Across the Bridge Page 7
There were five boys and three girls. The youngest boy, Hector, died in his teens in 1931. The eldest, Kenny, was a piper in the Gordon Highlanders and in 1937 was finishing his army days in Jamaica. The other three brothers, George, Iain and Calum had become involved in the activities of the Forestry Commission around Barcaldine although just recently Calum had changed to the telephone company. Instead of growing telegraph poles he was now erecting them and installing cables. Of the sisters Katy, the eldest, was married, Elisabeth the second was establishing a nursing career in Glasgow and Christina, the youngest was firmly stuck at home.
It happens in many families. The youngest, though often the brightest becomes trapped, supporting the parents, as they grow older while the elder siblings drift away, free of responsibility. Christina had tried to move out. She really wanted to do something with her life and had set out to copy her sister in the world of nursing but came scurrying home, a bag of nerves after the first year. An intensely sensitive person she wasn’t ready for the big world outside Benderloch. But she could still dream! Of charming suitors, Hollywood kisses and happy ever after!
Life, the real thing however, was a drudge. Electricity still hadn’t reached Benderloch so light was by paraffin lamp. Christina had to carry two-gallon drums of paraffin from the village. Water came from a well about a hundred yards from the house. Guess who carried the buckets? And her father, now retired, suffered sciatica and her mother frequent bouts of asthma so winter fuel collecting was another delightful chore. There was a peat moss on the moor and summer months were spent cutting and drying the peat and to supplement this were some pine logs cut from trees behind the house. This meant taking an end of the old heavy saw along with her father. To make some extra money her mother took in laundry all to be washed by hand with water hauled from the well. On good days the washing hung to dry on the gorse bushes around the house. On wet days it hung around the house so that they could never escape from other people’s clothes.
It was on such a day that she had the most blazing row with her parents. She loved music: had grown up surrounded by music. She loved playing harmonica, the mouth organ as they called it, and the little button-keyed accordion that is still to this day so popular in the Scottish Highlands. She could sing too, and knew by heart most of the Gaelic songs shared by the folks of the Highlands and Islands. These days they had acquired a radio and in the evenings could listen not only to the music of the Gaels but also to the modern popular songs of the time. Christina knew all the latest hits, who sang them, and which films they were from. This was her escape, a chance to dream and imagine herself in the arms of Gene Kelly, Astaire or Crosby dancing into a blue horizon.
Christina wasn’t beautiful but she was quite pretty, small and petite with brown wavy hair and a shy smile. On the rare occasion that she smiled! Today was not such a day. It was now well into the evening and both herself and her mother were still slogging away at a heavier than usual load of washing. The radio was turned up loud and playing a selection of “rag-time”. Christina sang along as she hauled washing out of the old stone sink and into a long enamelled basin. Her mind was floating somewhere across the Pacific on a paradise island when in stormed her father and snapped off the radio. Always a selfish man, he had become quite cantankerous since retiring.
“Who’s listening to that damn row? It’s not even music. I can’t read the paper for the noise.”
“I’m listening to it, Daddy. While you’re reading your paper I’m working, cleaning the cach of other people’s clothes. So here! Why don’t you do it?”
She hauled the last of the articles from the sink and hurled them at her father. He ducked as soaking wet knickers flew across the kitchen but too slow to miss the main force of the soggy mass.
“How dare you child. How dare you have the impudence to throw these dirty wet things at your father!”
“I’m not a child, I’m not even a woman. I’m a slave here. And these things are not dirty. I’ve just spent the last hour washing them while you’re reading your precious newspaper. What does Mr. Chamberlain have to say today? I don’t suppose he’s planning to abolish slavery in the Scottish Highlands.”
Jessie came in to see what was causing the row. She had heard the music stop suddenly, so she quickly took in the scene and realised what had happened.
“Oh, Donald, let her listen to the music. It’s the only pleasure she gets.”
She turned the radio back on but with the volume lower. Donald didn’t answer. He just slid off back to the sitting room, wet and uncomfortable, licking the wounds from his daughter’s attack.
In the kitchen Christina’s frustration gave way to a flood of tears and her mother put a comforting arm round her.
“Don’t cry Teenie. Things will be all right. You’re a good girl to me and your father.” She laughed, “Some day I’ll dance at your wedding.” This was always Jessie’s promise when she had no more concrete reward to offer.
“Dance at my wedding! What wedding? Who’s going to find me in this God forsaken place? I’m twenty-one years old and I’ve never so much as danced with a man. And don’t always call me Teenie. My name’s Christina. You know Mother. I work here every day. I never go out. I never go anywhere. I never see anybody. The only pleasure I have is listening to the rest of the world on the radio and Daddy comes and turns it off.”
“Your sister Lisac is coming home for the weekend. Why don’t the two of you go to the dance in the village? I believe they have a band from Mull coming to play. I think it’s Duncan Russell.”
“I haven’t got anything to wear.”
“That’s not true, Teenie. You have a wardrobe full of things.”
