MANCHESTER • SAVING JEANNIE
Daddy found a scrapyard, and got permission to pull on at the rear for the night. We hardly slept for the noise of lorries coming and going. After breakfast our parents headed off to find a suitable wintering ground, leaving us wee ones in the firm hands of the older girls. By the time they eventually came back, Chrissie had skelped me three times for spitting at Mary.
‘Mammy,’ I cried, shoving my legs up so she could examine them, ‘look at the welts on the back of my legs with her leathering me!’
‘You must have been a bad bairn to deserve that,’ she answered, hardly glancing at the very visible red stripes across my poor wee limbs.
You see, if any of us wee ones got walloped by our older sisters, then without question we had most likely been bad! No why, or how, we must have been misbehaving. I remember many a time being the innocent party, but getting punished because of the mood my big sister was in (whichever one was taking care of me at the time), and Mammy always believed her, because she was the elder. Some justice, but it never did us any harm, and certainly, on this occasion, I was guilty! Well, she did stand on my big toe did our Mary, and it was right sore because Dad cut my toenail the night before and snipped it too far down ‘to the quick’, I think it’s called. It bled, and ached. So I spat, for I wasn’t allowed to slap her.
Mammy ignored us, drank her tea, then said they’d found a smashing place in an area called Cheetam Hill. An acre of waste ground, with a water tap and next door to public lavvies, you couldn’t ask for anything better. Next day we pulled on.
It was here for the first time we came across English gypsies. We had heard many a tale about our southern neighbours, and here they were in the flesh.
Beautiful floral painted bow-wagons, a dozen of them sat in a half circle. Massive shire horses grazed close by, tethered to metal poles embedded in the earth.
There were wicker baskets filled with paper flowers, red, yellow, purple, green, pink: all the colours of the rainbow came from those baskets. I remember thinking, ‘Wish I could do that,’ when I saw the women folks, hair braided with colourful ribbons, winding crepe paper into flower heads.
Our arrival by bus seemed to cause quite a stir, and they gathered in a crowd wondering who we were, uncertain about our presence. Several men approached at the bus door. When they saw we were all female with no big burly brothers, they softened and began introducing each other.
Mammy knew she’d need eyes in the back of her head. There were plenty handsome young men, who were already crowding round, eyeing up her lassies; but it was only curiosity, if any fancying was done, then it certainly wasn’t noticeable.
Mind you, being so young I hardly noticed anything like that—it’s with the passing of time listening to my sisters round a campfire I learned enough to slip such comments into the writing of those past times.
Within a week we had settled, and the gypsies treated us like kin. That was, after all, exactly what we were, their Scottish cousins.
We were on the site for a week or two when our first frightening experience with the Manchester police left this incident vivid in my mind.
Daddy had been cracking round the dying embers of the fire with one of the older men. He stood up and, stretching his back, said, ‘It’s a cold night for sure, and this damnable smog fills my lungs, so I’ll say goodnight to you, lad.’ That said, he pulled seats and stools back from the hot ashes and doused the fire. Once, as a boy, he witnessed an old man burn to death after a fiery stick set his trouser-leg ablaze, and had ever since been vigilant where campfires were concerned.
‘Yes, Charlie, it’s bed for me too. I’ve ten dozen clothes pegs need whittling first light, so I’ll be a busy man tomorrow.’
Closing the bus door tightly behind him, Daddy came over and unfolded the top of the blanket covering my face, whispering, ‘Jessie, don’t do that, you’ll smother yourself, lass.’ I had a bad habit of lying under the bedclothes. I moaned that it was cold, so he tucked the blanket under my chin, saying, ‘Only the dead have covered faces’.
‘Charlie,’ whispered Mammy, ‘before you bed yourself, bring me a drop water from the can, I’ve an awfy headache. I’ll take a powder then hopefully get some sleep.’
‘You’ll turn into a powder, Jeannie, that’s the third one today.’ He was becoming more and more concerned with her daily headaches.
‘Just give me the water, will you, man!’ she retorted as she sat up in bed and shivered.
