack was the purest communist
ever born. Eventually, under attack from all sides, he caved
in and proved us wrong by donning the old white sannies.
Two days later a bloke tuqied up, 'Ah left an auld perra
white sannies here a coupla years ago,' he said, 'Ye don't
still huv thum by any chance?' Jack, his toes curling up with
shame inside the stolen sannies, had to deny that he had ever


221


seen them, and he never got over the guilt. Especially as we
used to ask after his white sannies for years afterwards and
mutter, 'A thief and a liar, tut, tut. Ye used tae be such an
honest man Jack. Whit happened tae ye?'


It was a normal day in the hospital. There was a general
examination room just inside the main entrance, where
patients were examined and then dispatched to whichever
department their ills demanded. It was a barn of a place with
curtained off cubicles, and behind one a surgical houseman
was faced with a problem posed by two homosexual gentlemen.
They had 'married' each other and then become too
hooked on the symbolism by placing the gold band on a
very original extremity.

'It was all right at first,' suffering one wailed, 'But when
it began to swell the ring got stuck, now it's very sore!'

'We'll have to cut it off I'm afraid,' said the bemused
houseman, and the bridal pair screeched as one. 'Well
we can't leave it on!' said the houseman in exasperation,
'Gangrene could set in very quickly!'

A terrible howling was heard this time, then the houseman
realized what was wrong.

'I mean the ring you idiot, the ring! Not his dangly bits!'
He left a nurse spraying the be-ringed appendage with cold
water to reduce the swelling and sent for someone with
pincers. Outside he wrote up the case notes, 'Months I've
been qualified,' he muttered, 'And I haven't met one yet!
Where are they?'

'Who?' I asked.

The normal patients!'

'This is as normal as it comes!'

Behind another curtain the medical houseman was struggling
with a gentleman who had collapsed on a train. He
was refusing to remove his city uniform of pinstripe suit ,
and bowler hat to be examined.

'Let me talk to him,' I suggested, 'I know what's wrong.'

'Now you mustn't be embarrassed,' I cajoled, 'I know
what the problem is and I promise you no one will say
anything about it.'


222

'You won't laugh at a silly old man?' he asked, clipped
military moustache quivering and his arms tightly crossing
his chest.

'Of course not! Now you must let us do a couple of tests
and then you can most probably go home.'

He then removed his shirt to expose a lovely little red
silk bra trimmed with black lace; it was too small for him,
no wonder he'd passed out on the hot, crowded train.
They always wore such exquisite things, far nicer than
most women thought practical and more expensive than
most could afford. No doubt he had the full matching set
of panties and suspender belt underneath too.

'How did you know?' asked the houseman.

'I didn't for sure,' I replied, 'It could've been chains, or
rubber.'

Sometimes I wondered at the wisdom of letting these
young lads loose, straight after their Finals, when they had
no experience of the big, bad world; it didn't seem fair on
them somehow, or on the rest of us. Outside another cubicle
a more Glasgow-wise Senior House Officer was explaining to
another puzzled houseman why his patient kept worrying
about her brown kittens instead of helping him with her
symptoms.

'I ask her what's wrong and she just goes on about these
damned brown kittens! I keep telling her someone will look
after her cats, but it's all she'll say to me!'

'Well son,' said the SHO, 'She is telling you what's wrong
with her. It is her considered opinion that she is suffering
from bronchitis. "The Broon Kittens" is Glasgow slang for
bronchitis. By the sound of her cough she's probably right.
It's your task my boy to apply your mighty stethescope to
her rib cage and confirm it. Go to it!' Two years ago someone
had probably given him the same teach-in. A normal day,
and into this normal day came a porter pushing a trolley.

'Joe's fainted,' he said tq no one in particular, 'So Ah've
jist pit 'im in cubicle four till he comes 'roond.'

From around the assembled medics there came a collective
growl.

'You can put him in the incinerator for all we care!'


223


someone said, and there was a bitter laugh of agreement
all round.

Joe was the car park attendant for the main forecourt and
he kept his forecourt for 'those and such as those'. Senior
consultants were assured parking spaces and all others were
pounced upon and threatened if they as much as stopped
to let a passenger out. He even resented the ambulances
stopping in their own bay to bring patients in. Our main
point of contention was that the forecourt was the quickest
way into the hospital, and it made more sense for genuine
workers to get inside fast, rather than consultants who were
hardly on the front line.

People like the infamous Dr Thor Murray for instance,
who drove a beautiful white vintage Lagonda that would
have financed the building of a new hospital, were waited
on with due and sickening deference by Joe. Thor had his
own reserved space that Joe shepherded him into every
day, with much bowing and his own weird combination
of a salute and a tug of the forelock. Thor would then
sweep off to his luxurious suite deep inside the hospital,
where he would see his private patients, using every NHS
facility available. This was against the rules, but Thor was
stuck way back around 1920, and the board turned a blind
eye. This was most appropriate, because the board were all
Thor's private patients. Most of them were non-medics and
mistook show for substance; they had no way of knowing
that Thor had ignored every piece of medical progress after
1920 as well as all other aspects of normal life. So the
resentment we all felt for Thor and his like applied to
Joe, who fawned over him and them, and tales of Joe's
treatment of generations of ordinary, mortal hospital staff
regularly did the rounds. Now here he was, snoozing in the
examination room.

'I don't like the colour of him,' said another tech, looking
behind the curtain.

'I hate every one of his rotten cells,' said someone else,
'So what's new?'

'He looks a bit blue.'

'Let us know when he turns black!' Everyone laughed.

224


'He's arrested!' shouted the tech, feeling for a nonexistent
pulse. Everyone laughed again. 'Next you'll be
saying that Santa does exist and that there really is a
tooth fairy!'

Then we realized that she was serious, dropped what we
were doing and the resuscitation routine took over. All the
way through voices could be heard muttering, T can't
believe I'm doing this!' and 'We'll never live this down
even if he doesn't make it!'

Sod's law really is an odd thing. You can work on patients
deperately for hours, with everything going for you and
nothing going wrong, and still you lose them. Joe we got
back. He was lying on the floor, pink and breathing again
amid much cursing from the assembled company. The SHO
glared at the tech who'd looked behind the curtain and said,
'There is no hope for you, you understand that, don't you?
For a start everyone in this room will never forgive you,
but the rest of us must all swear a blood oath here and
now. We must all promise to deny any involvement in this
obscene act and any knowledge of who took part, even under
torture, OK? If the rest of the hospital hears about this we're
all done for!'

Just then the door opened and in thundered Thor. 'The
porters told me the car park Johnny was here!' he yelled,
and catching sight of Joe lying on the floor with tubes and
wires attached all over his body, he bellowed, 'Is that him?
Where's his hat? Don't know him without his hat! Hey you!
Car park Johnny! Get up! Some bugger's taken my space!
I want his arse kicked out nowl Get up! D'you hear me? I
want you to get up!'

'It's a little tricky at the moment Dr Murray,' said the
SHO very smoothly, 'Five minutes ago he was dead. You
see we've only just resuscitated him.'

Thor stopped mid-roar and took in the scene around Joe
for the first time, then said with utter contempt and distaste,
'My God, will you people stop at nothing? Why don't you let
people die in peace?' With that he swept out and off to his
suite, leaving the Lagonda parked in the ambulance bay.

A couple of months later I was helping to get a patient out


225

of an ambulance as Joe watched in disgust. The SHO was
there too, and as we turned towards the hospital together,
the white Lagonda swept past in style. We watched Joe go
through his usual odd salute-forelock tug routine and as
Thor disappeared inside Joe approached us.

'That Dr Murray,' he said, 'He saved ma life y'know.'
'Really?' said the SHO with total uninterest.
'Aye, sure enough,' said Joe, his horrible little eyes
shining with tears of admiration, 'Ah hid this bad turn,
nearly died so Ah did, an' he saved me. Ah heard this voice
an' opened ma eyes, and there he wus, telling me Ah hid tae
get up! Saved ma life he did, a wunnerful man!' Overcome
with emotion he sniffed loudly and hirpled over to assault
some innocent soul who was trying to find somewhere to
park. The SHO shook his head. T'd rather that old bastard
Thor took the blame than us,' he said, 'But ain't life an
absolute bitch sometimes?'


226


Chapter Thirty-Three


One day I was walking through my own unit's female ward
when I spotted a familiar face. I looked at the ward list, and
it was, it really was. It was Jan.

'What's wrong with her?' I asked the houseman.

'Do you know her?'

'I went to school with her.'

'Really? That might be helpful actually, she won't say a
word. Maybe she'll talk to you. We got her in last night,
an overdose, and she nearly managed it too. We want her to
see the shrink, but she won't even tell us to bugger off.'

'She was working as a model the last I heard of her a
couple of years ago, I always thought she'd got it made.'

'Well she won't work as a model again,' he said, 'She's
only held together with chewing gum and pills these days.'

I walked towards her bed, noticing how thin she was, the
dark shadows under her eyes and the pale, almost transparent
skin; it was Jan, but it wasn't the Jan I had known.

'Hello Jan,' I said, and she looked up at me with total
indifference.

'You probably don't remember me,' I continued, 'We
went to school together.'

'It's Margaret,' she said, pointing at me and smiling,
'Margaret O'Brien! What are you doing here?'

'That's my line! What are .vow doing here?'

She shrugged. 'I took an overdose.'

'Why?'

'Because I want to end it all.' She wasn't upset and she
didn't even seem sad; it was a statement of fact. I sat beside
her bed.

'But Jan, you had it all stitched up while the rest of us
were still playing with dolls, what went wrong?'


227

The? I had it all stitched up? Me? Are you kidding? You
were the one who knew all the moves!'

'Are you sure you do remember me?' I asked.

'God! Do I remember you!' She was laughing now, a good
sign I supposed, but I hadn't a clue what she meant.

'How you handled all those mad nuns,' she said, 'You
drove thejn even crazier than they were! Do you remember
the time that second year got pregnant and had to leave the
school, and they were lecturing us about it? And you said she
should just say an angel had appeared announcing a virgin
birth and before she knew it she'd have her own flock of
nuns! I thought Sister Aquinas was going to explode in
flames!'

'I don't remember that,' I said, 'But it sounds like me.'

'And the time you told her Jesus Christ was just a local
politician who had offended the establishment, and before
she could get up from the floor you said in fact he was
probably a communist!'

Yes, it was definitely me she remembered, that was
certainly one of mine.

'I used to envy you!' she said, 'You knew just how to get
them going! Where did you get all that stuff?'

'From books,' I replied, 'Where else?'

'That's right,' she laughed, 'You always had a book in
your hand. I always thought you'd be a writer, how come
you're wearing a white coat?'

'I wish I knew,' I replied, 'I still write, but just for
myself. But what happened to you? I used to feel so
smug knowing this famous face on the front pages of
magazines.'

'I couldn't handle it,' she said, 'You have to be really in
control in that game, and I wasn't. Seems to me I've spent
my entire life trying to get control of it. I ended up taking
pills to keep me awake, pills to make me sleep, pills to keep
me thin. And men! Around me like flies they were, and I ,
always chose the wasp!'	4

She was on the brink of tears now, lying against her :
pillows, staring at the ceiling.

'Jan, it might help to talk to someone.'

228


'A psychiatrist? Forget it Margaret, it's too late now.
Besides, do you think I haven't talked to them before?'

I decided to leave it till another time, so I changed the
subject to the one thing that had made her smile before,
our schooldays. As I left she said, 'I always admired you
Margaret, you were always so confident, so sure. You didn't
need a group around you, you were always yourself and
you said what you thought. I never had that courage, but
every time you scored a point against the nuns I felt like
cheering!'

Funny the impressions we make on other people. All
through my childhood I'd been a loner, keeping the awful
secret of my father's drinking and the shame of how poor
we were from the rest of the world. Since 1959 my mind had
been constantly in turmoil and I'd looked at Jan and her little
group, thinking they were sophisticated and so worldly-wise
compared to me. Yet there was Jan trying to end her life
at the age of twenty, having tasted success, messed around
with drugs and been involved with who knows how many
men. What had I done? I had wanted to write, it was the
only thing I had ever shown any aptitude for, yet here I
was, in a demanding job to be sure, but given that I could
do it, it was as safe as houses.

As far as the swinging Sixties and the drug culture were
concerned, they might as well have not been happening. I
avoided going out with men on a one-to-one basis, and those
I had dated lasted one date; I couldn't bring myself to get
involved with anyone. Part of that was a natural reluctance
given the one marriage I had any close knowledge of, but
it was also partly because the earlier assaults had left me
with a dislike of being touched. I used to think this dated
from the time of Peggy's death, when one of my aunts had
held onto me as I tried to escape hearing the actual words,
but that incident had only compounded the dislike. It was
really rooted in the first assault just beforehand, and the
later incident outside the pab.

There was another reason though that lurked at the back
of my mind, one I hardly dared think about because it was
so impossible. That reason was RaK I realized even then


229

that anyone I dated reminded me of him in some way, a
similar way of laughing perhaps, or 'sailor's eyes', but they
weren't him. At the time I didn't admit any of this, even
to myself, but whenever I saw him I felt more alive than
at any other time. Our meetings were no more than verbal
duels as we slagged each other off with insults; he was at
least ten: or twelve years older than me, well out of my reach
and I knew it. He hadn't shown the slightest interest nor
had there ever been the merest hint that he might regard
me as anything other than the kid of the Crowd. The
possibility of romance had never been considered. Rab was
completely unattainable, but while he was there I couldn't
sustain interest in anyone else.

Sod's Law, which had dogged me all of my life, even
operated here. There were plenty of girls dashing around
looking for Mr Right and bemoaning the fact that their
relationships never came to anything. I, on the other hand,
wanted only friendship, so naturally I attracted the kind
of men who wanted to settle down and raise families. I
never saw the warning signs. I'd have some perfectly nice
chap I considered a friend preferring a diamond ring and I
wouldn't have a clue how or why the situation had sneaked
up on me without my having any inkling of it. I then reacted
badly, out of embarrassment and confusion, hurting them
in the process without actually meaning to. There were the
others, whose only crime was to remind me of my father
in some way so that I had to get rid of them as brutally
as possible. There was nothing wrong with them, it was
nothing they had done, and looking back I still cringe at
how I treated them. If Jan thought I had all the answers,
I was obviously a better actress than I had given myself
credit for.


Next day, when I went to the ward Jan had gone. She had
signed herself out and disappeared. I couldn't shake off what
she had said though. Why was I here when I should have
been writing? Had I drifted into the safe haven that the
NHS was in those days and settled for that safety? In thirty
years time would I end up as a long-serving chief technician,

230

wishing I had struck out and at least tried to write instead
of playing safe all my life? That thought joined all the other
uncertainties and confusions in my head, rumbling around
and crashing into each other but never coming to the surface
or to the remotest prospect of a conclusion.






231



Chapter Thirty-Four


My father's main preoccupation, apart from drinking, was
his Eighth Army connection. He had spent six years away
from home as a gunner in the Royal Artillery and every
Saturday he still met one or two of his old comrades in a
pub in the centre of Glasgow. The outcome was entirely
predictable of course, he came home barely able to stand,
but then he spent a lot of his time like that. Every year there
would be a reunion in London, and off he would go in his
black blazer with the gold buttons and the Eighth Army
badge on the breast pocket. The badge was a yellow silk
cross on white, all outlined with real gold wire; no expense
was spared if it was something for himself. Those weekends
when he boarded the coach to London were heaven for Nan
and me. He would leave on Friday, drink himself senseless
for three days and arrive back on Sunday night. But we had
the sheer bliss of knowing that he wouldn't come falling
through the door at any moment, so we didn't waste time
and nervous energy waiting for the sound of the key missing
the lock that usually heralded his arrival. The trouble was
that we never knew what kind of mood he'd be in, screaming
abuse, fighting mad or hysterically funny, at least to himself.
So when he went to London we spent a relaxed and happy
weekend together, and I used to say to her that if only she
had left him years before it could be like this all the time.
If only.

Of course by this time Nan wasn't physically or mentally
capable of making a fresh start. Anyone meeting her for the
first time would never have believed the kind of woman she
had been, I had trouble myself relating her to the crusading
earth-mother I had known as a child. There were odd
flashes of the old Nan, when she read a newspaper item

232


that described some kind of injustice perhaps and she
would become quite articulate with anger about it. She
had a healthy dislike of all politicians and would roundly
berate them whenever they appeared pontificating on TV,
regardless of what party they represented. But it was all from
her armchair, she never showed any interest in re-entering
life again.

Sometimes I would try to persuade her to see a doctor,
but she really didn't want to; her life, the one she wanted,
had gone with Peggy, and she didn't want what was on
offer without her. What I didn't know at that time was the
manner of Peggy's death and how it had destroyed all Nan's
belief in justice, natural or otherwise - it nullified the code
of honour she had lived by. There was a feeling of marking
time, of waiting for the day she could go too. She had
grandchildren by then from both Mickey and Laurie, but
there was no rebirth through them. There was a distance,
a preoccupation about her, as she sat in her armchair and
simply waited.