In the 1930s the fashion emporium of the Highlands was the catalogue of “J.D. Williams” from Manchester. Christina was a regular customer and had a good wardrobe of up-to-date clothes. The problem was she didn’t have much opportunity to wear them. Perhaps her mother was right. Why not go to the dance? She had nothing to lose and Lisac liked dancing too. She turned up the radio, which by now was playing popular songs. She started to sing along with Hammerstein’s “When I grow too old to dream.” To her surprise her mother joined in:
“When I grow too old to dream
I’ll have you to remember
When I grow too old to dream
Your love will live in my heart.”
They began waltzing round the kitchen singing together
“So kiss me my sweet
And then let us part
So that when I grow too old to dream
That kiss will live in my heart.”
They whirled around and Jessie’s foot caught in the knickers that Teenie had thrown at her father. They broke apart laughing with Jessie now beginning to puff from her asthma so she had to sit down and her daughter went back to the delights of the washing.
“That kiss will remain in my heart”, continued the radio.
By Friday the rains had cleared away and Christina was in jovial mood as she walked to the station to meet her sister. She liked when Lisac came home. The two were very close and tended to like the same things. Lisac was much more religious and very prim in her outlook but she always had some story to tell of life in the big city. This time was no different. They took turns to carry Lisac’s little case as they talked, laughed and joked on the way back to Baravullin.
Teenie screamed with laughter as her sister embarrassedly retold her encounter with a “flasher” on her way home from work outside the hospital. The man was quite well known by the young nurses. It seemed he waited regularly near the main entrance of the hospital and jumped out with his manhood exposed. Just two nights ago Lisac was the victim.
“What did it look like? What did you do? What did you say? Did you not scream?” the questions poured out without time to respond.
“I don’t know. I didn’t look. I just told him to go away that I wasn’t interested.”
“And what did he do?”
“He went away.”
“OK as long as there’s no men in dirty raincoats.”
There was a break in the trees at this point and Lisac caught sight of the beach.
“I’m going to paddle in the sea,” she declared.
The two girls ran to the beach, dropped the suitcase in the sand and with their skirts hauled up over their knees they kicked off their shoes and splashed through the water. Nowadays Trallee Bay has a big caravan site and in summer has hundreds of people playing and swimming but that day in 1937 the beach belonged to the two MacKenzie sisters.
They had come here many times across the years, sometimes with their older sister Katy, sometimes with the boys who took sharp ended sticks and went catching flounders, the lazy flat fish that loll around in coastal waters. Their father had a little rowing boat that lay on the shore. He caught herring and on a good year would store them in salt in a barrel at the back door of the house. But today the two sisters were escaping as they frolicked together in the shallow water. Lisac was escaping from the city soot and the hard regime of the hospital while Teenie was enjoying some respite from the humdrum of domestic drudgery.
With their skirt bottoms soaked and their shoes in their hand they walked the rest of the way barefoot and arrived laughing and chirping at the door where Jessie stood waiting for them. She was pleased to see her younger daughter happy again. Their brother Calum was there too. He was in the kitchen ironing his shirt for going to the dance. He always made Teenie feel good because although about ten years older than her he was still single too, but he liked the dances and so now they had an escort to take them to the hall.
The dance went well. The band from the island of Mull was one of the best Scottish dance bands at the time. They were often on the radio so there was a good turn out to see them in the flesh. They didn’t disappoint the crowd swirling through “Eightsome Reel”, “Gay Gordons”, “Dashing White Sergeant”, “Highland Schottische” and various two-steps, jigs and waltzes. Both sisters were asked up for most of the dances and Teenie had attracted the attentions of Jimmie Oliphant. Jimmie was the driver of a travelling shop. He was about forty years old and although he was a good dancer he was not very good looking and nothing like the lad she dreamed of meeting. She tried without success to shake him off and when it came time for the “ladies choice” she grabbed her brother Calum in order to escape. Just as Calum turned round to dance with her she noticed the man he was talking to. Now there was the man for her! Slim, a little taller than herself, nicely trimmed fair hair, blue eyes that sparkled mischievously, neatly dressed and with a quiet air of confidence. She took in all this at a glance as Calum whisked her away and into an old fashioned waltz.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Who’s what?” answered Calum unconcernedly.
“The man you were talking to.”
“Oh him, that’s Ian, Ian Black from Barcaldine.”
Why couldn’t he ask her to dance instead of podgy old Jimmie Oliphant? But he didn’t seem to be dancing with anyone. He was just one of the lads enjoying the Highland music.
Brother and sister did a round of the dance floor. Calum was a good dancer and Teenie was starting to enjoy the dance when suddenly they came face to face again with Ian. Without breaking rhythm Calum loosened his grip on Teenie and passed her to Ian.
“Ian, this is my sister Christina,” he said as the music carried the newly- formed couple into the swirl of the waltz. The band had changed from old Scottish waltz into a medley of popular songs.
“When I grow too old to dream, your kiss will remain in my heart.” Everybody joined in the chorus. The dance came to an end and Christina reluctantly let go of her newfound partner.
“Yes. He would be nice to kiss,” she thought as she walked back towards her sister.