As young as I was, I can still remember my dear mother constantly complaining about her health the whiles we stayed that winter in Lancashire.
The night grew colder. Mary had lodged her knee under my ribs, and Renie had removed half my blanket, and claimed it for her own chin.
Now, had my mother not been sore-headed I’d have wakened her, but that would have been selfish. So, unable to sleep, I sat up, pulled back the curtain and—Lord roast me if I lie—the ugliest face in God’s kingdom was staring at me through the window from the smog-shrouded night. It was a police raid! They banged their fists on the windows and rattled the sides of the bus with rubber batons. I began screaming.
My screams, coupled with the awful din, wakened everyone. Daddy was groping in the dark for the matches to light the Tilley lamp, when suddenly the thump, thump, thumping on the door added to the state of terror we were put in that night. It was the first time we had had any bother from the law.
‘You in there, come out now,’ a man shouted through the darkness.
Daddy found the matches and calmly pumped up the light until its welcome glow shone through the bus. Like moths we gathered round it. Baby Babs had wakened and Mammy held her tight into her breast. We were whimpering and shaking with fear, eyes staring from sockets like frightened owls. What was happening, for God’s sake?
Daddy slowly opened the door, not knowing what manner of awfulness stood on the other side. ‘It’s all right, Charlie lad,’ said a familiar voice. The old gypsy man my father had bidden goodnight to earlier on stood in his shirt-tail and bare feet, surrounded by several fearsome-looking men dressed in black.
‘It’s the hornies,’ said the old chap, ‘they say we’ve to move on.’
My father leapt down from the step, buttoned up his trousers, clumsily slipped his braces over each shoulder and shouted at the nightmare visitors closing round him.
‘Have you bastards got nothing better to do than frighten innocent folk in the dead of night? I’ve a puckle wee bairns in here.’ He pulled on his jacket and stood face to face with a big policeman, made six inches taller by a ridiculous pot-hat perched on his head, and waited on a response.
‘Arrest this one,’ the man ordered.
‘He’s from Scotland,’ pleaded the old gypsy man, ‘He don’t know this be common practice in these ’ere parts, sir.’
‘We’ll arrest him, then, and maybe in future he’ll remember.’
Daddy had no time to answer, as two policemen bundled him away in the back of a shiny black van. I can still see his bewildered face staring out at us, and all I could think was, how strange it was seeing my Dad in a motor car without his bunnet on.
We huddled round our mother completely dumbstruck, shivering with fear. Eventually Janey broke the eerie silence. ‘What if they come back and murder the lot o’ us!’
‘There now, pet, that doesn’t happen these days.’ Mammy gently held her close. ‘You’ve been taking far too much of those Suspense Comics to heart,’ said Chrissie, draping a tartan rug round her shoulders.
‘The polis are wicked in England, Scottish ones wouldn’t do a bad thing like that, now would they Mammy?’ asked Shirley, peering out at the darkness through the half-open curtain. At that moment I’m sure the whole bunch of us wished we were home in Scotland.
‘Polis are the same the world over, some bad, some good. Give me my cardigan, it’s getting cold in here. Mona, put some coal on the fire while I make the bairn a bottle.’ Her milk had dried up; she hated ‘false milk’ (her description of dried milk), but the baby was belly-greeting and she was more than eager to calm her.
‘I hope my Da is all right,’ said Mona, stapping extra coals on the fire and hoping he’d be home any minute.
‘They big polis will have kicked half the shite out o’ him before we see him again.’ Shirley’s words sent a shiver through the bus.
‘You better pray they don’t or else we’ll never see Scotland again,’ said Mona.
Mammy told them not to think like that, then added, ‘I’m right angry with your father for coming this far down the country, at least if we were nearer home the folks could help if we were stuck.’ Then she ran a hand over her head and said, ‘God, these powders are rubbish, I’d be as well taking the wee one’s dried milk for this headache!’
A knock on the door had us clinging onto each other in total fear, thinking the polis were back to finish us off.