It was a holiday Monday and things were slack. Our
prospective patients either kept their crises for ordinary
times or else they took them on holiday and visited them
on resort hospitals. Either way we had little to do. I was
summoned by one of the three housemen our unit employed
and found two of them waiting for me. They manhandled
me into a prepared bath of cold water, partly to pass the
time and partly in response to what I had done to them,
which was doubtless payment for something they had done
to me first. A few weeks before, I had got revenge on one by
pouring a jug of cold custard down the back of his trousers
while he was doing a ward round with various professors. I
then put the other one's name on all the coupon applications
in every magazine I could find and his few free hours had
thus been filled with calls and visits from double-glazing
salesmen and kitchen installers. As I emerged soaked to
the skin I ran into the other houseman, the one who had
admitted Jan.

'Oh Meggie, I was meaning to talk to you. We got your


233

friend in again last night, whatsername, Janet Wotsit? No
go I'm afraid.'
'She still won't see the shrink? I'll talk to her again if you
like, but I'm not sure it'll help.'

'Well it won't as a matter of fact; what I meant was she
was dead on arrival. Sorry.'

I wns used to death by now and I knew that overdoses
far outstripped all other admissions to medical wards. It
was considered a cry for help, though we knew there were
many more we never received, they were DO As - they
had finished crying, they meant it. But still I felt stunned:
twenty years old, the same age as me, and so sick of her
existence that she had made the calm, considered decision to
die. It gave me a few more questions to add to those already
rattling around inside my head. If there was a lesson from
Jan's life and death, what was it? Was it to go for it at all
costs, to at least try, or was it to play safe and keep whatever
you had? In the back of my mind too was a thought that
I kept to myself, the thought that my mother was doing
exactly the same as Jan had done, only more slowly and
painfully. As some guru once said when all other words
were superfluous, ain't life a bitch sometimes?





234


Chapter Thirty-Five


One evening I was in someone's house, one of the Crowd.
In the back of my mind was the chance that Rab might be
there, a small chance, but it was better than nothing. He
wasn't. It was a good night though, we talked about what
had happened since we had last met, then someone said,

'Oh guess what? Rab's gone to work in New York!'

'Has he?' a voice said calmly, 'Good for him!' It was
my voice.

My mind whirled and my stomach churned as I fought
the blankness for some means of keeping the conversation
flowing. The world had just collapsed, the moon had
disappeared and the sun had fallen from its orbit, and
all I could think of was how I could keep talking as
though everything was normal. The conversation turned
to something else and somehow I managed to keep up with
it. It was all thanks to the NHS training that I could act
normally in the deepest of disasters, and at that moment I
thanked all manner of non-existent gods for it.

Later I escaped to the toilet to lean my forehead against
the cool tiles of the wall and make myself take deep, even
breaths. I remembered the arguments between my mother
and father when I was a child and how I had learned to divert
my attention from the mayhem that was all around me. I
would lie under my blankets and mentally transport myself
somewhere else to drown out the voices, and I told myself
that that was what I had to do now. I had to concentrate all
my attention on appearing my usual self, and keep talking
normally until I could leave. Then and only then, could I
scream and sob, when there was no one to see me or hear
me. All I wanted to do was get under those blankets and
never come out again. Later, on my way home, feeling


235

empty and hollow inside, I caught sight of my reflection in
a shop window and I couldn't believe how ordinary I looked.
Anyone seeing me would have thought everything was fine,
that the world hadn't stopped turning, that I wasn't falling
apart. God, but I was good!

There was no way I could ask anyone when or why or for
how long Rab had gone to America, at least not without
grousing the suspicion that perhaps I gave a damn. I decided
that I couldn't risk hearing the answer anyhow, so I avoided
the Crowd for a while. I could admit to myself that he had
gone for good, but I wasn't sure I could hear it actually said
by someone else without throwing myself on the ground and
howling like a kicked dog. I tried to rationalize it, to bring
down the inflammation. It didn't really matter did it? Even
if he had stayed at home forever he wasn't interested in me,
so what possible difference could it make that he had gone
thousands of miles away? He had been no more attainable at
home, had he? No, but at least I could see him sometimes,
talk to him. Then the awful thought occurred that he might
have gone away with some woman and that the next thing I'd
hear was that he was married. Well, said that infuriatingly
calm, medic's voice, that was always on the cards, here or
in America, so what was the fuss about? He hadn't even told
me he was going, that was how important I was to him. Face
facts. He had told the important members of the Crowd and
hadn't given any particular thought to the kid; didn't that
tell me something, if not everything? But what if I never
saw him again? Well what was different, asked the voice.
Everything. Everything!


After he'd gone I concentrated on my exams and work. ,,
The Crowd was virtually finished for me now and weekends 
at the loch were a thing of the past. I still occasionally saw
my brothers and the others and sometimes someone would
produce the latest letter from Rab and read it aloud as I tried
to appear uninterested. I sneaked a look at the address on
one and copied it down, calling myself every kind of fool
under the sun. Even as I picked the postcard, wrote it out
and then sent it off to him, I knew I was being as stupid as
it was possible to be. He didn't reply, but some weeks later


236


he mentioned in a letter to Laurie that 'Your sister sent me
a postcard.' That was all. The medic's voice was growing
weary of going over old ground; how many ways did the
man have to spell it out? Get lost was get lost! I headed for
the refuge of my blankets again and tried to transport myself
somewhere else, somewhere it didn't hurt. But everywhere
did ...

I had to do something with my life I decided. It was the
beginning of 1969, I was nearly twenty-one years old and
I could see no future. I was stuck in the mould of the
dutiful daughter and as far as my father was concerned, I
was a ready-made housekeeper. At work I was a Senior Technician and had passed all my exams; I could do
everything on automatic pilot. If I decided to stay I could
indeed be here in thirty years time, having gone nowhere,
done nothing and had no life of my own. There was marriage
and motherhood of course, but that would mean settling for
second best and I had never done that, never would. I had no
idea what I wanted, I only knew I didn't want what I had.

The idea of going abroad started gradually. I had nowhere
particular in mind, but I didn't want to go to America. And
what of Nan? How could I leave her? I wrestled with the
questions constantly, trying to come up with answers and
not succeeding very well. There were sisters-in-law now,
wasn't I due some time off, a life of my own? I knew
that Nan as she had been would not have tolerated her
daughter sacrificing her life, but she wasn't as she had
been, she was as she was and I felt I was abandoning her.
But still the feelings of frustration, of suffocation nagged
at me. America was where the money was, but America
was where Rab was too, and I knew myself well enough
to know that if I went there I'd try to find him. That way
lay humiliation and tears. Besides, I was Nan's daughter; if
I went abroad I couldn't go for the money, I had to go on
a crusade. I thought about Voluntary Service Overseas and
wrote off without telling anyone, that way if I was rejected
or decided not to go ahead with it, who would know? Then
I relaxed and put it out of my mind.


237



Chapter Thirty-Six


Allan Forsyth was a brilliant surgeon; he was dashing,
handsome and he had that gleam of danger in his sparkling
eyes. He was the stuff of heroes, a devilishly dark man
made to be a swashbuckling pirate, and every other doctor in the hospital hated him. He existed on research grants,
an uncertain way to earn a living and one that most
doctors wouldn't touch, especially one of his ability. His
team wandered around the hospital dressed casually in
open-necked shirts, slacks and desert boots, not for them
the obligatory old school tie, the pinstriped suit and the
well-polished black-leather shoes with the regulation three
laceholes. They laughed a lot and showed no signs of respect
and this added to the reasons why Allan Forsyth and his
mob were so disliked by the ultra-conservative medical
profession. Needless to say, anyone who didn't quite fit
the conventional mould admired the Forsyth team, the man
cried out for renegades to join him, and we cried out to sign
up; it was, naturally, one of my dreams to work with him.

One wintry lunchtime I was sent to a disused theatre
recovery room on the second floor and told to report to Mr
Forsyth. I was walking on air, I was one of the chosen, and
I longed to tell everyone I met along the way. I'd say very
casually, and with a sigh that denoted a blase manner, 'Allan
Forsyth's just asked me to come along,' - if anyone asked
that was, which no one did. The patient was a down-andout
who had been brought in with hypothermia and he was
in cardiac arrest. It was my own unit's receiving day, so
Forsyth must have been asked to take this one over, and I
was in dreamland, because I was part of it.

His entire team of bright young things had been assembled
and my job was to record tracings at various times


238

and monitor the effects of what was being done to bring
the patient back. There was a heat bath over the man,
a metal cage lined with light bulbs to warm the body,
because the heart couldn't be restarted below a certain
temperature. Forsyth had opened the sternum from throat
to navel and was pouring warm saline over the exposed
heart; it was exciting stuff and it was happening before
my star-struck young eyes. The brilliant members of his
disreputable pack were doing things with fancy equipment,
buzzing around the patient like so many industrious bees
around a particularly luscious flower, and the room was full
of people watching or helping.

A blood technician leaned across to take a sample from
the patient and the man's arm pushed her, though of course
he was dead. She looked up at Forsyth, who smiled below
his mask so that those dangerous eyes crinkled and sparkled
above. 'It's just a muscle spasm,' he laughed, and we all
laughed too at the tech's reaction. Then I tried to replace an
electrode that someone had moved and the patient pushed
me too.

Unlike the blood technician I was used to handling
arrested and newly-dead bodies and I knew this wasn't a
muscle spasm; the man had pushed me. I remembered a
paper that Dr Cunningham had insisted we all read, about
a doctor who had arrested in his own hospital and afterwards
was able to recount everything that had happened and what
had been said by whom. The theory was that if the brain was
well enough supplied with oxygen during a resus attempt,
then it remained aware of events, even though the patient
was unconscious and clinically dead. The black humour
that we needed during life-and-death situations could, it
was suggested, be heard and understood by the unfortunate
patient, and Sandy Cunningham wanted us to think about
that in future. In the instant that the man on the table
pushed me I remembered this and I looked up at Allan
Forsyth. He held my gaze for a moment and then he looked
away; he didn't try to laugh and reassure me. But still, we
were trying to save this man's life, weren't we? Even if we
had to do unpleasant things to save him, it was worth it.

m

239

Hours passed, countless samples and readings were taken,
and then suddenly Allan Forsyth called a halt, thanked
everybody and swept out with his motley crew, all laden
down with equipment and bits of paper. He stopped briefly
by my machine, took all of my tracings, muttered his thanks
and gave me one of those heartmelting smiles. I was totally
bemused. What about the patient?

'Why aren't we going on?' I asked a houseman attached
to Forsyth's team, and he shrugged.

'He's got all he needs,' he replied.

'What do you mean?'

'Well Allan is doing research into hypothermia at the
moment . . .' he said, and left the light to penetrate my
grey-matter without any further help. I had worked for
hours in the hope of saving the patient, and all that
time Allan Forsyth had been collecting data for his latest
research project. Once the glamour of the event had cleared
I realized that the patient's chances of survival had been
almost neglible to start with, so Allan Forsyth had used him
for his own purposes and when those had been satisfied he'd
let the man die. I felt sick. I remembered the man pushing
me away, and I felt sicker still. Later I discovered that the
patient was being taken by a houseman and a porter to my
own unit when Forsyth had come across him in the lift as
he went to lunch. So he had simply pulled rank and stolen a
live lump of research material, who being a down-and-out,
just happened to have no interested relatives who might have
asked questions. It was ideal; how could he have passed up
such a gift from hell?

A few weeks later, engaged on another research project,
Forsyth passed the word that he was looking for stroke
victims in medical wards, the terminal, deeply unconscious
cases, preferably without any troublesome relatives. Obviously
impressed by my work, not to mention my devotion to him, I
was one of those chosen to inform him of appropriate cases
I came across. One of the old consultants, one of the less
academically minded sort who simply made patients better,
approached me. My admiration of Allan Forsyth was well
known and the old boy didn't beat around the bush. 'You're

240

not going to do this awful thing?' he demanded, 'You're not
going to help that terrible young man are you?'

Remembering the man in the recovery room I replied that
I had absolutely no intention of helping Forsyth.

'Good Meggie,' he replied, 'I know he's attractive to
females, though God knows why, but he isn't at all a
nice man.' He patted my shoulder and started to move
off, then he stopped and said, 'And another thing, I wish
you wouldn't wear trousers in the ward you know. It quite
makes my day to see the odd inch of black lace under a
white uniform as you bend over a bed!'

A few days later he caught me in the ward again.

'Has Forsyth been in touch with you?' he asked.

'No.'

'Well he spoke to me and I told him I wasn't taking part
in his gruesome experiments and neither were you,' he said
angrily, 'And d'you know what the jumped-up little bastard
said to me? Said we were holding medical research back for
decades!'

The thing was, he was undoubtedly correct, we were. But
I still feel sick when I remember the patient who pushed
me away when he was dead. Not surprisingly there was
no longer any possibility of my joining Allan Forsyth's
team after that, they had changed from free-wheeling
swashbucklers to tacky, cynical quacks in my mind. It
added to my growing disenchantment about everything
around me and strengthened my need to get away.

Funnily enough, I saw Allan Forsyth on TV recently.
He's Sir Allan now of course, an important, influential man,
and how could anyone ever have doubted he would be some
day? The dark hair is edged with grey now and he is possibly
more handsome than he was as a young man, and that gleam
in his eyes that I once found so irresistible, remains strong
and bright. He has a long list of letters after his name now
and an even longer list of achievements and is universally
admired and feted. Gone are the days when he had to steal
patients or ask for favours. And I wouldn't dream of letting
him near any of my family.


L


241


The letter from VSO invited me to an interview in
Edinburgh in March. All I knew about the organization
was that it had been set up to provide help for the Third
World by providing professionals who would train people to
work in their own countries. It pre-dated the Peace Corps,
which being American naturally got all the publicity. For
spendmg one or two years on a specific project the payment
was board and lodging and the local equivalent of 3 pounds per
week. Sounded just my thing. Other people with my
qualifications could clean up financially in the developed
world as well as the Third World, but if there wasn't a
whiff of doing good and not making big money about it,
I couldn't be interested, could I?


The day before the interview, which I hadn't mentioned
to anyone, I got a cardiac arrest call from one of the
operating theatres. The average surgical response to any
and everything is to grab a scalpel and cut, and so it had
always been in surgical arrests. Patients who could have
been brought back using external cardiac massage were
invariably opened up, the heart grabbed and manually
pumped and the whole unfortunate episode complicated
by the introduction of major surgery. There had even been
cases of patients dying from the unnecessary surgery rather
than whatever had ailed them, and we dreaded a call from a
surgical unit, because it inevitably meant they had done the
damage and had now run out of ideas.

Usually we would arrive to find the patient in the latter
stages of rigor mortis, having been subjected to perhaps an
hour of surgical 'help' and so dead that Jesus on a good day
couldn't raise him. The surgeons would then say that calling
the medical cardiac arrest team was a waste of time, they'd
called them the other day and they were useless. So I was
very pleasantly surprised this time to find the patient lying
on the table, untouched by surgical hand, having gone just
as the anaesthetist put him under. I ran through a series
of tests and found the heart beating normally, so as befits
a medic in the position of putting down the surgeons, I
hammed it up. The odd breathing problem isn't unheard

242


of as a patient goes under, together with a slight disturbance
in heart rhythm, and usually the anaesthetist stops for a minute,
puts in some oxygen until the patient stabilizes and then
the operation can continue. In this case though the anaesthetist
had played it cautiously. Perhaps he didn't really want
to do the op I mused, maybe he had a date to play golf and
was calling foul to make sure he got there in time.


'Well there you are chaps, a perfectly normal heartbeat,'
I said grandly, 'Don't blame yourselves, could happen to
anyone, and you are just surgeons after all. How could you
be expected to know anything about a difficult subject like
whether or not the patient was alive? This is medicine after
all, not some knife and fork job!' It was standard procedure
for us to put the surgeons down as it was for them to put
medics down. All the same, they were being very submissive
about it, you could usually count on some opposition, some
vengeance at least. I had taken the electrodes off and was
heading for the door.

'And don't hesitate to call if you're ever in difficulty
again,' I said, 'You know we don't mind helping you lads
out, even if it is a waste of our valuable time.' I always had
to gild the lily.

'Mmm, Meggie,' said the anaesthetist, 'I'm very worried
about this patient.' He looked it, as he leaned against the
tiled wall, idly reading his paper. 'I think if you don't mind,
I'd prefer you to stay for the operation. In case he goes again,
and we can't handle it.'

The two surgeons sniggered. It was my own fault, entirely
my own fault. I should have quit while I was ahead, several
sarcastic insults ago.

