When I was growing up the relationship between my parents was fraught and there were many fractious rows, which often took place in my presence and caused me no end of stress.
On one occasion, when I was four-and-a-half years old, I saw them rowing on the upstairs landing when my father hit my mother with his fist. She fell back and tumbled down the stairs. On impulse I charged at him and started pummelling his legs and screaming. With an open-handed swipe he sent me flying down the stairs after my mother. I rolled down the whole flight of stairs, landing in my mother’s lap as she sat stunned on the floor near the front door.
No further words were spoken but that evening, when my father was out working overtime, my mother packed a small suitcase with some of our clothes and took her ‘running away money’ from its hiding place in the back recess behind a drawer. We left on the night train to Inverness in Scotland. We were going to the home of my mother’s aunt, sister to my mother’s father, who lived in a big old house on the west coast. My mother had stayed there a few times as a girl and had been told she would be always welcome. We travelled fast and far during the night, but by morning we were still miles away from our destination. I was tired and hungry but there was no let up in our travels until a rickety old bus deposited us in a small village on the border of the Highlands.
We walked by the path along the sea shore until we came to a stalwart grey stone building that stood at the end of a row of houses facing the sea. We were exhausted. A knock at the heavy-looking wooden door brought a gaunt woman bustling to see her unexpected visitors. Once she recognized my mother her surprise turned to evident delight and we were welcomed into a warm home that smelled richly of homemade food. I was tired but desperately hungry and although Aunt Sheilis made a terrific fuss of me it was only when I had supped a bowl of hot highland broth that I was able to fully relax at journey’s end. I looked across at the relieved face of my mother and wondered, as only a child can, what would happen to us now. But with the warming essences of my new found aunt’s soup in me I snuggled into a corner of the long sofa and drifted into dreamland. The murmur of the adults’ conversation and the warmth from the coal fire lulled me far away to a secure place in my mind where I could totally rejoice in being safe.
I awoke slowly as though emerging from a fog. Outside I could hear the wailing of what seemed to be a huge chorus of seagulls as they cried their hymn to the sea. The sea in turn seemed to sigh and commenced a rhythmic tempo as the waves pounded and crashed on the rocky shore of the bay. I was lost, far from home, in a foreign country, in a strange bed in a different house and I was sore all over from my fall down the stairs at home. Yet I felt strangely comforted as my head filled with the soothing primeval noise of the sea from outside the bedroom window.
Soon I could hear my mother’s voice talking to someone nearby but I didn’t move since I was more content just to lie quietly and listen to the gulls. I was happily reminded of the holiday in Clacton-on-Sea with my Uncle Fred, aunts and cousins, but this was much further away from home and I wondered if we’d ever be going back. The bedroom door opened and there was my mother looking bruised and flushed as if she’d been crying.
‘Wake up, sleepy head,’ she called cheerily.
After a quick breakfast of toast and jam I was soon seated in a huge, white stone sink in the kitchen being bathed by my mother. Through the window I could see some fishing boats bobbing about in a sea swell. Men were carrying boxes of fish up the pebbled beach to the road where a few horse-drawn carts were waiting. Flocks of hungry seagulls circled other men as they laboured over fishing nets at the edge of the bay.
Nearer to home, just outside the window, I could see a small kitchen garden filled with vegetable plants, which were shielded by a stone wall. There was a little path through the garden lined with what looked like seashells, all broken and crunched, while a large garden gnome in a red hat stood sentry near the gate. A crowd of starlings were busily strutting between the plants, pecking at the ground and competing noisily with each other for anything they could find to eat. My mother pointed to a robin, perched on the stem of a climbing rosebush outside, who was staring wistfully at us in anticipation of a treat. There was a warm and safe feeling about the big kitchen and the solid stone walls, which was a comfort after the traumatic events of the day before.
‘Your Aunt Sheilis owns a family fish and chip shop and we are going along to help. Perhaps she’ll let you work the chip machine. Would you like that?’
Suddenly feeling hungry I nodded and hurriedly rubbed my body dry with a thick patterned towel that smelt strongly of carbolic.