‘Lassies, come now, you’re working yourselves into a state’, said Mammy. ‘Chrissie, put the kettle on the stove. Shirley here, put Babsy to bed, I’ll get the door.’
It was the friendly old gypsy who had tried to speak up for our father. ‘Jeannie, don’t worry about your man, they’ll let him out early morning, but what is more important, we have to move on now.’
The usual procedure with gypsy harassment (and this is the same today as it was then), was that when the police came with orders to move on, that meant—move immediately, right then and there!
‘But it’s the middle of the night, they took my man away. Who do they expect will drive the bus and where will we go?’ For our sake, Mammy tried to disguise the worry in her voice, but without success. ‘This is bad doings right enough,’ she said.
Our kindly neighbour, though, soon set her at ease by saying, ‘My eldest son will drive it for you, pack your things away, dress the children, just a couple of miles along the way there’s a nice bit of waste ground will do us all. Come on now, Jeannie, you have no choice: the police will drive your home onto the road then charge you with obstructing the King’s Highway.’
She smiled, took the kindly man’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Thanking him from the heart, she said, ‘God will see that you and yours want for little. The kindness you show us this night will be rewarded.’
‘We stick together, us wanderers, and one day you may return the favour if we come to Scotland.’
Shirley took no time in telling the man that in Scotland only God and Mother Nature determined where and when travellers lived. Not big bullies with cosh sticks and pot-hats.
He laughed, and said England had its free countryside too.
Mammy told Shirley to mind her manners, then said to the man, ‘You’ll find a grand welcome among us, that’s for sure.’
Soon we had everything secure. The old man’s son came and said the caravan was hitched up to the horses and ready for the road. Before leaving he said to Mammy, ‘I think it wise if you stay with your girls. I’ll get my cousin to drive the van, will that be all right?’
She gladly accepted his offer; the last thing she wanted to do was drive through the smog-thick streets of Manchester in the middle of the night.
As our replacement driver trundled slowly the two miles towards the new campsite, I thought of Manchester as a place of menace, where in every dark corner a polisman with a pot-black hat was lurking, and began whimpering. My sisters joined me, and before long hysteria was taking hold amongst us. Mammy recognised the signs and quickly worked her magic on us. ‘Did any of you lot ever see a bigger nose on a man than the one on the polisman who arrested Daddy? Fancy the disappointment of his poor mother the first time she set eyes on that. The nearest I can think to compare it with would be a rhino’s horn. Yes, the biggest honker in England, wouldn’t you say girls?’
We looked at each other, and within no time thoughts of menace were replaced by giggles and laughter, as we pictured in our mind’s eye the policeman’s big red hooter.
This was our Mother’s way of avoiding mass hysterics amongst her brood, change the subject quickly. It worked. A clever woman, my mother.
For the rest of the night I worried dreadfully for my father’s safety. It was then my imagination conjured up Greenwing, the wee Cumbrian flying monster. He told me children shouldn’t worry. Instead they should play. So off on his wings I went, as he flew me over the velvet hills of his home ground. After playing all kinds of fun games he took me back to bed, where I slept soundly.
In the morning weary Daddy came home, muttering to himself about keeping his big trap shut next time. Thankfully, though, that was the one and only time we had to go through polis night visits. They left us in peace for the duration of the winter on the waste ground at the far end of Cheetam Hill.
Mona asked if the polis hurt or manhandled him in the jail.
‘God, no, they were a fine bunch o’ lads; we played cards all night long, won myself twenty-three bob.’
‘The last time I worry about you, then,’ snapped Mona as she huffed out the door.
If she’d taken the time, as Mammy did, she’d have noticed at his hairline an ugly, bruised swelling. Or if she’d looked closer at his face she would also have seen a dark red trickle of dried blood round his nostrils.
After another week passed, the three eldest girls found work at a hamburger canning factory in Sale, on the outskirts of the city. Janey, although only twelve, didn’t go to school that winter; she and Mammy took turns ragging and watching after the wee ones, Renie and Babsy.