It was an exploratory stomach operation and the finding
was gangrenous colon. The smell of gangrenous colon
is beyond anything dreamed up by the Hammer House
of Horror. There is nothing I can think of that even
approaches the stench. It clings to you, smears itself over
your respiratory system and hooks into every crevice; it is
so thick and strong that you can almost see it and feel it.
So bad was it that one surgeon worked for fifteen minutes


243

alone, while the other one had fifteen minutes outside,
breathing real, beautiful air. The anaesthetist suggested
the same arrangement with me and we tried it once, but
the shock of coming back in again convinced me to stay
put throughout. Sixteen feet of reddish-purple intestine,
together with its putrefying contents, was removed, but
I still "hadn't suffered enough. The theatre orderly put it
in a plastic basin which he then took great pleasure in
placing on top of my machine. It lay there, inches from
my nose, glistening horribly with slime, the fumes rising
from it.

'There y'are Meg,' he said, 'Some link sausages for
your tea!'

Medical honour, as well as my own, was at stake. I swirled
a finger in the awful brew and said casually, 'No thanks, I
prefer the sliced variety myself!' Everybody laughed. Slowly
I dismantled my equipment from the patient, whose heart
and breathing hadn't faltered throughout, and took my time
over labelling the tracings. Then I sauntered out of the
theatre, singing to myself as I went. 'Oh Meggie!' came the
anaesthetist's voice as I left, 'You handled that so well that
we'll be sure to call you whenever we have trouble again!'

'Anytime chaps!' I replied, 'I know how often surgeons
get into trouble. It's so refreshing to meet the odd one or
two prepared to admit it!' They all laughed again.

Down the long corridor to the lift I went, pushing my
machine ahead of me, still singing - you never knew what
deceitful surgeons might still be watching. Into the lift and
down to my own department. Still singing. As soon as the 
door closed I grabbed a large bottle of Lysol and scrubbed '
the finger that had swirled so nonchalantly through the
feet of revolting colon, then I scrubbed the entire hand
and then the arm. Finally I went upstairs, had a shower,
brushed my teeth, sprayed myself with enough perfume to  give a tart's boudoir a bad name and finally changed my
clothes before I felt clean. It was standard procedure to
keep a change of clothes in your locker, because you never
knew what would happen, from a patient being sick over
you to being thrown into a bath of cold water by some


244

idiot houseman, but I had never been so glad of it as I
was then.


At the VSO interview next day I was faced with a panel of
three people, an elderly man, a middle-aged woman and a
tanned young man. I have always liked interviews and never
feel nervous, which probably says a great deal about me that
doesn't bear closer investigation. This one was par for the
course. I didn't desperately need them to accept me and to be honest I was finding out as much about them as they
were about me; it was entirely possible that I could turn them down and go looking for the big money instead. Then
the tanned young man put his foot in it.

'I wonder if you have any idea of the kind of smells you
can get in an African hospital,' he said in a very superior
tone of voice. He was a VSO himself and obviously knew it
all. 'I mean they do differ considerably from the antiseptic
smells you are used to, I just wonder if you could take it.'

'Listen chum,' I said, 'Have you ever been inches away
from a gangrenous colon?' He shook his head.

'Have you had any experience whatsoever of gangrenous
colon, even from a very great distance?' He shook his
head again.

'Well until you have, don't bother me with your African
hospital smells, because I can guarantee that they just don't
begin to compete!' That showed the little twerp! I seemed to
have this way with interview panels, I thought as I went out,
I kind of grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and threw
them around my head a bit. Oh well, nothing lost really.

A week later the letter arrived saying if my references
checked out I would be accepted and would then undergo
courses in tropical medicine. I really was going abroad. Now
all I had to do was tell Sandy Cunningham that he was giving
me a reference.

And Nan of course, I had to tell Nan . . .


245



Chapter Thirty-Seven


Norah was the only one of my father's family still alive.
She was a tiny lady, certainly under five-feet tall, and by
now into her seventies, but she kept in touch, visiting the
Barracks on the odd Sunday. She sometimes came with her
husband, Uncle Harry, a tall, quiet, straightforward soul
whom she'd run rings around for nearly fifty years. The
hats for which she was famous were still very much in
evidence, and the deceit for which she was infamous was
still there too. Behind the latest millinery creation lurked a
mind sharp enough to cut unsuspecting victims to the bone,
not that this let those of us with well-founded suspicions off
the hook.

I had at that time a collection of blouses in every material,
colour and design, and much of her efforts were directed
at getting her hands on as many as possible. This one was
for a very sick friend, that one would suit her daughter so
well, the daughter who'd had such a bad time lately. Not
that her daughter knew she was being used for the pitch
nor would she ever set eyes on the blouse - other than on
Norah's back. She never came empty-handed of course, I
was always offered a pair of shoes that didn't fit, suit or
interest me, or some awful pair of earrings she had doubtless
conned out of some other defenceless individual.

Hughie, her main adversary was dead and gone, in the
flesh at least. Doors and windows still opened but it was
difficult to compete for points unless he actually made an
appearance, and so far he had decided to win his points while
invisible - cheating though it undoubtedly was. Jim was off
looking for good, honest, non-violent crime to commit, on
one side of the great divide or another, though Norah, the
great mystic of seances and teacups, always insisted that she


246

'felt' Jim was still alive. While he was otherwise engaged he
wasn't around to provide her with entertainment, so the
nonsense with the blouses was mostly a diversion for her.
I at least knew the basic rules of the Game, and even if we
both knew I could never seriously hope to win the points,
the tantalizing prospect of a lucky draw forever hung in the
air between us to amuse her. Her acting talents were still
prodigious, so I was never really sure if she'd had the three
heart attacks she laid claim to, chiefly when negotiations for
the latest blouse were going against her. A hand would go to
her chest and a pained expression would take up residence
across her features, together with an earnest entreaty 'No'
tae worry aboot me hen . . .'

Then one Sunday she seemed to be in real pain that
didn't even respond to the lashings of brandy that usually
did the trick. My mistake was to take this seriously, because
once I had she lost all sense of reality and the theatrical
performance took over. I phoned the hospital, arranged
for the receiving physician to see her and took her, Uncle
Harry and my father down by taxi. By this time she was in
danger of having a heart attack from the fear of having a
heart attack, so I ran the tests myself; her latest hat remained
firmly on her head throughout. Her heart was as strong as
an extremely robust ox, there wasn't the slightest sign of
any of the three previous attacks, and all that ailed her was
indigestion. She carried this news off beautifully by simply
ignoring it, and informing one and all that this attack had
been every bit as severe as her other three. The medicine
given to her by the doctor, a common antacid available over
the chemist shop counter, she hailed as a wonder drug, and
that was that.

While we were waiting for a taxi to take her and her
husband home, I opened up the cardiology department
and made them coffee. I wasn't aware of having created
any impression until I realized that Norah and Uncle Harry
were looking at me with a certain awe. Then I saw what they
were seeing: their niece with all this clout, having access to
this impressive looking world of technology, being on first
name terms with the godlike doctors - it far surpassed any


247


interest my latest blouse might have aroused a few hours
earlier. Then I looked at my father, who sat sipping his
coffee beside them. He was completely unaware of all the
things that had impressed his sister, and the contrast was
startling. The thought popped into my mind that perhaps he
should have been more impressed than Norah, and that if I
had ben Mickey instead he would have been beside himself
with pride. I wasn't aware of competing with Mickey, but I
did have a sudden insight into how difficult it must all have
been for Laurie, who was in the same category as myself;
the one marked 'Not Mickey'. We would never match up:
no matter what we achieved we would forever remain in
the 'Not Mickey' section. The thought made me smile to
myself, but it also made me feel sadder for Laurie than I
had ever felt; he was a male after all and throughout his life
he had tried in all sorts of ways to matter to my father. In that
moment I knew it had all been useless and always would be,
yet I also knew it wouldn't stop Laurie from trying. Laurie
was like one of the Clark 'Dark Yins', forever trying to win
affection from a parent incapable of giving it and without
realizing that it wasn't worth much even if it had been
forthcoming. Laurie was always much more of a Clark; if
only he could see the true value in that.

The following week Norah turned up again and brought
me a pair of nylons. By this time every female I knew was
wearing tights, but I appreciated the trouble she had gone
to and wondered who had been conned out of the stockings
for my benefit. She left with my best blouse. Well, what
could I do? She had now suffered four heart attacks and I
thought a little kindness was in order. It was the nearest I
ever came to that lucky draw with her and I didn't have the
heart to go for it. That's what distinguishes the truly great
Game players from the second leaguers like me; being able
to go for the kill!


Sandy Cunningham was sitting behind his desk when I
went in.

'Chief,' I said, 'I need a reference.'

'What for? Are you leaving?' He said it as though an

248


affirmative answer would book me straight into a psychiatric
appointment. Leave the Eastern Infirmary? Could this be
the action of someone who claimed a passing acquaintance
with sanity?

'I'm going abroad,' I replied.

'Where? America?'

'No, to one of the developing countries, Africa probably.'

His expression suggested that I was already speaking
Swahili and his eyebrows were having problems disentangling themselves from his hairline.

'I'm going with VSO, Voluntary Service Overseas.'

'Aren't they the lot who do it for nothing? I mean you
don't get any cash?'

'Well you get some, but it's voluntary, yes.'

He sat staring at me.

There's a man in this somewhere isn't there?' he
demanded, with the conviction of one who believes he's
hit on the truth.

'No,' I said, 'I've just got to get out of here.'

'I knew it! There is a man involved! It's not that
large houseman upstairs is it?' His face wrinkled with
disapproval.

'There's no man, and the chap upstairs is just a pal.'

'That's not what everyone else says,' he said, 'Everybody
knows he's keen. I'd hate it to be him, can't stand these
religious maniacs, can't stand him!'

'You know what this place is like for rumours,' I smiled,
'It's nothing to do with the religious maniac houseman
upstairs. I shouldn't be here though, I don't really belong
in medicine, it just sort of happened.'

'But you're good at your job!'

'I know that,' I replied, modest as ever, 'But all I ever
wanted to do was write, it's my only talent, and if I stay
around here much longer-Til end up trapped for life. I've
got to get away somewhere to think about what I really
want to do.'

He smiled a fatherly smile. 'Oh Meggie, we all want to
write when we're young! It passes! We all grow up! I could


249

show you reams of poetry I wrote when I was still a normal
human being, that would do my reputation as a bastard no
good at all!'

'I'm going,' I said, 'And you must give me a decent
reference.'

'OK,' he said, 'But I still say there's a man involved in
this and I intend to give the religious maniac a bloody hard
time on principle.'

'Another thing Chief, could you keep it very quiet? I
don't know where or when I'm going yet, I don't want to
talk about it to everybody for months and months.'

'You know me,' he smiled his determined smile, 'The
soul of discretion! Not a word!'

As I was leaving he called me back and pointed to a
calendar on the wall. It was the kind the drugs companies
put out, filthy or funny for the younger doctors, pseudo-arty
for the older ones like Sandy Cunningham.

'Is that the Pope?' he asked.

I looked at the title underneath. 'It says the Doge.'

'Yes, but is it really the Pope?'

'Why would it say the Doge if it was the Pope?' I
demanded, 'And why are you asking me anyway? I wouldn't
recognize the Pope if I fell over him in Casualty!'

'Yes, but you'd recognize a Pope-ish look, wouldn't you?
I can't bear it, the eyes follow me everywhere. If it is the
Pope he could be putting the evil eye on me, don't you
think?'

'It's the Doge!' I said, 'It says it's the Doge, so it's
the Doge!'

'OK. Right. Fine.' He looked at it with an uncertain smile
on his face then reached forward and tore off the picture.
'But just in case, I'll get rid of the ugly bugger anyway!' he
said, catapulting himself a month forward. 'You see how I
depend on you? Who else could help me with problems like
this? You are very selfish, just going off into the wide blue
yonder like this without a thought of the effect on others!'

Next was Nan. She was sitting in her usual chair by the
fireside, and I started by saying that I had the chance to
work abroad for a year, maybe two.


250

'Ye hivtae go,' she said firmly, 'Ye hivtae say ye'll go.'

'But what about you Mum? How will you manage with
him? You'll be losing my money too.'

'Look hen, Ah merried him,' she said, 'You didnae. A'
these years Ah've been worried sick that ye'd gie up yer life
tae look efter him. Ye've made somethin' o' yersel' wi' nae
help frae him and no' much frae me since, since . . . Ye've
no' tae throw a' that away.'

She sounded like my mother, as though the clock had
been turned back years. Any minute now Peggy might walk
in. I didn't know what to say.

'Ah always waantit ma weans tae see the world,' she said
proudly, 'Ah waanted ye a' tae make a decent life fur yersels
and no' tae grow up tae be like him. So ye've tae go hen.
Don't stey away mind, come back hame sometimes, but get
as faur away frae him as ye kin. If ye don't it'll a' hiv been
fur nothin'. See?'

It was a conversation I was to go over in my mind all
of my life, so often in fact that I memorized it. After she
had retired from the world in 1959 there were times when I
had blamed her for deserting me at the very age when girls
need their mothers most. Yet she seemed to be saying that
she had lived these last ten years to make sure that I didn't
end up trapped by duty to my father as she was. It hadn't
occurred to her that I might feel a sense of duty towards
her, that I might stay at home because she needed me. If
I hadn't been there, if she'd had no reason to go on, she
might not have survived Peggy's death. Only then did I
really appreciate how severe that blow had been, but there
had to be more than I knew, and my resolve to find out one
day was underlined in my mental notebook.

Devastating as the loss of Peggy was to all of us, and my
mother in particular, there had to be another element to it
that had destroyed her faith, her hopes and her belief in
everything. It had shaken her to her very roots, but far from
giving up, she had summoned the courage from somewhere
to hang on until the moment when I decided to leave the.
nest. I remembered how upset I had been as a child when
I realized that I would never fly like a bird; maybe that had


251


prepared her for the day when I would spread my wings in
one way or another. I'd been dreading telling her, but she
was quite delighted; it had made her effort worthwhile.


The entire hospital knew; everywhere I went someone wanted
to talk to me about going abroad. Sandy Cunningham had
obviotsly thought the whole thing over and decided that
my going reflected some sort of glory on him, and he made
a point of touring the hospital and telling staff and patients
alike. It was quite a let down when I told them I had no
idea when I was going and no idea where. Then slowly and
thankfully life returned to normal.

In July 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first man to set
foot on the moon. I watched it live on TV in the early hours
of the morning, wrapped in a sleeping-bag, with chicken
sandwiches and a flask of coffee beside me, as Armstrong
took his giant leap for mankind. At the same time Rab was
doubtless watching it in New York and when the tickertape
parade was held to welcome the astronauts home, he would
probably be in the crowd. Rab was rarely mentioned these
days, the Crowd had become used to the fact that he'd gone,
and I couldn't ask.

Hospital life was full of ordinary days that were jam
packed with tedium. To the patients we were admitting,
every day was a personal crisis, but even crises can be
handled on automatic pilot; I needed something to do.
One day the cardiac arrest bleeper sounded and announced
'Cardiac Arrest, Orthopaedic Theatre,' and all over the
hospital, crash team members wondered if it was April ist,
then yelled into their bleepers 'Are you sure?'

The Ortho Theatre and wards were only yards along
the corridor from our department, but we rarely saw the
Orthopods. They just got on with whatever it was they
did with bones and things and left the rest of us to get
on with real medicine. We passed them in the corridors
or in the canteen, friendly, smiling faces that we didn't
know well because we had never worked with them. As
we hadn't worked with them we therefore hadn't fought
with them, so they remained friendly, smiling faces. The


252

Orthopods were so far removed from mainstream hospital
life that they weren't quoted on the gossip hotline.

The theatre block housed identical operating theatres on
every floor, one directly above the other, and so the Ortho
one wasn't really different, it just felt different because we
had never been in it before. And there were the friendly,
smiling Orthopods, standing back from the patient on the
table to let us get at him. Usually there were so many hands
eager to help and getting in the way that harsh words had
to be spoken, but the good old Orthopods weren't to know
that. And the patient was cooperative too. Our success
rate was very low; the real world wasn't a bit like those
impressive TV soaps where with one dramatic shock the
patient immediately gets up and starts raising money for
hospital equipment. But this chap had obviously watched
enough of those to know what was expected of him; one
such dramatic shock and he was back in normal rhythm.
It made us look so good, and we were all acting a shade
smug, but then it was nice to be able to put on a slick show
in front of the surgeons, and the Orthopods were surgeons,
of a sort anyway. I got quite carried away and decided to
run a completely unnecessary series of tracings that could
have waited a couple of hours. It would look impressive in
the case notes, so professional and efficient, quite unlike the
usual chaos on these occasions. Then the tracing went off. It
was the theatre orderly, he was fiddling with the electrodes.
I had seen the old chap around and I'd often thought how
typical it was of the Orthopods to keep him on at his age,
but then nothing much happened in the backwaters. Still,
he must have been about a hundred and of limited use to
anyone else. How kind the Orthopods were not to throw
the old boy on the scrap heap.

'Do you mind,' I smiled, still flushed with success, 'If
you touch the electrodes the tracing goes off.'