The fish and chip shop that my new aunt’s family owned was in the middle of the high street and faced out over a headland towards the sea. It had a clean and shiny interior with lots of steel mountings on the fryers and spotless green plastic counters. My aunt’s grandson, Stuart, a young man in his early twenties, was in charge and there were two local women who did the serving and cleaning.
Stuart was very friendly to me. He said he liked to be called Sty by his friends and he expected that now I would be his friend. He showed me how to peel the skin off potatoes so thinly that none of the flesh was wasted. Then I had to learn how to position a peeled potato on a machine that had serrated squares. When the handle was pulled down the potato was pressed through the squares and dropped down into a large bucket as chips ready to be cooked in the large fryers.
When Sty saw how helpful I was and how I did not shirk the work he whispered a secret to me. He told me that he would take me up the coast in his little boat, which had an outboard engine, to search in the sheltered bays for gold doubloons. He said that they had been washed ashore from sunken ships of the Spanish Armada that were shipwrecked during the reign of Elizabeth I, which I gathered was a long time ago. He explained that it all happened in the year 1588 when the King of Spain, Philip II, sent a huge fleet of ships and soldiers to invade England but was beaten back by English ships in the Channel. The scattered survivors of the Armada tried to return home by sailing north around Scotland but many were lost in fierce storms. Each ship was carrying gold coinage on board to pay the Spanish soldiers. It was such an enticing story that after so many years there could still be the odd gold coin washed up from a sunken hoard by the wild seas off the west coast. Sty told me not to tell anybody else so I didn’t.
One very special day, when we were clearing up after the shop had closed, Sty drew me aside and withdrew a bright golden coin from his pocket. It was a doubloon. It was old, used and really heavy to hold, but it was beautiful to look at. Sty told me that he had one more hidden away. He said he planned to take me in his little boat if the weather was calm and clear on Sunday. We would search one of the numerous sheltered inlets which were blasted by the sea and overwhelmed when the furious storms from the Atlantic Ocean invaded the coast, sometimes depositing a doubloon in the sand and shingle.
At the end of the week, true to his word, Sty called round for me after breakfast and, with my mother’s reluctant permission, we embarked in his small boat. Powered by the outboard engine, we went along the coast and up into one of the prettiest inlets I have ever seen. There were stony crags either side of us as we wound our way up the creek, which was filled with sparkling clear water. We could clearly see the bottom which, as we advanced further up the stream, was now only a few feet deep. At last we stopped and Sty cut the engine. He anchored the boat by throwing overboard a huge stone tied with a rope wound through a hole bored through its middle. After the roar of the little engine everything seemed appealingly quiet.
Sty took off his wellington boots and his socks, rolled up his jean bottoms and eased himself overboard. Then he took a garden rake from within the boat and began to rake the stony bed of the inlet with long deliberate movements. My job was to watch keenly for any sight of a glimmer or sparkle of yellow or silver. When Sty had finished raking one part of the stream he just pulled the boat along to another spot. At one point there was a huge rock in the centre of the stream, with a family of grey seals lying on top. They slid off as we drew near and lay submerged a short distance away, watching us with their heads only just sticking out of the water. I had never seen a seal up close and at first I was apprehensive since they seemed quite large but Sty said they wouldn’t bother us as long as we left them alone.
As the day wore on I began to feel tired and hungry so we stopped and ate the home-cured ham and pease pudding sandwiches my aunt had made for us. Then we moved further up the creek and Sty started raking again. Just as I thought that we would never find anything I spotted a glint of something silvery between the stones near the bankside. At my shout Sty halted his raking and began to rummage amongst the stones and gravel where I thought I had seen something. Sure enough, after a moment or two Sty let out a shriek of delight and grasped something in his fingers. Clambering into the boat he showed me what he had found. It was a tiny silver cross with rounded ends and a minute figure of the crucified Christ on the front. On the reverse side there was some writing in a foreign language which Sty said was Spanish, the same as on his doubloons.
We were very excited by our find. Sty wanted me to have the cross but I told him that if my father saw that I had something valuable, he would only take it from me and sell it. Sty said he would keep it for me and hide it in a safe place along with his doubloons – and when I was older I could come and claim it.