Jessie MacKenzie
Donald MacKenzie
11. THERE WILL BE NO WAR IN EUROPE
Benderloch, 1938
In 1938 Ian was still enjoying life in Barcaldine. Neville Chamberlain was placating Hitler, promising the people of Britain that there would be “peace in our time” and that there would be no war in Europe. Adolph Hitler was promising that he would be content with just a small part of Czechoslovakia. Winston Churchill was desperately trying to convince everybody of a “gathering storm”. Somebody, somewhere must have decided to listen to Churchill’s stormy words because despite the assurances of calm, army recruitment teams were scurrying around the country beating the drum and looking for young men daft enough to join the Territorial Army. In the Scottish Highlands there is never any shortage of men daft enough to fight the dragon. It’s the measure of a man’s dignity.
Thousands of Highlanders willingly signed on. Not the young men; their turn would come later. The main body of recruitment was among the thirty-year-olds. Perhaps shinty, football and dancing had become boring. Perhaps it was a sense of duty, maybe a desire for some adventure. Ian Black, aged thirty-two, the quiet recluse, lover of nature, signed on to be a soldier. So did Calum MacKenzie. So also, did most of the unmarried men in Argyll and quite a few of the married ones. They answered the call of the beating drum.
Of course it was all just a game, another weekend pastime. There wasn’t going to be a war. They had a train trip every Saturday afternoon into the drill hall in Oban and a couple of full weekend training camps, marching, drilling, map reading, weapons training, all good fun and a few “drams” in the pub when they’d finished. In fact they had no weapons to train with, uniforms were slow to arrive and there were few experienced soldiers to instruct in the marching and training. The small remuneration they received paid for the drinks and everybody had a good time in the TA.
Calum and Ian continued their friendship; the ceilidh invitation was repeated and this time accepted. One Sunday afternoon in the summer of 1938 Ian tied his fiddle on the back of his bicycle and set off to look for Baravullin cottage. Christina was forewarned so her wellington boots, apron and headscarf were discarded in favour of a summer frock and light shoes. She was delighted when she heard he was coming to the house and when he arrived was in the kitchen helping her mother prepare scones and tea.
During the afternoon other members of the family arrived, Calum and George, who was now also a telephone engineer, with his wife Annie and two children and Kenny, just back from Jamaica. Like Calum had suggested, they had a good old Highland ceilidh. Donald, the father set the mood with a few march tunes on his chanter. Calum played some tunes on the accordion and was joined in the vocals by Christina and Annie. George and Kenny decided it was time for the bagpipes but their father insisted they go out to the garden.
“You’ll deafen us all if you both play in here,” he said.
So everyone went outside for the skirl of the pipes and the concert continued in the warm summer evening with George trying to prove he was better than the professional piper and Kenny intentionally skipping a couple of quavers to let his brother have the edge.
“Well, Ian Black. Are you going to keep that fiddle tied to the bike all day or are we going to hear you play something?” challenged George.
So Ian unstrapped the violin and played a couple of tunes.
“Do you know Sweet Rothesay Bay?” he asked Calum.
Calum nodded and they played together for a while until Christina took the accordion and continued the duet.
Time for tea and scones and the conversation inevitably turned to Hitler and Chamberlain.
“Aye they speak about peace but I don’t think the little painter is going to stop as easily as they say. I think war’s not far away. We’ll have to stop him,” said George.
“Well, don’t bother thinking that you’re going to stop him, George MacKenzie,” declared his wife Annie, “You’ve got a wife and kids to look after.”
“What about you, Kenny?” asked Ian. “Will you get called up again or is your time finished?”
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“Oh, I’m still on the reserve list but I don’t think I’ll go back in the Argyll’s.”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like the Campbell tartan?” joked Calum.
“Ach no, just time for a change,” replied his brother.
“No need for you to go at all,” said Donald the father, “There will be plenty to do around the croft here.”
“Hah, it’s not a croft, just a garden. You’ll manage fine without me.”
“Anyway, it’s time for another tune,” said George, sensing the tension, “Come on Teenie. Where’s your mouth organ?”
Christina winced noticeably at the use of her pet name, Teenie, but she did as she was bid and produced a harmonica. Kenny slipped away to put his bagpipes inside and avoid further confrontation with his father. His mother, Jessie, followed him in. She was enjoying the evening although she herself didn’t have enough breath to join in the singing but she hated when Kenny and his father disagreed. A few minutes later George and Annie announced it was time to head home with the kids. If they went now they could catch a train back to Barcaldine. Calum decided that himself and Kenny and Ian had time to cycle to North Connel for a drink before the bar closed.
Christina caught Ian before he left and suggested he come back again.
“Calum says you’re a handyman. You could come and fix our peat barrow. The wheel is falling off.”
“Aye. We’ve got the TA camp next week. I’ll come the week after that if you promise more scones.”
At the age of thirty-two Ian Black had become a soldier and found himself a girlfriend. He came back to fix the wheel of the barrow and in the next year found several excuses to come back to Baravullin. In the summer of 1939 he came and helped Christina cut the winter peat. He had started calling her Teenie like the rest of the family but she didn’t mind so much. It sounded affectionate.