'Sorry, I didn't realize.V

'It's OK, no problem,' I replied. Who could be angry on
a day such as this? I flicked the dial back and started again,
and once again the tracing went off, because Methuselah
was fiddling again.


253 ,c


'Whatever you're doing,' I said, 'Could it wait just a few
minutes please, until I get this done?' I asked, going back
to zero again.

'Oops! I really am sorry!'

'No, no, not at all, don't give it another thought.' Regular
members of the crash team were by now standing back in
amazement; under this amount of provocation bodies had
been fjrcibly removed in the past. But this was different,
this was me under the glow of success. Then the tracing
went again, and I sighed heavily and swore loudly.

'Dear me,' said the old orderly, 'I've done it again haven't
I? I really am sorry!'

'You said!' I replied through gritted teeth, but before I
could start once more he was at it again. The time had come
for those harsh words. I leaned over the patient on the table,
grabbed the orderly by the lapel of his white coat and pulled
him down to my eye level.

'Listen chum,' I snarled slowly and patiently into his
face, 'Your friends here made a muck-up of this patient,
and we had to come in to sort it out. Now until we hand
him back so that you can trim his toenails or whatever
it is you pass your time doing in this dump, we
are in charge, and what I'm doing is infinitely more
important than whatever the hell you think you're doing.
So if you even think of touching those electrodes again
there will be two small, spherical objects bouncing around
on the floor, and you'll be singing falsetto! Do I make
myself clear?'

There was a sharp intake of breath all round the theatre.
They were such a pleasant bunch the Orthopods, they had
probably never heard harsh words spoken before; they
didn't live in the real world like we did.

'Yes, oh yes,' the orderly said, 'Crystal-clear!' and then
he did the decent thing and left.

An hour later, with our cooperatively alive patient safely
installed in coronary care, I wandered back to the department
to be told that Dr Cunningham wanted to see me.
Congratulations coming my way!

'Come in Meg,' he grinned, 'There's someone here you

254

should meet.' It was the Ortho orderly, no doubt sent over
by his chief to apologize.

'No need for apologies,' I told him grandly, 'Just remember
to keep out of the way in an emergency in future.'

'Meet,' said my Sandy Cunningham, 'The Professor of
Orthopaedics.' Orthopaedics had a Professor? Well they
said that attack was the best method of defence, I only
hoped 'they' were right.

'In that case he should apologize!' I said, 'Even a Professor
of Orthopaedics should know that when you call in the
pros you stand back and let them get on with it instead
of getting in the way!' I'd just seen the film 'MASH',
and I'd lifted the dialogue straight from Trapper John. They
looked remarkably like fish, sitting there with their mouths
hanging open as I headed smartly for the door.

Then I went to the toilet, switched out the light and did
some serious cringeing in the dark for half an hour. How
was I to know? Who would ever have dreamed that there
was an Orthopod Professor? And he did mess around with
the electrodes, didn't he? And for all he knew he could've
been doing some serious damage, couldn't he? So it was
all his own fault, wasn't it? He thoroughly deserved to be
totally humiliated ... in front of his entire staff ... by
someone young enough to be his grand-daughter . . . didn't
he . . . ?

Later I saw Dr Cunningham again. 'I suppose the silly
old sod is going to have me shot?' I asked.

'No,' he replied, 'What he actually said, and I quote, was
"God, if I were only fifty years younger I'd bed that wild
young thing! What a woman!" The silly old sod is in love,
and you live a charmed life if I may say so.'

Whenever I saw the Orthopod Professor after that he
leered at me, licked his lips and blew kisses, loudly exhorting
his team to prove they were real men by bedding 'that
wild young thing' and telling everyone in earshot exactly
what he would've done in his youth. 'You'd have the best sex
of your life!' he'd roar, 'Trying to tame that one!' I blushed
to the roots of my toenails at every encounter, and the rest of
the hospital enjoyed themselves by whistling 'Wild Thing'


255


whenever I was around. It followed me down corridors, in
the lifts, the operating theatres and in the wards, and to this
day, whenever I hear that song on the radio I hide my head
and blush scarlet.

I never did find out if the Orthopod Professor meant it,
or if he had some O'Brien blood coursing through his body
and had found the perfect way of paying me back. But he
succeeded in putting Orthopaedics on the gossip hotline for
the first time in living memory and he certainly won all the
points. No question.


Skip came home one Saturday afternoon, in his usual
state, and announced that he was going to bed. He had
met a friend who was coming later to collect him for
another drinking session and naturally he wanted to be
fresh for the event. The friend was Jim McAvoy. Nan and
I exchanged looks of anger and disgust. It was as low as Skip
could stoop; we knew he'd drink with anyone, but McAvoy
wasn't counted as among the human race. He was actually
expecting us to invite him into the house and be sociable
to him!

Silly man. Whenever Skip slept off the booze he heard
nothing, it was like a mini-coma, so he didn't hear McAvoy
hammering on the door a few hours later. Nan and I walked
past it, making no attempt to hide the fact that we heard
him and were ignoring him; at one point he even looked
through the letter-box and shouted to be let in. We ended
up laughing so much that we could hardly stand, and clung
to each other for support.

When Skip got up he fretted about McAvoy's nonappearance
as we fought to keep straight faces, and eventually,
with good drinking time passing, he went out again.
He came back hours later freshly reinebriated and with
McAvoy, but I got to the door in time to push his
'friend' out again and lock the door behind Skip. He
drew himself up to his full five-foot-one-inches and tried
to act out the master of the house routine. This was
his house apparently and he'd say who came in, then
he ruined it all by being too drunk to negotiate the


256

opening of the door. Nan sat in her chair, weeping with
laughter.

'Jim tellt me he looked through the letter boax an' ye
baith ignored him!' he yelled, plainly aghast that such deceit
could exist within his own family. McAvoy listened outside
the door.

'He's bloody lucky we did ignore him! My Uncle George
wouldn't have ignored him!' I replied for McAvoy's benefit,
'We remember the life he gave Peggy! Ask your wee pal if he
remembers someone called Peggy. Dark-haired, attractive,
a pleasant woman, too good for him! Ask him if that rings
any bells.'

'Ah invited him as a guest! You apologize tae Jim!'

'He's a rat! And you only get in because you're married
to my mother, otherwise the embargo would apply to
you too!'

'Ye think yur sum'dy!' he screeched pathetically, falling
back on the old insult that no doubt he and McAvoy had
been discussing all night in whatever pub they had met up
in. But it awakened something in Nan.

'Aye, ye're right,' she said savagely, 'Thur's mair Clark
in hur than O'Brien, she is sum'dy!'

Eventually McAvoy gave up and went away and Skip
yelled himself to sleep like the baby he was, but it was a
kind of turning point. Instead of trying to placate him for
the sake of peace we had laughed at him, and he hadn't
known how to deal with that. It gave Nan some form of
upper hand for the first time in many years and I began
to believe that she could cope while I wasn't there. It was
a new low for Skip in my eyes though, I was disgusted that
he'd have anything to do with McAvoy and the thought that
we'd have him in the house was beyond belief.

Later, out of the blue, Nan said quietly, 'Dae ye remember
Peggy?' It must have been triggered by my jibe at
McAvoy earlier. She really didn't think I had forgotten
her, it was simply the only way she could manage to bring
up Peggy's name after having avoided it for so long.

'Of course I remember her Mum!' I replied, 'It's like it
was yesterday! I could never forget Peggy!'



257


That's good,' she said, 'The three o' us wur good pals,
wurn't we?'

'It was like we were one Mum, the three of us were
so close.'

She nodded. 'It's no' the same withoot hur,' she said,
'Ah jist feel kinda . . .' The words ran out. It was the first
time sht had ever talked about Peggy and I held my breath,
hoping she'd go on.

'Like a part of you is missing,' I said, 'And a part of
me too.'

'Aye,' she said, 'That's it. Missin'. Dae you feel like
that tae?'

'All the time. I've felt like that ever since. Sometimes I
feel as if I'm still looking for her, though I know I won't
find her.'

'Dae ye think there's another life efter this wan?'

'And we'll all meet up again? No, I wish it could be true.
Sometimes I'd do anything to see her again, I can't believe
she's really gone.'

'It's jist that sometimes Ah wake up in the middle o' the
night, an' Ah'm sure Ah've heard hur sayin' ma name. Ah
aye heard her sayin' "Nan" when sumthin' was happenin',
it wis like that a' oor lives.'

'I remember,' I smiled, 'The two of you didn't need
to talk.'

'A' they months while she wis expectin' the last wean,
Ah kept hearin' her sayin' "Nan". An' a' that Seterday, Ah
heard it tae, an' Ah knew she wis hivin' the wean. Then it
stoaped, an' Ah knew ... Bit noo I still think Ah hear hur,
an' sometimes during the day Ah get this feelin' that she's
there. Y'know, right there beside me. Dis that sound like
Ah'm daft?'

'Of course you're not daft!' I said, 'You're just keeping
her alive in your mind, same as I am. I can't really
believe she's not there any longer either. Peggy was always
there . . .'

My mind was working frantically, making sense of the
memories of those months when Nan couldn't sleep. She
was hearing Peggy calling for help, and that was normal

258


for them, it worked both ways. Only when she rushed
to Peggy's side there seemed to be nothing happening.
But there was something happening, of course, and the
prophetic dreams had tried to sound the warning that Nan
didn't want to hear, so by morning she had converted them
into funny stories.

But she hadn't fooled herself, and she hadn't fooled me,
either. I had known something was wrong, even if I couldn't
put my finger on it. While she spoke I was hoping Nan
might say something about how Peggy had died, but I had a
feeling that if I asked questions she wouldn't be able to carry
on. Each word came out sounding fragile, as though the
slightest pressure could blow them all away forever. There
was a silence and then she said, 'Dae ye mind that seance
Norah made me go tae? The wan where the man said Da
Clark hid a warnin' for us? Ah've aye thoaght Ah shoulda
went back tae see him.'

'You don't believe that do you?' I asked, 'If Da had
a warning about Peggy he wouldn't have needed some
stranger to pass it on, would he? And how would Da have
known? We were the closest to Peggy, and we couldn't stop
it happening, could we?'

'Ah wis wearin' that green coat that night,' she said, 'Ah
couldnae wear it again efter. Ah shoulda burned that green
coat . . .'

'No Mum,' I replied, 'We should've burned McAvoy! Or
better still, we should've burned McAvoy's old man, just to
make sure!' She laughed, but then she said sadly, 'Still, Ah
shouldnae hiv let her hiv that green coat. . .' Ten years on
and still all that longing and 'if onlys'. All that pain and
misplaced guilt. She never spoke of the events leading up
to Peggy's death again, and I never asked because I knew she
couldn't tell me whatever was still hidden. I was convinced
that there was more to the story though and one day I had
to know it all.	,


The news came at the end of August; I wasn't going to
Africa, I was going to India. The hospital I was being sent
to was in the former French Protectorate of Pondicherry,



259

just outside Madras in the south of the country. In the
Sixties France had been trying to get rid of its empire and
had built a huge complex in Pondicherry along the lines of
an American campus. The hospital, called the Jawaharlal
Institute of Post-Graduate Medical Education and Research,
JIPMER for short, had its own staff accommodation, post
office, school, shops and snake-catcher. What it didn't have
was trained staff, and I was to train a technical team to run
their own department. I had been expecting Africa probably
because of the sun-tanned young man who had challenged
my ability to cope with African hospital smells. India was
more exciting, and I would leave on 3Oth November, St
Andrew's Day.

The months between would be filled having vaccinations
for smallpox, cholera and all manner of other nasties, and
at least I didn't have to pay any doctor a professional fee
for wielding the hypodermic; they were fighting each other
for the chance. I also had to assemble a completely new
all-cotton wardrobe for the different climate. I was going
in the Indian winter, but compared with a blisteringly
good Scottish summer it would still be tropical. Sandy
Cunningham bustled around taking an interest in every
detail, reading books on India and passing on information
and generally taking charge whether I let him or not. Having
come to the conclusion that my wonderful altruism was
really a feather in his cap, he had ensured that not only
the hospital but the entire medical world knew all about the
great adventure too. He arranged for me to go to London,
to watch advanced cardiac surgery at Guy's Hospital, where
unfortunately neither patient made it off the table. Well at
least it laid to rest the myth of London superiority.

Next were the farewell parties, which worked out about
one a week at the hospital. At each one Sandy Cunningham
got up and gave an emotional speech about how the Scots
were seasoned globe-trotters, and how I was following in a
great tradition. This took him, for some reason, onto the
disproportionate number of island fishermen who had died
during the last War protecting shipping convoys, men who
were never recognized as the heroes they were. For that


260

reason I should avoid Germans at all costs, and the English,
which went without saying, even if he did say it anyway.
Foreign travel was clearly a wonderful thing, as long as the
foreigners were weeded out of the experience.

The Crowd had to have a ceilidh too, any excuse was
seized on for a ceilidh now that most of them had settled
down with wives, children and mortgages. The invitations
were individually written in as near copperplate script as I
managed to learn in the time available, and put in language
meant to suggest the Raj.

'You haven't done one for Rab,' someone said, going over
the list with me.

'I hardly think he'll come all the way back from America!'

'He's back. He only went over for a year.'

'OK, I'll do one for him,' I replied, in that calm, casual
voice, though my heart was thumping like, well, like a
wild thing.

The excitement was short-lived though, because that
cold, analytical voice in my head quickly reminded me that
even if he was back, he'd hardly gone out of his way to let
me know. Nothing had changed. He went without bothering
to tell me and he'd come back the same way; it remained a
pointless business. But I could still see him sometimes, I
thought. With his wife, probably, the voice suggested. That
was something I really couldn't face. Imagine bumping into
him and him saying 'This is my wife . . .'It would certainly
happen sometime soon, if it hadn't happened already, and I
didn't want to be around when it did. I wrote out another
invitation and sent it off to him, because he was one of the
Crowd and it would have looked odd if I hadn't.

Nan seemed to have a new lease of life. There was no
miraculous transformation, but she was taking notice of
everything that was happening, inspecting all the new
clothes for the tropics and talking more than she had in
years. I was playing it all down a bit though, I didn't want
my leaving to be a great big event. I still had work to go to
and time to fill before I left,"so a fever pitch of excitement
would have been hard to sustain.


261


The ceilidh was set for the Saturday before I left, to give
those attending all of Sunday to recover. I opened the door
to the first arrival; it was Rab. The medical report given by
some nervous houseman would have been, 'Please Sir, the
patient's heart leapt clean out of her thorax and it was last
seen dancing on the ceiling, singing "Happy Days are Here
Again" ... I fear the patient's condition is hopeless.'

'Oh,' I said, 'It's you, the Yank.'

'An' it's you,' he replied, 'The ratbag. Ah need tae get
some booze, ye'd better grab yer coat an' come wi' me an'
show me the nearest boozer.'

It was the first time I'd been alone with the man in years,
since the time he had taken his jacket off and walked with
me through the rain when I was no more than a child. Now
I was sitting across a pub table from him, drinking coke and
fending off insults.

'Ah'm embarrassin' ye, go oan, admit it,' he grinned.

'I admit it,' I replied, 'It's like being with neanderthal
man.'

'Good,' he winked, 'Ah've never met the bloke, but he
must be a stoatir if he's like me. Ah love tae embarrass
ratbags!'

When we got back the ceilidh was in full swing; the Crowd
didn't stand on ceremony, it didn't matter to them that the
hostess wasn't even there. Rab disappeared into the throng
and I got caught up in a sing-song somewhere else. When
the first wave retired to sleeping-bags on the floor upstairs,
another wave arrived and took over, and so it went on all
night. At one point Rab demanded that a woman be brought
to him, to shouts of derision all round about who would take
him. Well at least that proved there was no Mrs Rab on the
horizon.

'I hear you're looking for a woman,' I said.

'But no' a ratbag,' he replied, and was.once again lost in
the Crowd. Arguments that had lain dormant since the last
time we were all together were resurrected and re-argued,
and songs were sung without the aid of a campfire, until
the call was heard, 'Goodnight Rab!' Rab couldn't drink
a lot of whisky, in fact after one glass his eyes gleamed
and his banter scintillated for an hour or so and then he


262

fell asleep. This was common knowledge and the Crowd
waited for the moment at each gathering and yelled out
in unison as he dropped off where he was or crept off in
search of his sleeping-bag.