By this time the day was much advanced and Sty’s legs were blue with cold after so much time in the water. We returned back home in triumph but we kept our find a secret. The memory of that beautiful day searching for Spanish gold and silver remained in the forefront of my mind for many years. I fancifully imagined that when I grew up I would return to search for doubloons with Sty in the secret, sheltered Scottish waters, just like the characters in Robert Louis Stevenson’s adventure book, Treasure Island. Only I never did.
Another thing Sty did for me was to introduce me to the wondrous grandeur of the Scottish Highlands. On another day off from preparing and selling fish and chips Sty took me on the back of his motorbike, which my aunt assured my mother was safe. We set out on a journey inland to explore the glens and mountains of the Scottish landscape. We rode up through misty valleys with sunbeams slanting through the mist and we picnicked on the crest of a hilltop that was surrounded by a mysterious sort of light, which gave a surreal aspect to everything around us. Sty said that the strange and beautiful light up high in the Highlands was due to all the moisture in the air. He also told me that somewhere in these mountains and crags that ringed the glen there lived a golden eagle, which he said was a great and elegant bird that could steal a lamb away in its massive talons.
‘If we’re lucky we’ll see it today.’
We never caught sight of the eagle but we did see a kestrel hawk hovering expertly in the air before pouncing on its prey, probably a mouse or a shrew, in the long grass. We also spied a large, broad-winged bird high in the sky, no doubt watching us and wondering what we were up to. Sty said it was a buzzard, a bird like a big carrion crow that scavenged for dead things. As the sun slid behind the mountains we collected the motorbike from where we had parked it and, as we made to leave, a soft mist enveloped us. It veiled but did not mask the august purity of the highland scene.
Suddenly it began to rain gently and, after the heat of the afternoon in the sheltered glen, its wetness was welcome on my face and the raindrops sweetened the taste of the highland air as they moistened my lips. It had been a marvellous day and I was thrilled by all I had seen. It was a day I would always remember and recall with nostalgia in later life when I visited the highlands on my own as a tourist. The warmth of Sty’s friendship made the day so much more of an occasion and after I returned home I would remember his kindness to me. He treated me as if we were brothers.
During the weeks we stayed with my Aunt Sheilis, she told me stories about her brother William who was my maternal grandfather. He’d worked in the coalmines but after he married my grandmother and my mother was born he decided to emigrate to America in the hope of making a better life for his family. Once he was settled in a well-paid job at a steelworks in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he had sent for them to join him but my grandmother was afraid to leave Blaydon and refused to go. He kept up correspondence for a number of years but eventually his letters ceased and she heard no more. My aunt showed me a faded sepia photograph of him on horseback when he was working on a ranch in Argentina and that was the last she had ever seen or heard of him so many years ago. It was a sad tale yet it excited my imagination to think what it might have been like to know him and hear the stories of his life. My aunt remembered him as being very lively and adventurous with a ready smile and loads of charm but, she said with a wry smile, he had a wild side too.
By now, I had found out that my mother was pregnant and I seemed to be more worried than ever about what would happen at home if we ever went back. Since I knew my mother would be resting at my aunt’s because of her pregnancy I felt free to follow my own inclinations. Sometimes, when I had finished helping out at the fish and chip shop and Sty was busy with business things, I would wander off at will to explore the beach that extended beyond the bay. Just meandering along the sandy beach where it bordered the sea was an exhilarating experience. The tangy salty air was spiced with the smells of seaweed and flotsam. The immense sky seemed to go on forever and looked as if it could envelope and swallow you up into its total immensity. The wild cries of the kittiwakes as they swooped and dived in the turbulent air and the mesmerising cadence of the waves as they splashed against the shoreline enriched my senses and confirmed me as a beachcomber for the rest of my days.
In Victorian times sea air was thought to be therapeutic and the gentry began to popularize seaside resorts for health and recreation throughout the late nineteenth century and well into the twentieth. And like them, I now revelled in the invigorating scents brought ashore by the winds from the sea. The sea breeze revived my flagging spirits, succouring my need for a comfort zone away from the fears and repressions of life at home. My body felt recharged by the spectacle around me and I felt energized with the same zest as the spray and spume of the waves as they erupted with sparkling highlights in the rays of the sun. My mother had bought me some sand shoes from the village store and my feet felt so light that I just had to run and run and, like the wading birds that took flight at my passing, I too felt I would be able to soar on the wind if I just made a little more effort.