Slowly the night drew to a temporary lull and I lay down
beside Denis, who also came from Drumchapel. He had a
well-earned reputation for being a stud, but I had grown up
knowing him and considered him to be nearly a brother.
Much to my surprise, as I lay down beside him he grabbed
me and instantly launched into a love scene from The Thomas
Crown Affair, a film that was all the rage at the time. He had
cast himself as Steve McQueen and I was Faye Dunaway
apparently, or I would have been if I hadn't laughed. I got
up and went upstairs, smiling wryly to myself. Sod's Law
again. The only man I wanted had gone to America, which
was at least partly responsible for my going to India. Only
he had come back and I was still committed to going. The
only man I wanted was lying snoring in a sleeping-bag in
front of me, while one I didn't want was grabbing at me.
I aimed a kick at the sleeping figure and muttered 'Sod
you Rab!' He stirred mid-snore, turned onto his side and
resumed snoring where he had left off. I lay down beside
him; I wouldn't be able to say I had slept with him of
course, but I figured it was as near as I was ever likely
to get. Downstairs someone woke, started singing and the
ceilidh swung into another phase. I stayed where I was.

The Crowd began to disperse around lunchtime. Rab
didn't know where to get a bus home so I volunteered
to show him; to my annoyance a few of the others came
too, 'for a breath of air'. On the way nothing of note was
discussed, and as Rab boarded his bus he said to me 'Well
cheerio. Remember to write, and don't gobble too much
rice!' If Humphrey Bogart had had that little to say to
Ingrid Bergman, Casablanca wouldn't have been worth
making; as romantic farewells went it didn't exactly rank
way up there with the best. But then it wasn't a romantic
farewell, was it?


263


l.al

Chapter Thirty-Eight


v

It was my last week in the hospital. While I had been at
the ceilidh one of the surgical housemen had attempted
to murder a patient; it was the talk of the place, and no
one could talk about it without laughing, of course. It
was not just any houseman, but John Alexander, one of
the pleasantest, easiest to work with chaps in the history
of the sub-species. I had known him as a medical student
and as a medical houseman before he had gone on to do
his six months with the surgeons, which admittedly could
turn anyone into Frankenstein's monster.

John had been on casualty duty, the worst ordeal anyone
can ever undergo, and apparently it had been a particularly
bad go. His wife had given birth to their first child the day
before and John hadn't managed to see her or their son yet.
He had been awake for over twenty-four hours, then he
had been presented with a Chinese cook whose brother had
tapped him on the head with a knife in the family restaurant.
The knife was sticking out of the cook's head and all he
wanted to do was kill the brother who had put it there.
The knife didn't seem to be bothering him, but the reason
for the argument, that he kept a dirty kitchen, still did. So while John had been trying to deal with the kind of injury
he had only encountered before in his worst nightmares, the
injured man was trying to get at his brother. At one point
he had succeeded and the two Chinamen were wrestling on
the floor, and John could see his career disappearing before
his very eyes. It wasn't every doctor who lost a patient
by allowing him to scramble about the floor with a knife
imbedded in his skull, after all.

He had just finished dealing with that when the next one
arrived, a pleasant, calm little man in his late forties, with


264

a fireside poker sticking out of his chest. John's weary eyes
watched in horror as the poker jumped in time with the
man's heart-beat, and he listened as the history unfolded.
The little man was a bachelor who lived with his mother,
and as they had been watching TV together he had stirred
the fire with the poker and then left it in the coals. When
it was glowing red-hot, he had lifted it out and plunged it
into his chest, so that as John could plainly see, it had come
to rest against his heart. The patient was clearly feeling
no pain and was polite and helpful. John then made the
fatal mistake, he asked why he'd done it. The little man
replied amiably, 'It seemed a good idea at the time.' No
one could do anything other than sympathize with young
Dr Alexander; it had been a tough year, a tough twenty-four
hours in particular and of course there had been all the
anxiety leading up to the birth of the son he had yet to
see. The fates had clearly conspired to get at him and it
was little wonder that he felt off form. The first the rest of
the casualty staff knew that there was a problem was when
they heard a kind of gurgling sound behind the screens, and
when a curious nurse looked she found nice, pleasant John
Alexander with his hands around his patient's throat. John
had had enough, he had flipped and it took three of them
to prise his fingers off the man's windpipe.

I saw the patient a few days later. He had inflicted a
serious injury on himself, or rather, series of injuries. First
of all he had a neat hole burned through his chest, through
which you could watch his heart beating; that would clearly
need a few goes of plastic surgery to close up. He had also
inflicted a burn on the outer surface of his heart that would
leave a scar similar to a heart attack, and there he sat in bed,
courteous, smiling, grateful for whatever was done for him.
Happily the slight bruising around his throat was fading. I
was tempted to ask John Alexander's question - it seemed
such a totally demented way to kill oneself - but I wasn't at
all sure that I trusted myself jo refrain from John's solution
if the little man gave me the same reply; so I didn't.

If Indian medicine could top this, I'd be very surprised.


265


On my last day at the hospital I was asked to see a patient
called McGettigan, a man in his early sixties. I knew little
about him except that it was a routine check, there was
nothing wrong with his heart. Was he, I wondered, any
relation to a Betty McGettigan who was a teacher? Yes,
she was his wife. Did she teach at the Marian school many
years ago? Yes, she did. Before I left the ward I asked the
housetnan what was wrong with the patient.

'It's the nervous system,' he said, 'Incurable I'm afraid.
We've just told the family.' He screwed up his face and
shook his head, it was a rotten part of the job. Losing
patients was bad enough, but telling their relatives we'd
lost them was worse. As I left I saw them sitting outside
the ward, Mrs McGettigan and her two daughters, their
heads close together, deep in conversation. Her hair was
as I remembered it, swept back with a deep wave on either
side framing her face, and caught in a French roll at the
back of her head. It was exactly the same, only now it
was pure white. I stood at the lift watching her with her
daughters, tempted to go up to her and talk, but there is a
time and place and now wasn't the right one for a reunion
with a former pupil. What could I have said anyway?

'Hello, I know you've just had devastating news about
your husband, but guess who I am?' It seemed strange to
be close to her and not to talk to her, but if I'm honest there
was also a feeling of relief. I should be writing; she'd always
said so. 'One day you'll see her words in print,' she'd told the
others on the last day of the Marian school. Yes, I knew she
needed time with her family right then, but another factor
was that I really didn't want her to know I was working in
medicine. If I had any nagging doubts about going away,
seeing her settled them somewhat. ; i


It was 3Oth November, 5 a.m., time to go. There were no
emotional goodbyes as I left the house in the early morning
darkness for Glasgow Airport. My father had got up for
some reason to see me off and as I turned to go he made
a movement that suggested he might be about to hug me.
He couldn't do it though, it wasn't in the man to show


266

m

emotion, if that was what he was thinking of. Instead he
patted my shoulder, which made me smile; the truth was
that I couldn't have taken a hug from him anyway, it was
years too late for that. As I closed the front door I heard
Nan's voice coming from her bedroom, 'Cheerio hen, hiv
a good time.' I might have been going for a night out. I
knew even then that I would regret for the rest of my life
not telling her all those things we all leave unsaid until it is
too late, but all I said was 'Bye Mum.'

Peter, Paul and Mary were singing 'I'm Leaving on a Jet
Plane' as the shuttle took off for London; I made a mental
note to one day find that record and jump up and down on
it, for threatening my stiff upper lip.

Glasgow is a corruption of a Gaelic word meaning 'dear
green place', and from the air a surprising amount of
greenery was still visible. My mind was in turmoil as I
watched it fall away below me, all my doubts had returned
and they now seemed like sound sense. What was I doing?
Was I running away from all the parts of my life that
didn't work rather than sort them out? Rab was down
there somewhere, unaware and uninterested, but that was a
fact I would always have to live with, so how did going off to
India help that? Nan was down there, and Peggy too, buried
with all sorts of questions I wouldn't find the answers to in
India. Just what did I think I was doing? Nan had spent her
entire life, and mine, searching for Utopia; it was just over
that far-off hill, just beyond the next house move. Perhaps
I was doing the same, taking on Nan's quest without really
thinking it through. Whose search was I going on and just
what did I think I was doing?

I didn't realize it at the time, but as I flew off from
Glasgow on my great adventure that St Andrew's Day I
was already planning my return.


Utopia, after all, is where the heart is ...




267



Epilogue: Voices, Dreams and Searches


Rab and I had been married for eight and a half years and
lived with our three-year-old son, Euan, on an island off
the West Coast of Scotland. It was 4th February 1980 and
it had been snowing heavily most of the day. Nan was in
hospital on the mainland. She had burned her leg, nothing
serious, but the dressing needed changing three or four
times a day. To save time for the district nurses she had
gone into hospital for a few days.

I had arranged to visit her on the Wednesday, but I
had taken a notion to go across instead that Monday. The
blizzard struck as I was negotiating the farm-track with
Euan in his buggy. The local postie stopped me at the road
end and told me it was blocked further along, so I couldn't
get to the ferry terminal. Reluctantly I turned back, annoyed
at myself for being so stubborn. Wednesday was only two
days away and Nan wasn't expecting me till then, so why
this determination to get there today? I had a young child
to consider after all, why subject him to howling winds and
snow too thick to see through?

All that day Rab drove a snow plough in an attempt to
keep the island's one road open. He came home briefly to
refill his thermos and to grab a bite to eat, then dashed out
again at 8 p.m. I was getting Euan ready for bed when I heard
a voice say 'Rita'. Assuming Rab had forgotten something,
I went to the front door, wondering as I opened it why he
had called me Rita. He disliked the family name and like
everyone else these days he called me Meg. When he wasn't
at the front I went to the back-door, annoyed now that I
had to leave the baby. Why couldn't Rab use his keys for
heaven's sake? The snow plough had gone; there was no
one there. Outside there was nothing but swirling snow.


268

Without thinking about it I went straight to the phone and
called the hospital.
'Can you please tell my mother to call me?' I asked the
staff nurse on Nan's ward.

'Have you spoken to anyone already?'
'Yes, I spoke to the ward sister the other day,' I replied,
'Tell my mother to reverse the charges and none of her
nonsense. I'll worry about my own phone bill.'

'Have you spoken to anyone today?' she persisted, and
for the first time on that freezing cold day I felt a chill.

'What's wrong staff?' I was aware that I was holding
my breath and forced myself to let it out again, slowly
and easily.

'She's had a relapse.'

'Look staff, I'm stuck on this island and I can't get off.
I'm a medic, tell me in medical jargon what's happened
and I'll understand.' There was a pause as she wondered
whether she should tell me on the phone. I concentrated
on my breathing.

'She's had a full systemic collapse. She has double
pneumonia, septicaemia and renal failure. Five minutes
ago she slipped into a coma.'

'She's dying,' I said, moving up a gear in crisis mode,
'How long?' j;
'I really can't say.'

'Come along staff!' I said in my most officious medical
voice, 'My mother's dying and I can't get to her! Kindly
stop playing with words and tell me the truth!'

'I shouldn't tell you this over the phone, but I'd say a
couple of hours at the most.'

It was just after 8 p.m. I put Euan to bed and sat down,
my mind totally concentrated on Nan. Exactly two hours
later I called again and she had just died. I was perfectly
calm, thanked the staff nurse for caring for Nan and for
being honest with me. Then I sat down again to wait for
morning. I couldn't be there-with her, it was the nearest to
a vigil by her side that I could manage.

To this day I have no explanation for the voice calling
my name as Nan slipped into unconsciousness, all I know


269


is that I heard it. It was neither male nor female, just a voice,
but plain and clear. Neither do I know why I went straight
to the phone, because I had made no conscious connection
between the voice and Nan. And the thing that has haunted
me ever since is that I had thought whatever bound us
closely together had weakened and died after 1959. If she
was calling me then it had still been there, and I hadn't even
knowp. All those years when I had needed her and missed
her, yet she had been there all along . . .


The dreams started in 1985. Night after night I would wake
up covered in sweat and shaking with terror, and soon I
was finding reasons to avoid sleeping. I was thirty-sevenyears-old,
happily married with three children; nothing was
wrong. Yet out of a clear blue sky I was having nightmares.
And they didn't fade in the cool light of day, they remained
crystal clear afterwards, and still are today.

In one I was walking down a road with beautiful gardens
on all sides, all filled with pink roses, nothing but pink roses.
I kept looking around, in a desperate attempt to find some
other flower, but everywhere there was nothing but pink
roses. When I woke I couldn't understand why I should
find pink roses so distressing, but soon I was watching for
them wherever I went during the waking day, and hoping
not to find them. And I couldn't understand why.

In another dream I was in a room I didn't recognize and
Jim McAvoy was standing beside a closed door, looking
down at the floor. I was facing the door, and the Clarks were
behind me on all sides. There was something awful behind
the door, but I had to open it and I knew somehow that the
family didn't really want me to. I turned the handle and as
the door swung open, there stood Peggy, her face solemn,
almost reproachful, as I had never seen her. Her dark-brown
hair was swept up in a sophisticated, smooth style that was
all wrong; Peggy had a mass of curls. She was wearing a
long dress of heavy, powder-blue satin, plain, simple and
beautiful, but nothing like Peggy would have chosen. She
loved pink, and nothing could be too fancy, no amount of
lace and frills was ever enough, everything had to be a riot of


270


over-the-top, cheerful nonsense, or she considered it plain.
None of the Clarks spoke in the dream, but they seemed
to be showing Peggy to me and telling me everything was
fine. Only it wasn't Peggy, not the real Peggy, and nothing
was fine, and the look on her face terrified me.

Then I was sitting in a booth in some fashionable
restaurant. It was thick with tropical plants and music
played softly in the background, some vaguely familar
tune I couldn't quite place. I had a cup of coffee in
front of me as I chatted to someone. I could, she was
saying, get the information fairly easily, there was the new
freedom of information legislation for instance, and I knew
where to start, I knew the date in I959 and I had enough
medical contacts. The place to start, she was saying, was
the Registrar's Office, which seemed logical to me and I
was agreeing. Then as I turned to look at her I found it
was Peggy, but before I could say anything she disappeared
and I sped around the fancy restaurant desperately trying
to find her. Then I noticed that the tropical plants had
turned into pink roses and the music in the background
was 'Mexicali Rose'.

Next I was walking along a familiar road near to the
Eastern Infirmary and I saw someone I knew coming out
of the flower shop carrying a bunch of flowers. She was
wearing a beige wool coat and expensive black patent
high-heeled shoes, and she carried a plain black clutch
bag. Her jewellery was discreet, but quality, and her hair
was beautifully swept back from her face. I touched her
sleeve, and she turned towards me; it was Peggy. Once
again she looked at me with that solemn, reproachful stare.
Then wordlessly she handed me a single pink rose from the
bunch she carried and disappeared before my eyes.

These dreams kept recurring and terrified me for no
reason that I could understand. I had never been scared
of Peggy in my life and if her ghost had appeared before
me I would have been delighted. I had never truly known
what had happened on 3oth May 1959; whatever else the
dreams might mean, they were reminders of how much I
didn't know about a tragedy that had changed the entire


271


course of my life. In my new, happy life I had attempted
to put it all behind me, I had crammed it all into a mental
compartment and put up a notice saying 'Finished. Do not
open.' Only it wasn't finished and now it was leaking out,
forcing itself into my life, and I couldn't get it to go back
into the compartment again.

After a few sleepless months I gave in. There was only
one thing I could do. I had to go back to 1959 and find out
everything that had happened, I had to know why Peggy had died to understand what had become of us all afterwards.
The dark, yawning abyss had to be filled in, no matter how
painful it might be, or it would remain there, seething and
furious for the rest of my life.

I planned it carefully. First of all, even if I did succeed in
uncovering the events of that day after twenty-six years, I
was so close to the story that I might misinterpret whatever
I discovered. So I found lan Cameron, a Consultant I had
known in the Eastern who was also a psychotherapist, and
one of the wisest men I had ever known. I told him the
story and he agreed that the dreams were pushing me into
investigating Peggy's death. 'Isn't that funny?' he said,
'When I was a medical student in the forties we had to
do home deliveries, and Blackhill was my area.'

So the streets where I had played as a child in the fifties
were the streets he had walked as a young man, delivering
babies in the forties. Then I had grown up to work with him
and later to involve him in my quest over an obstetrics death
in those same streets. Dr Cameron agreed to help evaluate
whatever information I turned up, he would be my thread
through the labyrinth.


The first thing I did was to visit the Registrar's Office in
Martha Street, Glasgow. This was the area where the Clarks
and O'Briens had lived. Their births had been registered in
this office, just as mine had been and Mickey's and Laurie's. '
Peggy's death had been too, and it was where Rab and I had
married. In the next street was Rottenrow and the hospital
where Peggy had died, and further along was the Brae. So
all around were reminders of events in my life.

272


I asked the clerk for Peggy's death certificate and gave
him the date. When he came back he took me into a side
room. There had apparently been a change of cause of
death. The first was signed by a Dr S A Collins at the
hospital, citing 'Obstructed labour 1A day. Rupture of
uterus. Severe Haemorrhage.' Then there was a police
post-mortem by a Dr W P Weir, and he'd changed the
cause of death to 'Rupture of uterus and intra-peritoneal
haemorrhage following forceps for foetal distress,' clearly
blaming the use of forceps.

I paid for a copy of the certificate and wandered back
down the road. W P Weir was Walter Weir, a well-known
pathologist, and luckily someone I knew, albeit slightly.
Another coincidence; like lan Cameron I had known him
professionally without suspecting that his shadow had
crossed my life years ago. When I phoned him he told
me he had just retired and I explained what I wanted to
know. He had no difficulty in remembering Peggy, despite
all the PMs he had carried out.

'It was a bad case,' he explained, 'I had seen very few like
it, a real mess.' In my experience medics only remember the
bad ones.

'You seemed to blame the forceps,' I said, 'And you
dropped any mention of obstructed labour from your
findings.'

'Yes, that's right. I was very clear about that. There was
no obstruction, and the use of forceps would have been
wrong anyway, an obstructed labour needs a Caesarian
section. Whoever used the forceps that day killed the woman
and the child. The haemorrhage was well-established, if I
remember correctly there was very little blood left in her
body, she had virtually bled to death before she reached
Rottenrow. They wouldn't have been able to do anything
for her by that time. I'll have a look, I might have my notes
still, I'm sorting stuff out now that I've retired. Give me a
call back and I'll see what I can find.'


I found Dr S A Collins through the medical mafia. Though
he wasn't in the medical directory, the list of doctors in



273

this country, I found his brother. Steven Collins was now
a Professor of Obstetrics in Malaysia. I immediately wrote
off to him and planned my next move. It had to be the family
doctor, but I didn't even know his name, only McAvoy
would know that. I picked up a Glasgow telephone directory
and called up every McAvoy listed. The McAvoys were a
large family and the GP had been their doctor, if I could
find one of them I might be able to avoid actually talking
to Jim McAvoy, if he were still alive.

It was surprisingly easy. I quickly found one of McAvoy's
brothers, who told me the name of the GP, Dr James
Hammond. McAvoy was apparently living with his - and
Peggy's - youngest son in Glasgow. All attempts to find
Dr Hammond then hit a brick wall. I tried the medical
mafia and the word came back that Hammond was dead.
I tried every medical organization and the reply was the
same: there was no record of a Dr James Hammond. I
discovered that he had had a partner in the sixties and I
called that man's home to discover that he had been dead
for years; his widow told me that Hammond had too. She
gave me the number of the practice they had shared, but
when I called I was told the same story. I don't know why
I kept going down that road, perhaps it was just a natural
cussedness, but somehow I didn't believe what I was being
told about Hammond. I had a distinct feeling that he was
alive. I went back to the Glasgow telephone directory once
again and called every Hammond I could find. And there
he was. I could hardly believe it, but his voice was on the
other end of the line. I told him that I was writing a book
and one of his former patients came into the story - totally
untrue at the time, but I didn't want him to know Peggy
and I were related, or he might clam up.

'Her name was McAvoy,' I said, 'I think she died around
1960,1 wonder if you remember her?'

'Margaret McAvoy,' he said, 'Six Moodiesburn Street.
1959-'

Instantly I knew that what had happened was out of the
ordinary; you only remember the bad ones. Twenty-six
years later and Hammond could still remember Peggy's

274


jW'Vi
f VV


address; it must have been very bad. I had caught him
off guard, so I asked him if I could see him rather than
keep the conversation going on the phone and arouse any
suspicions. In the flesh I'd be able to judge how honest
he was being in his answers too, and it would be harder
to throw me out than it would to hang up the phone. He
agreed to see me in two days time and I hung up without
leaving my number, so that if he thought better of it he
wouldn't be able to contact me and cancel.

Over the next couple of days I tried to compile a list
of questions and settle on some strategy for dealing with
both Hammond and the situation. I was finding it very
difficult sometimes to think about Peggy in a detached
way. While I was talking to Walter Weir I had struggled
to keep my mind from picturing the scene in the bedroom
that day. Long-hidden memories kept intruding and putting
themselves in context, making the picture more complete.
The more I found out the more I had to feel emotional
about and I couldn't afford that if I was going to get to
the bottom of the story. So if the two days before I met
Hammond were an eternity, they were also an opportunity
to put some distance between the truth and my feelings.


Hammond lived in Newton Mearns, in the affluent south
of the city, in 'a big hoose'; I smiled to myself as the daily
woman let me in. His home was a typical Victorian mansion,
with large airy rooms and high corniced ceilings. The decor
was ultra conservative, antique furniture and a cream and
beige colour scheme, the kind of house that gave the feeling
of permanence. Nothing had moved from its allotted spot in
a very long time here, a house where children had never lived
to disturb the quiet gentility. There was only one picture of
a baby and it had that indefinable look of having been taken many years ago.

Dr James Hammond was sitting by the fireside in an
elegant armchair with curved, wooden legs. He was a small,
portly figure with receding "white hair that had once been
sandy-red. Dressed immaculately but soberly, his cuff-links
bearing the entwined initials of his name, he sat smiling. His


275


clasped hands rested in his lap, and a gold tie-pin bearing the
same monogram held his dark maroon tie. I thanked him for
seeing me, and to put him at ease I told him of my medical
background and we talked of doctors we had both known.
He was delighted to have someone to swap gossip with and
told me a little about his days as a GP during the setting up
of the NHS. He'd had a single-handed practice for most of
the time apparently, until the early sixties, in fact. I asked
him how he had coped with the demands this must have
made on him and he bristled with pride and said he simply
sacrificed himself for his patients, not that they deserved it
in the main of course, but it was the kind of man he was.
He'd been a widower these last five years and he often
looked back now and regretted how much time he should
have spent with his wife that he'd spent instead with
his demanding patients. He took out a monogrammed
handkerchief and blew his nose. Then I told him the story
I had prepared, that I was writing something about Mrs
McAvoy's sister, who had saved the lives of her neighbours
when Balmano Brae had collapsed. He blew out his cheeks

derisively.

'I should be very surprised if we're talking about the same
family!' he laughed, Those people weren't capable of anything
notable apart from prodigious breeding, believe me!'

'Really?' I said, 'I wouldn't know. I just stumbled across
this story and felt I had to follow it through.'

'Well for a start they came from Blackhill,' he said, 'Now
a young lady such as yourself wouldn't know anything
about Blackhill. It was a hell-hole, a den of thieves and
murderers, but as we used to say in those days, if we kept
them all together, at least we knew where they were!' He
laughed merrily at his little jest. 'Many of my patients came
from there. They had to be looked after like children,
told whether they were ill or not, and more often they
weren't. Too much booze and too little solid food, that
was their trouble in the main, give that sort money to feed
themselves and their children and they followed a liquid diet
if you know what I mean! I was the only person who could
go into Blackhill in,a,car and not have the wheels stolen

' '-.- 'ft v

276

while it was still moving. I was strict with them you see,
let them know who was boss!'

'Weren't there any decent people there?'

'Not a one my dear, decency wasn't something that
counted in Blackhill. It must be very difficult for someone
like you to understand, but those people were barely human,
the absolute dregs of humanity at the most.'

'And Mrs McAvoy?'

'Oh she was just like the rest, a big, blowsy, coarse-spoken
creature.' I wondered for a moment if he had actually known
Peggy, if he'd ever set eyes on her.

'Didn't know her well, mind you,' he continued, 'I was
the McAvoy's family doctor, only saw her after she married
Jim McAvoy.'

'What was he like?'

'Pretty much par for the Blackhill course. Low intelligence,
no education, but with a kind of animal cunning.'

'And did you see Mrs McAvoy throughout her pregnancy?'

'No, no, you didn't see that sort until they went into
labour, then it was a knock at the door and "Please
doacter'," he mimicked a Glasgow accent, and as I looked at
him I remembered Peggy going to ante-natal appointments.
Nan and I had waited for her in Moodiesburn Street once,
on one of my mother's sudden desires to see her, and as Peggy came in she smoothed her cotton smock over
her belly and said, 'If Ah'm no' away by Monday Ah've
tae go back tae see him.' At that time she was already
overdue and only weeks from death. This was Peggy,
who had longed for motherhood, who adored babies even
if she was having too many. Peggy kept her antenatal
appointments.	1K 'And was she overdue?' 
'Overdue? No, no; not that I remember.'
'And who was at the birth?'

'I was.'

'You were? That's lucky,"you'll have all the details. I had
been told that someone else attended that day.'

'No, it was me.' We were having no more amusing detours


277



into the backward ways of the Blackhill natives I noticed, he
was too busy paying close attention now.

'And what happened?'

'Well McAvoy called me, I went to the house and the
labour progressed.'

'But she died in hospital didn't she?'

'Yes.'

'Welhow did that come about?'

'Oh, it was taking a long time and she was getting a bit
tired so I decided to send her in.'

'Who else was there?'

'Nobody, just me.'

'No nurse?'

'No.'

'Who called the ambulance then?'

'I did.'

'But I understood that the nearest public phone was some
distance away.' I knew exactly where it was. I had a clear
recollection of being squashed in the phone box listening as
my mother called the hospital to be told that Peggy had just
delivered her first live child.

'I took my car.'

'So you had to leave the patient to do that?'

'Well she was OK. As I said, she was just a bit tired.
There was no danger as such.'

'No sign of bleeding?'

'No . . .' He thought about it for a moment and said,
'Perhaps her pulse was a little fast.'

'But there was no outward sign of bleeding?'

'No.'

'Did you go with her in the ambulance?'

'No. If she had been in any danger then of course I
would have, but she was just having a long labour and

was tired.'

'So who went with her, if you didn't and there was no

nurse present?'

'I think McAvoy went.'

'Was there anyone else in the house?'

'No.'


278

'But there were children weren't there? Who looked after
the McAvoy children?'

'Well perhaps there was someone else there too, I can't
quite remember, it's so long ago . . .'

'When did you hear that she'd died?'

'A couple of weeks later. McAvoy came and told me.'

'Didn't you call the hospital after sending her in?'

'Well I would have if I'd had any reason to be concerned
of course, but it was all quite straight forward you see, so
I didn't bother.'

'And when you heard she was dead?'

'Well I was shocked of course. I don't know what
Rottenrow could have done to her, they must've made
some sort of mistake.'

'Didn't the Fiscal contact you about a Fatal Accident

Inquiry?'

'No.'

'And didn't you hear the cause of death?' He shook his
head and I read both causes out to him.

'Well Rottenrow must've done that,' he replied, 'I didn't
use forceps at all. She was tired, that was all.'

'I heard that you had treated McAvoy very kindly
afterwards,' I said, testing a family suspicion that McAvoy
had been paid for not causing a fuss, 'I heard that you
had given him some financial assistance.' He was a little
unsettled by this.

'Well I did feel sorry for him, rogue that he was, with his
wife dead and three children to provide for, so I did give him
a few pounds. When you've been a GP for so many years you
find yourself giving more than medical care to these people
sometimes. When I retired a few years ago my patients were
in tears, begging me to stay on. They're not bright you see,
it's like dealing with very dim children. McAvoy was like
that, I just helped him out at a bad time and told him not
to say anything to anybody.' He gave a conspiratorial laugh.
'The last thing I wanted was a line of Blackhill spongers at
my door every day looking -for booze money!' He had paid
McAvoy off; the family had been right.

I wasn't going to get anything else from Dr James


279


Hammond. He was lying, I was convinced of that, but
pushing him would be useless, so I steered the conversation
back to mutual medical acquaintances and he visibly
relaxed. I could see how nervous he had been just by the
difference in him. He was obviously a lonely man and he
was enjoying the conversation so much that he didn't want
me to go.

'I'm sorry I couldn't help you more with the McAvoy
case,' hi said as I was leaving.

'Oh please, don't worry,' I smiled, 'I thought it was all a
wild goose chase, at least you've confirmed that.'

We were at the outside door when he said it. He
said it all.

'And besides, what difference would it have made if she
had lived?' he asked, 'My wife only had the one, a girl
who died of heart disease, and my wife was a lady, she
would have made a wonderful mother. Those women, the
Margaret McAvoy sort, they had them like shelling peas. If
she had lived she would have gone on spawning them, year
after year, more thieves and murderers from Blackhill to
terrorize and pollute the city.' It was the bitterest, blackest,
most chilling little speech I had ever heard. His voice
seethed with distaste and venom. I wondered what kind
of childhood he had had, what awful experiences in his life
he could have suffered to fill him with such poisonous bile.
I gave an involuntary shiver as I walked back down the road
to the railway station.

Everything was jumbled up inside my head, all sorts of
feelings and emotions jostling for position alongside the
logical dissection of what I'd just witnessed. I felt like running away from Hammond and his 'big hoose', I had
to get away as quickly as possible. I felt dirty in some way,
tainted by hearing his putrid little speech. When there was
no train due I almost panicked, I couldn't wait, I had to get
away. I ran outside and stopped a taxi, not entirely sure
where I wanted to go. I asked to be taken to the Royal
Maternity at Rottenrow then sat back and tried to calm
down. I felt as though I had been beaten up, I was aching
all over and my insides felt as though a huge, long-taloned


280

claw had reached within me and ripped me apart. I couldn't
believe I had sat still and listened to such savagery against
Peggy and my family, such blatant lies about them and about
Hammond's part in our tragedy. A pure Clark couldn't have
done so; my Uncle George would have hit him and Nan
would have delivered an impassioned, articulate speech then
wept for hours on Peggy's shoulder. Whatever else I had to
thank the O'Briens for I now had to acknowledge that their
policy of never showing their emotions, and their facility
with the tactical lie, could be very useful skills. But the
Clark emotions were churning around and I was feeling
very fragile.

I walked around the maternity hospital, unable to explain
to myself why I was there, then I decided to go to Blackhill,
so I hailed another taxi. The driver was less than impressed
by my destination.

'Blackhill hen?' he asked, 'Ur ye sure? Hiv ye no' made a
mistake hen, Ah mean dae ye know whit Blackhill's like?'

'I don't want you to stop, I just want to drive past.'

'Well a'right hen, bit it's no' the kinda place where ye
staun' aroon', understaun'? Ye really need sumb'dy tae ride
shotgun fur ye!'


The chemical factory had gone, but the gasworks was still
there, the two gasometers now painted a nice shade of blue,
the Gas Board's attempt at improving its image. If you can't
be 'green' then blue is nearly as valid in 'green' terms. There
was no hint in the air of gas emissions though, filters had
been fitted, so the gasworks no longer 'came out' in a solid
lump of lung-stopping fumes. My old school had gone, so had Paddy Doyle's, where my happiest memories of my
father were rooted. Even today the slightest whiff of leather
can bring those early days back to me, and I see him again,
a little figure hunched over his last, mending shoes as I sat
beside him drinking hot, sweet tea from his old army mug.
Happy memories of when I was too young to know what
life was really like for my mother and so had no reason to suspect what it would become for all of us in time.
I directed the taxi driver from Royston Road to Craighead


281


Avenue which had bordered St Philomena's School. There
used to be a high metal fence all the way along, over which
the enemy Proddies threw clods of earth at us in our
mutually satisfying lunch time battles. Past the pond and
right, to where Craigendmuir Street joined Acrehill Street.
There we had met up with David and his pals at the end
of the school day, and thrown insults at each other all the
way hojne. Past the gap in the tenements where we had
watched the paratroopers jumping from the blimp we never
found, and the house of the little man who had murdered
his wife.

David's house was there on the right, and a couple of
closes further on was where Bobby, the mentally handicapped
boy had lived. Between the next gap was where
Jamie had been killed by the train, nearly in the backcourt
of his own house. Across the road was Mrs Logan's
house of plenty, courtesy of her gangster nephew, Billy
Fullarton, and our close was two along. Only it wasn't there
anymore. Instead, huge concrete pillars rose hundreds of
feet above, carrying the M8 motorway. All those times I
had driven over that exact spot, never suspecting it was
the site of 34 Acrehill Street; over where Fullarton had
made us walk home alone, and where Santa had rushed
through the air one magic night on his way to deliver
presents to other children. I asked the taxi driver to
take me to Moodiesburn Street and he feigned ignorance,
so I firmly directed him and made him wait outside
number six.

'Dae you know who lives in that hoose ower the road?'
he demanded, and I shook my head. 'Arthur Thomson!'
he said, 'Arthur bloody Thomson, y'know, the Godfather
o' Glesca crime! This isnae ony place tae linger hen!'

Thomson, Fullarton, names I had grown up with so they
held no terrors for me, and I smiled at his nervousness.
I went through the close and paused at Peggy's door. It
felt the same as it had after her death, as though she was
there, just beyond the corner of my eye, and if I turned my
head quickly . . . Down the eight back stairs I went, half
expecting to meet myself. I'd only managed to jump them


282

once, on a Saturday in May long ago, with the demons of
hell after me.

The air raid shelters had gone and the backcourt was a
backgreen now, with real, green grass. The middens had
vanished, given way to more modern means of disposing
household rubbish. It all looked smaller, of course, shrunk
by the years, but that apart it was as I remembered it. I went
back to the taxi, where the driver was sweating with unease.
When I asked him to head back to the city centre he became
verbose with relief. Did I know this part of the city, how
did I know the street names, was I looking for someone?
But I didn't reply, I was deep in some rite of passage, taken
beyond words by an instinct to touch base. I had known it all
so well as a child, my footprints would be there somewhere, along with generations of others, indelible, invisible, but
there. I just had to see it all one more time before I could
put it away. We passed the cemetery where Peggy had made
me walk with her only weeks before she died, helping me
lay ghosts. It occurred to me that that was what I was doing
on this day: that I was making my peace with the ghosts of
my childhood.