Some days later there was consternation in the village because some of the household bins, including one at the fish and chip chop, were being raided by an animal intruder. Following a lot of speculation it was decided that the perpetrator was probably either a fox or a pine marten and a number of nasty steel traps were set. I hadn’t told anyone but I knew almost positively that it wasn’t a fox or a pine marten because I had seen the culprit. It was a cat, a really big cat that was grey with dark stripes. One night, I had seen it from my bedroom window when I was kneeling on my bed looking out at the sea in the moonlight. The cat looked fierce and very wild. Sty and I had talked about pets, cats and dogs because he was planning to buy a dog some day when he had time to train it. In answer to a question of mine he said he wouldn’t have a cat because it might be vicious like some feral cats that people said lived in the area, mainly in the forest. I was sure that the animal I had seen in the moonlight was one of those wildcats, and from the heavy form of her body she looked to be pregnant.
I told Sty about the wildcat but said that I didn’t want her to be trapped and killed, especially since she was pregnant. Sty said he would think about it and see what could be done. Later that day he told me to meet him in the public lavatories, which were in a stone building near the Stag’s Head pub. When I got there Sty produced a large empty paint tin and told me to urinate in it. Then he did likewise and took the tin away with him. I was really mystified regarding what he intended to do but I trusted his judgement and expected that he would have something serious in mind.
Next day at the shop, Sty took me aside and told me that late at night, when no one was about and before the moon had risen in the sky, he had poured some of our urine on each of the three traps that had been set in order to prevent any wild animal from coming near them. He said it was a trick he’d learned from a fisherman whose dog had once been caught in a trap set by a gamekeeper in the nearby woods where he had taken his dog for walks. Sty said that he had it on good authority that no animal would go near a trap impregnated with human urine. Many times in later years I used this ploy when out walking in Northumberland and found traps set by farmers and gamekeepers. Sty’s plan seemed to work. Nothing was caught in the village traps and no more bins were raided, perhaps just because people started to take more care when disposing of their refuse. I kept on looking but I never saw the wildcat again.
Later in life I learned that the wildcat was very rare and mainly found in Scotland. They were classed as vermin because it was believed that they attacked lambs and slaughtered domestic fowl to supplement their food supply, especially when they had a litter of kittens to feed. Their virtual demise came when aristocratic landowners started to pay a bounty to gamekeepers for every wildcat they killed, and only a minority managed to survive in the farthest reaches of the Scottish Highlands. They all but joined the ranks of the wolf, the beaver and the elk, who were also hunted to extinction in their natural habitat in the British Isles. The wildcats, though, seem to be making something of a comeback. Michael, a friend of mine who lived at Powburn in Northumberland, said that he had once seen a wildcat when out walking at the foot of the Cheviot Hills and there are tales of a resurgence in the Scottish Borders. The one I saw that moonlit night in Scotland was a magnificent animal. I hope that she successfully delivered her kittens and raised them to maturity. To this day, I am obliged to Sty for his many kind actions but especially for his help in saving that wildcat of the Highlands.
We stayed an enjoyable and peaceful three weeks with my aunt, who said that she liked having us because she was often lonely with her son and daughter both away serving in the armed services.
My father had contacted the police who had traced us by questioning my grandmother. A local police officer called to see us and, after discussing the situation with my mother and aunt, said that we did not have to go back since my mother had not broken any laws. However, a few days later a catholic priest, no doubt informed through my father’s parish, arrived at the door and told my mother that she was obliged for the good of her soul and her marriage to return home. Apparently my mother’s pregnancy wasn’t widely known before we left but my grandmother had told the police so that they could warn my father of the dangers of any further brutality against her. Now it was being used as the chief reason for her return. It was a wrench to leave and my aunt was heartbroken at our going.
As for me, I hadn’t missed my father one little bit and had savoured the most delicious fish and chips I had ever eaten. With Sty I had explored Scottish waters for Spanish gold and had an adventure searching the Highland glens for sight of the elusive golden eagle. I had found a new friend in Sty and I would miss his happy company. However, I longed to see my grandmother again and eagerly looked forward to being with her.