During that night I thought through everything that
Hammond had said about Peggy, my family and the people
of Blackhill, and his awful, bitter outburst as I left him, and
I was physically sick.


It took me a couple of weeks to settle down enough to
think through Hammond's story. He hadn't been with
Peggy that day. I remembered lying on top of my shelter
after the men had come back from burying Peggy. Another
car had drawn up and a young man had got out and
gone into the house. He was the one who had been
there, the doctor who 'wisnae a real doacter', a tall,
dark-haired lad in his late teens or early twenties who
had towered over the much older figure of my father as
he hurried him away from George's rage. Hammond was
barely five feet tall, the same as my father, he was in
his seventies, which meant that in 1959 he would have
been in his late forties, the same again as my father,


283


and his hair had been sandy-red. Hammond hadn't been
with Peggy.

I called Walter Weir again and repeated Hammond's
version of Peggy's death.

'Hammond's lying,' he replied, 'He has a lot to lie about.
I don't think he was the attending doctor that day.'

'Why?'

'Weltwhat I saw wasn't the work of an experienced GP,
and Hammond was certainly that. What I saw was the work
of a complete novice, to put it kindly.'

'Don't put it kindly.'

'Then an apprentice butcher could have made a better
job of it. Let's go back a bit. Firstly, there's a tendency
towards bigger babies with each pregnancy, and this lady
had sub-acute rickets. She didn't have the disease, but no
doubt her mother did and Mrs McAvoy carried the marks
of that. Most Glaswegians of that era were very small, like
all poor city-dwellers her skeletal growth had been retarded.
So her pelvis wasn't roomy; it could've coped with a smaller
baby, but this one - it was a male foetus - was bigger, partly
because it was also overdue. She was thirty-seven and she
was getting tired. Any experienced GP would've sent her to
hospital, she'd have had a section and all would have been
well. Whoever was there that day didn't know what he was
doing. Tiredness or obstructed labour, it doesn't matter,
either should have meant a section, but instead he tried
forceps, and he wasn't experienced with those either. The
bad luck just piled up from there on. He probably applied
the forceps just as a strong contraction struck, stretching the
uterus paper-thin, and it all ruptured. Then she began to
haemorrhage and he made the wrong choice again. Instead
of sending for help he tried to stop it, and he had no chance
of doing that. It all smacks of lack of experience and panic.
You have to ask why he didn't try to get help when he was in
such desperate trouble, and the likeliest explanation is that
he couldn't.'

'Why? What do you mean?'

'My guess is that he wasn't a doctor, so he couldn't send
her to hospital and risk being found out. Once she ruptured


284

she needed to be in hospital pretty damn quick, and he still
didn't send her. He tried to handle it all himself because to
do otherwise would've risked discovery. And he couldn't
contact Hammond because Hammond wasn't at home. So
he panicked.'

'If he wasn't a doctor, what was he?'

'Probably a medical student who'd agreed to cover for
the GP for less money than a fully-qualified locum would
accept.'

That's illegal isn't it?'

'Yes, then as now. The medical fraternity would swear on
a stack of bibles that it couldn't and didn't ever happen, but
you and I both know they'd swear to anything on a stack of
bibles. It did happen.'


lan Cameron listened as I told him the story. 'So how do
you feel?' he asked.

'Overwhelmed, mixed up. Tell me, what kind of medical
student would have put himself in that position do you
think?'

'Most likely one who didn't have daddy's money to
see him through. After the war we began to see more
working-class boys coming into the profession, not many
mind you, but the odd one. And I'd imagine that he
probably thought nothing much could go wrong in one
little day. If, as you say, Hammond was concerned about
spending so little time with his wife and wanted a day off
from his single-handed practice, he probably thought the
same. He'd get cheap cover for the day and what could
possibly go wrong? At least what could possibly go wrong
that couldn't be covered up, anyway ?',

'Nothing. That's just it. Nothing went wrong that
wasn't covered up. Just the death of a young woman
and her child and the destruction of an entire extended
family.'

'And you have to remember that the NHS was still in its
infancy in 1959. I used to deliver babies in Blackhill when
I was a medical student only ten years or so before, the GP
probably did the same. It wouldn't have taken much for


285



him to persuade himself that all these new-fangled rules
were nonsense, and more so if it saved him money.'

'Especially as the people of Blackball were so worthless
and undeserving of proper medical care.'

'Yes, awful, isn't it?'

'Do you know what would have happened if it had all

come ouj; at the time?'

'Well 'the guilty man was the GP, but I suspect if
there had been an investigation he would've come out of
it looking like a hero anyway. You must remember that
in those days, even more than now, doctors were gods. If
he couldn't be got out of it he would've been suspended
on full pay for perhaps six months.'

'Is that all?' I asked incredulously.

"Fraid so. And the family would have had to fight bloody
hard to get even that, bloody hard. It wouldn't have been
seen as in the public interest to pursue anyone involved,
the establishment would've covered all tracks.'

'Would the police have covered up for Hammond? Two of
them broke down the door and sent for the ambulance.'

'It would've been out of their hands, they couldn't have
questioned the "doctor's" professional qualifications and
very likely they wouldn't even have entered the event in
their notebooks. I would imagine sending for an ambulance
wasn't exactly an uncommon occurrence for policemen in

Blackhill.'

I wondered what had happened to the medical student, if
he had gone on to qualify. If the lad who'd been with Peggy
was around twenty years old when I was eleven, he would
only be in his forties now. For all I knew I could've worked
with him. I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. Everyone
makes mistakes with patients, but his must have marked
him for life. What had happened in the bedroom of 6
Moodiesburn Street was a nightmare for him too, and it
must still be keeping him awake, wherever he was. The
lad wasn't to blame, Hammond was.

I couldn't stop the picture of Peggy's dying. Awake or
asleep it played in my mind like a film endlessly repeating
itself, as I tried to change the ending.


286




'Well you must remember,' lan Cameron explained, 'The
eleven-year-old child you were, has been secretly keeping
Peggy alive all these years in the hope that the ending could
be changed.'

'But I'm an adult for God's sake!'
'An adult with a child inside, still running through the
backcourts and hiding in the darkness, desperately trying to
hold on to the fabric of her normal existence. Now she's been
brought face-to-face with reality and it hurts. That's why
the dreams scared you so much. In themselves there was
nothing frightening about them, except the fear of facing
up to the pain that had to come. There was no grieving for
Peggy at the time and supressed grief will find a way out,
someday, somehow.'

There was still something missing, the picture wasn't
complete, and no matter how I tried to ignore it, it bothered
me. I needed to know absolutely everything, to confirm it in
every way that I could. I tried to get out of it by wondering
if I was turning the knife, making it hurt more for some
reason. The missing piece was McAvoy. The thought of
seeing him again, of talking to him, made me feel angry,
sick, a mixture of all sorts of feelings, none of them positive.
But he had been there throughout. I put the idea into cold
storage for a while then I got up one day, caught the morning
boat to the mainland and went to see him.

McAvoy was living with his younger son, John, and his
family in Johnstone, another housing estate with a bad
name. He didn't know me at first, then I saw recognition
dawn on him along with the horror. I don't suppose he
ever thought he'd see one of us again, and clearly he wasn't
anymore delighted at the prospect than I was at seeing him.
He had faded with age, he looked as though he had melted
in some way, his features were so indistinct. I thought of
the groom on the wedding cake decoration, the one I had
smashed after Peggy's death. The eyes were the same
though, showing what Hammond called his animal cunning.
I told him I wanted to know about Peggy's last day and
he looked as though he wanted to run out of the room. He
couldn't remember. I said I remembered every second, so


':	287



yan


surely her husband must remember something, hadn't he
been with her to the end? I had come a long way, both in
miles and in emotion, I wasn't about to let him off the hook,
so I stood my ground until he believed that I wouldn't go
away until he talked. I asked him how he'd met Peggy and
how long he had known her before they married. He told
how they'd met at work five years before and because they
lived near each other in Blackhill they'd travelled on the
same bus. Another reason to curse the collapse of Balmano
Brae. He couldn't remember the date of their marriage,
Peggy's birthday, the date when she died or what sex the
child had been. I was trying to keep the conversation neutral
so that he would give me whatever information he had, but
already I could feel my anger rising. Peggy had gone into
labour around 8 a.m., he told me, and the doctor arrived
soon after. It was Dr Hammond. 'I've talked to Hammond,'
I said, 'He was on holiday that day so it couldn't have been
him.' McAvoy looked uncomfortable.

'Oh aye, that's mibbe right anuff. Ah furgoat. Ah think
sumbudy else came insteed.'

'When did she die?'

'Aboot five o'clock, hauf an 'oor efter we goat tae the
hospital. Ah wis sittin' ootside an' the doacter came oot
and tellt me.'

'And was there an Inquiry afterwards?'

'Aye. Ah went doon tae the court a while efter an' they
tellt me tae wait ootside. Then they came an' tellt me tae
go hame, that Ah wisnae needed.'

I remembered my mother saying that McAvoy had told
the family to stay away, and they had been so destroyed
by the months since May that they couldn't fight back.
McAvoy was the only one able to function with any purpose,
and he should've been the one most affected by her death,
surely? I asked if he'd told the family any of this.

'Naw. It wis nane o' thur business! They hated me
the Clarks, aye causin' trouble atween me an' Peggy,' he
snivelled, 'Thoaght Ah wisnae good anuff fur hur, ye'd
think she wis royalty ur sumthin'! They wur a' like that,
thoaght they wur sum'dy!'


288

'They were somebody,' I said, 'And Peggy was better
than royalty. She deserved a lot better than she got.'

He glared at me with his bright little eyes, but he was too
intimidated to say more. There he was, a shrivelled little
nothing, and there I was, young, healthy and a Clark.

Later my cousin John walked with me to the train station.
I could hardly drag my eyes from him. Every expression on
his face, every movement of his head, even his laugh, it was
all my mother. It was like seeing a male version of her. He
told me that he and his brother and sister had grown up in
care, and that his father had always refused to talk about
Peggy. In fact he had believed that his mother had died
giving birth to him. But he'd been just over a year old when
she died and he hadn't even one memory of her, neither did
his brother or his sister. I tried to tell him what she had been
like, but I was talking to a stranger about another stranger
who meant much more to me than to him, much, much
more. He gave his father a home, he said, because there
was nowhere else for him to go and he had remained in
some contact throughout the years he and his brother and
sister had been in children's homes. Protecting his future
meal tickets Nan had always said. John obviously had no
idea that McAvoy had discouraged the Clarks from seeing
them, and of course no idea of how Peggy's death had
affected us all.

None of Peggy's children had any real curiosity about
their mother, she might never have existed, and I found
it very sad. Had she lived we would have been as close
as brothers and sisters, because our mothers would have
been joint mothers to us all, and instead we had nothing in
common. Nothing, that was, except a noticeable physical
resemblance to one another and in John's case a staggering
likeness to my mother. Our life experiences had made us
strangers, and I couldn't see any prospect of changing that.
It would remain a major regret of my life that I would
never know Peggy's children. There was no feeling there
between us, and it would have been pointless to pretend
that there was.

Looking back on my day I thought about the differences


289


between us. I had survived the trauma, I had found my way
out of poor housing, bad job prospects and an unhappy life,
but only because I had Nan, and even a subdued Nan had
been enough. The motivation and drive towards education
had come from Nan and Peggy, and my cousins had lost
both and so they hadn't achieved what I had. The only real
difference between us was that my mother had lived and so
had her dreams for her children, while for my cousins, both
had died.


The months of searching for the truth about Peggy's death
had left me feeling angry, but had brought no relief,
no peace. I was angry at McAvoy, because he couldn't
remember anything about Peggy because he simply didn't
care. He could at least have loved her a little bit ...

And I was angry at Dr James Hammond on so many
fronts that it was hard to separate them. Mainly because
of his attitude to the people of Blackhill, who had provided
him with his 'big hoose' and his standard of living and had
doubtless given him respect over the years, respect that he
didn't earn and didn't deserve. How could he have worked
so closely with those people and have no understanding of
them or their situation? And his attitude to Peggy made
me seethe with rage. Peggy had died because she lived in
Blackhill. She had no money and came from the poorest
orders of the working class, therefore she wasn't worthy of
Hammond's personal or professional care.

But it went further. In reality her fate was sealed before
her own birth. She died as she did because of the family
she was born into. Before I set out on my quest for the
facts that possibility simply hadn't entered my mind, and
now I wondered why it hadn't. How could someone of
my background and experience fail to have spotted it?
The more I thought about it the clearer it became. I
had been brought up among the Clarks and the people
of Blackhill. They were decent, honest people with a basic
belief in what was right and just. Even though they were
treated shabbily and unfairly by those in power over them,
they knew that treatment to be wrong. Which had proved

290


to be my handicap; I hadn't been taught to look for the
indecent and dishonest, so I didn't. That had been the
case all my life; it was doubtless why when I did find it
I was so outraged, and it was that outrage that had made
me a crusader like Nan.

Amongst all of this personal grief was anger that any woman should have died as Peggy did, that the medical
and legal world could regard a woman's life to be of so little
consequence that they so quietly and effortlessly covered
up the circumstances. They should have been appalled,
shocked, enraged, that in 1959 any woman should have
been so mistreated. I learned that the Procurator Fiscal had
informed the Crown Office of the death in September 1959,
a month after McAvoy had gone to his office in the court
building and been sent away without being interviewed. No
information had been collected from the others involved
either, and the story emerged of an unfortunate woman
who had died in childbirth, so an FAI wasn't required.

Even without the information I had uncovered after
twenty-six years, Walter Weir's report would have been
enough to alert them that something wasn't right. But
the last thing anyone wanted to do was to hand the
working-classes a stick of injustice to beat the good guys
with - though of course that would not have been how
it was put. No, it would have been represented as in the
best interests of the family, that they had already suffered
enough, best not upset them further, simple souls that
they were.

The truth was that Peggy was of no importance and
neither was the family. They came from Blackhill after
all, so what did they matter compared to the reputations
and careers of upstanding, educated, professional men?
Justice? What was that and what understanding did the
Blackhill element have of it anyway? After all, it wasn't
as if they felt the same abouttheir families as the educated
classes, was it?

So my dreams of Peggy were replaced by violent dreams
of shootings and warfare, angry dreams that were every bit
as disturbing. I often wondered how much my mother had


291

known. I realized that subconsciously I had waited until
after her death to do my sleuthing. Had Nan still been
alive, how could I have told her all I had found out, and
yet how could I not? Uncle George was still alive, though
I hadn't had any contact with him in many years. I toyed
with the idea of talking to him, dropped it, then toyed with
it again.

Whdn Auntie Annie answered the phone we went through
a potted history of the years since we had seen each other,
then I asked her if she thought Uncle George would talk
to me about Peggy. She doubted it; he hadn't spoken to
her about 1959 in any detail. She remembered the doctor
who 'wisnae a real doacter' coming to the house after the
funeral. 'Tall, young, dark-haired,' she said, 'He wis upset,
wanted tae say he wis sorry how things turned oot. Geordie
wis sitting by the fire facin' him an' this doacter wis by the
door. An' Geordie jist went fur him, he wis acroass that fast,
an' the roars o' him! If yer Da hidnae goat tae the doacter
first Geordie widda killed him. Yer Da shoved him ootside
and the rest o' us hung ontae Geordie tae he wis away.' All
my life I remembered Auntie Annie's voice in any family
crisis, 'Watch Geordie!', that familiar warning to everyone
present that he was near boiling point. I spoke to Uncle George.

'Hullo therr wee yin,' he said, 'How ye daein'?'

'Fine Uncle George, but I need to talk to you. I need to
talk about Peggy.' There was total silence at the other end.
'Uncle George, can I come to see you?'

'Aye, a'right hen,' he said quietly.

He was sitting in an armchair by the fire, his hands
clamped on the arms, looking down. He was white-haired
now, but still a striking man. I had a glimpse of how Nan
and Peggy would have looked in old age, had they lived to
see it. I told him what I had found out, and as he listened
the muscles in his face kept tensing and relaxing.

'Ah know a' this hen,' he said quietly, still looking down.

'Then why did the rest of you let it go?' I asked, 'This
wasn't just anybody, this was Peggy!' He was silent for a
long time.	if; V,:
292

'Ye don't unnerstaun' hen,' he said, 'Ye don't know whit
it wis like.' Another long silence, then the words came from
him slowly, dragged out over twenty-six years. 'Fur Peggy
Ah mean. Me and yer Da an' Wullie hid tae clear the room
oot efter. Thur wurr piles o' sheets and towels everywhere,
a' soaked wi' blood. It wis like a ... like a slaughthoose.'
The knuckles of his hands were white and he had the facial
expression I remembered that told you George was having
problems with his emotions. I thought of the three of them,
all returned from war combat some ten years before, men
who had seen terrible sights, cleaning out the bedroom after
Peggy died. My mind went back to when I had been lying
on my shelter and I had watched Uncle Willie rush out of
the house and down the stairs where he was sick in the
backcourt. Now I knew why.

'It wis oan the wa's tae,' he continued, 'An' the smell.
Even years later Ah could smell it in the hoose, an'
Ah coulda pointed tae where the marks hid been oan
the wa's.'

'And the doctor, the one who came to the house after the
funeral?'

'He wis jist a boay,' he said, 'Jist a big boay, nae mair
than twinty. Ah cannae mind a lot aboot that, Ah kin jist
remember everybody haudin' me doon . . .'

'But why did you let it go?' I persisted, 'You knew she
hadn't died, she had been killed.' He sighed.

'We didnae waant people tae know,' he said, The an' Nan,
we talked aboot it, bit we didnae waant people tae know.'

'Know what Uncle George?' I asked puzzled.

'Whit it wis like fur her hen, fur Peggy.' He was looking
at me, willing me to understand because he couldn't go on.
Then slowly it sank in. Nothing could bring her back, but
they had been trying to preserve some sort of dignity for
Peggy. They didn't want outsiders idly conjuring up mental
pictures of gentle Peggy's agony as she died in a welter of
blood. It was the best they could manage. The story was
that she had died in childbirth, end of story. A tragedy to
be sure, but the less people knew the less they had to talk
about. The 'dark yins" sense of self, their dignity.


293


'How much did my mother know?' I asked.

'Nan knew it a',' he said, 'We didnae tell the rest
everythin' an' Ah don't know whit they fun oot fur
thursels.'

I thought about Nan carrying it for all those years
and never being able to tell anyone. All that poisonous
knowledge locked up inside her and no one to share the
horrorvwith. That's what had come between us and opened
up an unbridgeable gulf, the awful truth that she couldn't
share. I had been convinced that whatever closeness we had
died in 1959, until the voice calling my name before she died
had made me wonder.
'Ah blame maseP,' Uncle George said, 'Ah've thoaght a'
these years that Ah coulda stoapped her marryin' McAvoy.
He didnae gie a bugger fur her, Ah coulda pit him off the
idea mibbe. Thur wis wan time, afore she wis expectin'
the last wean, Ah hid him by the throat an' Ah coulda
squeezed a bit harder, Ah coulda ended it. Ah've sometimes
wished Ah hid, an' Peggy wid still be alive. Ah widnae hiv
minded gaun' tae jile, Ah shoulda done it while Ah hid the
chance.'

'Uncle George, you couldn't have stopped Peggy,' I said,
'She was desperate to get married and anybody would've
done but he was the only one around. Nan told her,
I remember them talking and Nan telling her that the
family would never accept him and if she took him she
took him knowing that. Peggy had no illusions, she knew
nobody approved, but she thought it was her last chance.'
He nodded his head sadly.

'Bit ye aye wonder, dain't ye?' he said. 'Efter he pit
Peggy's weans intae care Ah wis that angry that Ah went
up tae Moodiesburn Street an' pit him oot, did ye know
that? An' Ah thoaght tae masel', "By Christ! An' urn't you
the Big Man? Ye shoulda did it afore!" It wis easy, he wis
sich a wee weasel. Ah shoulda went up there while she was
still alive and pit him oot.'	, js

We had all gone our strange, separate' ways after that
awful day in 1959, yet we were thinking the same things,
feeling the same guilt and desperately fantasizing a different

294

ending. Nan never said it, but I felt her regretting that she
hadn't tried to persuade Peggy into a hospital birth. And
she could have done it, we both knew that, she more than
anyone could have changed Peggy's mind. And Nan had
always felt guilty about giving Peggy the unlucky green coat
. . . that she hadn't heeded the medium who told her she
must come back . . . that she hadn't acted on the dreams.

For myself, I had often day-dreamed about it. If some
power had given me one chance to go back in time, what
could I have done? I could have gone back as an adult to that
morning when she had gone into labour, and passed myself
off as Dr Henderson, Hammond's locum. It would have
been easy to send the boy who 'wisnae a real doacter' away.
I could have used some sort of disguise to cover the family
resemblance, and anyway, Peggy wouldn't have known the
adult me. Then I could tell her that she would have to go to
hospital to have her baby and she would obey, because she
respected and trusted doctors as people of learning. I knew
enough about hospitals and doctors to have carried it off far
better than the scared, panicky 'doacter'. And while she was
being sectioned she could have been sterilized so that there
would be no more pregnancies, no more threats to her life.
Then I would have disappeared, mission accomplished and
returned to the present time, having had all those changed
years with Peggy, Nan and the family. It was the stuff of
dreams. The other fantasy was that if only I had been
older Peggy would have listened to me because I worked
in a hospital, in her eyes I would have been someone of
importance and so I could have influenced events. That
was my illogical guilt, being too young to stop what was
unfolding before me, the guilt of a powerless child.

After speaking to Uncle George I began to appreciate the
depth of the blow to Nan. The loss of Peggy was terrible, but
it went beyond that. All of her life she had believed people to
be equal in worth and had thought it was a universal belief.
The people who brought their problems and their letters to
her weren't inferior in any way, through no fault of their
own they just weren't able to solve their problems.

I remembered once complaining to her that she had sent


295


us out into the world armed with her beliefs but minus the
knowledge that most of humanity didn't think the same
way. She looked puzzled for a moment then said, 'Bit that's
their problem, no' yours. They jist don't understaun', bit
you know whit's Right.' There was only what was Right,
that tangible, unshakeable and undeniable central pillar
of all ghe lived by. But Peggy's death, and the manner
of it, had shaken her beliefs to their foundations. Not
only was it Not Right, but the educated people whom
she had always respected and wanted her children to
join, were exposed as frauds. An intelligent woman, she
would have finally understood that Peggy had died because
Hammond had regarded her as worthless, and that the
legal establishment had covered it all up. The boys' had
protected each other. Who knew better than Nan how
much work it took to right a wrong, and that this one
could never be righted? It was too big, too comprehensive,
and at the end of the day she would still have been left
without Peggy. For the first time in her life she had to
accept that justice did not always prevail, and the best
she could achieve was the protection of her sister's dignity
in death.

Her final surrender had come that August, when it
became clear that the Procurator Fiscal in Glasgow wasn't
going out of his way to inquire. When that became clear,
where was there for her to go but inside herself, demoralized,
confused and wounded to the core of her spirit? The
one duty she had left was to see me grown and on my way
to independence, and looking back at those years when she
had come so near yet never quite given in, I realized what
an effort it had been for her to keep going. There was no
one to confide in, no one to help her shoulder the burden.
My father was incapable of that level of understanding, or
if he did understand, his addiction to booze had long since
rendered him incapable of acting upon it. My brothers
hadn't shared the unique relationship she had with Peggy,
and although I had, there was that old problem, I was too
young. The world could ill afford to lose someone as good
and gentle as Peggy, but it had also lost the wonderful,

296


shining idealism and zeal of Nan, that was the real tragedy
of 30th May 1959.

The light didn't completely die though, and perhaps she
suspected that, or at least hoped for it. It's there still in me,
and as I get older I see myself reacting as she did to situations
and I hear myself using her words to explain to my children
that Right is all. Peggy's death and the aftermath have made
that belief stronger. It's why I'm a journalist after all, a small
modern-day attempt to right wrongs. I happen to have a
facility with words, so as Nan would have said, I do it
because I can. I have often wished that my own children
could have known Nan and Peggy, but now I realize that
they do. Because of what they taught me, Nan and Peggy
live still in me and so they will live in my children.


The letter with the foreign stamps on the outside arrived
many months later, long after I had given up on Dr Steven
Collins. Yes, he did remember Mrs McAvoy as it happened,
she was his first fatality after leaving the army and taking up
the Rottenrow obstetrics post. The GP hadn't been able to
be there apparently, he had a single-handed practice and had
taken the day off. Whoever had been left to cope wasn't as
knowledgeable or experienced and had made rather a mess
of it - he had never known who that was. They had no
hope of saving Mrs McAvoy by the time she arrived, the
haemorrhage had been too great, but they had hoped to save
the child by performing an emergency Caesarian section.
They didn't get that far though, the child's heartbeat had
gone and it was obviously too late. Mrs McAvoy should
have been brought in much sooner, the child had been in
distress too long and Mrs McAvoy had died very shortly
afterwards. The worst possible outcome to lose both, all
very sad. The GP had turned up next day full of remorse
that he hadn't been there himself, but no one pushed it
because it seemed he was well thought of as a GP. No
one blamed him, it was just1 one of those things. If you
wanted to lay blame, lay it on inadequate medical care in
the poorer areas of the city, the legacy of poor nutrition over
generations, poor education ...



297

It was only the simple piece of information that connected
all the others, but the effect of Dr Collins' letter on me was
like a barrier finally being breached. In whatever secret
corner of my heart I had kept Peggy alive, the illusion
began to crumble. Peggy was dead and it was now time
to let her go. It was as if she had died that day, and I
cried as though I had just been told. Adults don't cry, they
leak tears, but children sob till the pain recedes and I was
wracked by an eleven-year-old's grief. After a long, difficult
search I had found her again, but in finding her I had also
to lose her. Finally able to grieve for her, to acknowledge
all the horror of her death, I found that the good memories
had been released as well as the bad.

I remembered how she cried as she laughed, the way her
eyes shone and the way she encircled you in her warmth
as she spoke to you, giving you a feeling of total security.
I remembered her wearing a full-skirted dress, white it
was and covered in deep pink roses. She had looked so
beautiful, the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.
Whole conversations between Nan, Peggy and me came
flooding back, I could hear her voice again in my head
and I smiled at the sound. It took several months, but very
gradually, the terrible event that had broken the Clarks as a
family, that had destroyed Nan and decimated my childhood
in one fell swoop, began to shrink in proportion. It became
one terrible event, but it no longer threatened to destroy
me. With the brake off, life could go on.

I wanted to talk again to Walter Weir, to thank him for his
help and to tell him his analysis had proved correct. When I
phoned his number his son answered and I discovered that
he had died only months after I had first spoken to him. I
also wanted to see Dr James Hammond again. I wanted to
tell him who I was, and more importantly, who Peggy was,
to make him understand the consequences of his brand of
patient care and the fact that the ripples were still going on,
two generations later. I didn't want -revenge, there was no
point in that, but perhaps Nan's belief in anything that went
wrong being a misunderstanding that needed to be explained
had taken stubborn root. At any event I wanted to state my

298


relationship to Peggy as I couldn't when we talked, to let
him know that I was proud of it. His dark, bitter tirade
against Peggy, my family and the people of Blackhill had
stayed with me and perhaps I wanted to see him again to
help me come to terms with that, a kind of cleansing of the
psyche. But he too had died, even before Walter Weir. If I
had left my search much longer I wouldn't have found out
anything.

When I told lan Cameron all this he smiled his wisest
smile.

'I don't believe there's such a thing as coincidence you
know,' he said, 'I think we all carry some instinctive means of communicating on a universal timescale. You didn't
know Walter had done the PM and you didn't know about
Hammond, but something made you look for them at that
precise time. And when everyone told you Hammond was
dead already, some instinct told you he wasn't and that you
would find him. There's only one thing left that you have to do. You know what that is, don't you?' I shook my head,
but I was lying.

'You must find out where Peggy is buried and visit her.'

'I know where she's buried,' I said, 'Uncle George
told me.'

'You must go, you'll find it very healing.'

'No,' I shook my head again, There's no point. It's not
as if she'd be waiting for me there, it's just a piece of land
after all.'

'You're making up excuses,' he smiled, 'You're sensitive
and instinctive, you'll go when you're ready, but you will go.'


Granda Johnston had bought the plot from a John Dunning,
who funnily enough had lived beside Uncle Hughie in
Stevenston Street. For all I know the Dunnings could
have been frequently treated to 'Red Sails in the Sunset'
long before I was. The story was that the Dunnings had
gone to find a new life in America, but maybe they were
just moving out of earshot. A child was buried in the plot,
twelve-year-old Christine Dunning, then the family had sold



299

it to Granda Johnston and gone. It was very fitting I thought,
that a lost child should be lying beside Peggy.

Next to be buried, in September 1916, was thirteen
month-old Catherine Clark, a well-kept family secret. No
one had ever spoken of a dead child, so it was there
from the start, this means of dealing with tragedies by
pretending they hadn't happened. Catherine had died from
'catarrh of the bowel', which in a baby would have meant
gastro-enteritis. She died when George was a month old, so
she would have been weaned from the breast to let the new
baby feed. In those days of poor hygiene such deaths were
commonplace, as they are in the Third World today, and
there would have been no money for a doctor or for the
medicine that was available.

What, I wondered, if Catherine, the firstborn child of
Annie and Henry Clark, had been fair and blue-eyed?
George had been the first 'dark yin'. Was it possible that
the death of that little one could be linked to Maw dark's
preference for 'fair yins'? Common though child deaths were
at the time, there is no reason to suppose that she was any
less affected by the loss of her baby than any mother would
be today.

Next to be buried was Da Clark followed by Granda
Johnston, then Peggy and her baby and finally Maw Clark.
In 1985 I didn't want to go there, not ever. Then one day in
October 1992 I went. People who don't know me think I'm
impulsive, but I'm not that exciting. Before I do anything I
have it fully mulled over in my mind from every direction
but because I don't discuss my thoughts it looks like sudden
impulse to outsiders.


It was a nice, autumn day and I took with me a big bunch
of pink roses that I'd had to search for at that time of year.
All the way there I thought that this was the route Peggy had
been carried on all those years ago, this was where she came
after I had watched the cars out of sight that day, her gift
of a pink rose clutched in my hand. Along this same road
she had gone, past these houses, turn left into the lane and
through the gates. Turn left again and up a little hill, follow


300


the path to the right and it was third from the roadside. I
had been scared that it might be awful, that Peggy might be
lying in some desolate, ugly place, but she wasn't. There was
no headstone; to have erected one would have been to admit
that she had gone, and besides, there had never been money
in the family for that kind of thing. I decided that she would
have one soon. It was well-tended and there was a weeping
willow close by, its branches sweeping over where she lay.
On either side there were headstones, one for a young man
killed during the War. It wasn't at all traumatic, it was a
very peaceful and an almost happy visit. I felt that I was
with her again. I imagined the scene; my uncles and my
father gathering around for the final service, and all those
flowers, so many that an extra car had to be provided to
carry them. In my mind I could see it as though I had been
there. I laid the pink roses on the grass and said, 'Peggy, it's
me. I love you.' And standing there beside her I started to
laugh, it was not after all the kind of language one working
class Glesca lassie uses to another, even if they are related.
In my mind's eye I pictured her laughing with me, and
Nan too, I could hear the three of us laughing together
again. lan Cameron had been right. It was a very healing
experience.


This is a story of a working-class family in Glasgow, and
the ordinariness that made them extraordinary, because if I
have learned one thing about working-class Glaswegians it is
that. But it is also the story of any poor family in any big city
at that time. They all had their tragedies, it came with the
poverty. It's also the story of those two strong women who
were the most important influences in my life. Ironically,
both perished, but it's still their story, their standards, that
will be remembered, and looking back at my childhood Nan
and Peggy stand out like brilliant stars. The hardness, the
sadness and the suffering pale into insignificance as well as
those who caused it, while Nan and Peggy remain clear
and proud.

As I lay on top of the old red-brick air raid shelter
that became my haven during those days that changed the


301


course of my young life in 1959, I have a clear memory of
deciding not to bother with what was unfolding behind the
white-covered windows of Peggy's house. But I promised
myself that one day I would find out everything, I'd tell our
story . . .

None of the Clarks or the O'Briens were to become rich,
famous or influential. They were better than that, they were
ordinary and had to struggle to survive, so their story is
more courageous and inspiring than anything the nobility
ever achieved. Not all ordinary family stories are traced to
source, nor all the heroes and heroines acknowledged and
celebrated for the sheer guts they showed in surviving. But
they should be.

THE END


NO MEAN CITY

by A. McArthur 8c H. Kingsley Long	


The classic novel of the Glasgow slum underworld


No book is more associated with the city of Glasgow
than No Mean City. First published in 1935, it is the
story of Johnnie Stark, son of a violent father and a
downtrodden mother, the 'Razor King' of Glasgow's
pre-war slum underworld, the Gorbals. The savage,
near-truth descriptions, the raw character portrayals,
bring to life a story that is fascinating, authentic and
convincing.


0 552 07583 3




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The Past Is Myself

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The House By The Dvina


The First Fifty


Empty Cradles

In Bed with an Elephant

Miss McKirdy's Daughter Will Now Dance


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