Ragging consisted of handing round big brown paper bags containing six washing pegs and a sample-size packet of Rinso (older readers may remember this washing powder). Included was a note saying ‘we are not begging, please accept the contents for the filling of the bag with rags, preferably woollens.’ The ragman gave more money for woollens.
Most folks were grateful for a free box of washing powder with pegs, and took the contents before filling the bags with cast-offs, but there were dirty, vile people who, after helping themselves to the pegs and Rinso, left the fillings of their bowels as payment instead. I won’t tell you what my father called these creatures. Thankfully they were few and far between.
Mammy washed and pressed the best of the rags, selling them at the local open markets, which were common in English cities, even up to the present day.
Mary and I went to the nearest school, a convent. Not because of our religion, but because it was the nearest to the site, a mere half mile away. That doesn’t seem far, but in the thick smog on a freezing morning it felt like miles and miles.
Let me tell you about our nun-run school, and I promise you this, it certainly wasn’t the proper way to start an education. Mary was four years old in the December. This was when we both started at the school. The Mother Superior, after a visit from Daddy to say he didn’t want Janey taking care of three little girls, said there were plenty under-fives at the school and she’d be happy to take us both.
As we walked hand in hand to school that morning, the cold December wind blew smog into our eyes. Mary cried that she wanted Mammy. I reminded her that I too was frightened going to a new school, after all I was not yet six. But I pretended to be brave for her sake.
We gathered in the playground: a crowd of pitiful-looking children with running noses and sad faces. Some had thin, torn coats and bad-fitting shoes. Others didn’t even have coats, only flimsy woollen jerseys with darned elbows. Several hadn’t even the luxury of shoes. Instead they wore plimsolls on their wee feet, and it winter time too! I think they were from the poorest run-down areas, ones the gypsies called slums.
A loud bell rang, not like a school bell, more akin to what you’d hear from a church. We all rushed in together like ewe-less lambs and huddled close for warmth. Perhaps we totalled thirty in number, not much more. A woman dressed in black and white, I heard kids say she was the Mother Superior, led us in. Other women in grey and white followed; they were called sisters. Then it was us, into a hall with a ceiling so high I could hardly see the long thin flex the yellowed light bulbs were suspended from.
Silently everyone knelt down: a thin arm belonging to a tall lad yanked me onto my knees, and Mary did as I did.
‘Bow your head. If she sees you, you’ll get the Jesus Box!’ said the lad, glancing swiftly over in the direction of a nun who I later was told went by the name of Sister Alice.
One whole hour later we left the assembly hall. Prayers were said for the morning, the lessons, and the poor little ‘black babies of the world, the food in our bellies, the clothes on our backs’.
Prayer followed prayer and finally, when we got down to lessons, prayers were said at the start and finish. If we needed to go for a pee, we had to pray.
We were the ones who needed the prayers. Our wee knees were lumpy and sore. My head felt like a rain-soaked tennis ball, having hung it down for so long!
There weren’t classes as such, because we were all taught together, and our ages ranged from as young as three up to ten. Three nuns took turns teaching, with the Mother Superior taking morning prayers. The only named nun I remember was Sister Alice, because she took an instant dislike to my wee sister and me. She never missed an opportunity to let us know how she felt. Being so young, the words ‘dirty heathen gypsy’ meant nothing to me.
At playtime I asked the tall laddie what he meant by the Jesus Box.
‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ he said. ‘Even if you’re saintly they’ll still find a reason to put you in it!’
He ran off to join a small band of lads congregating over by the school wall.
That night my wee sister and I had very little to tell the family about the school, except we could now recite several prayers.
‘What did lessons consist of?’ they enquired. So far not much, but that was understandable; after all nothing much happens on the first day.
As I lay in bed that night it was freezing, but I didn’t feel the cold. My mind had visions of a big box with something scary in it, a thing named Jesus! Not my mother’s precious Christ. He didn’t punish little children. No, this must be someone else.
As the night grew darker my fear grew with it. I floated in and out of one nightmare then another. So awful were my fears that Greenwing stayed away from my dreams.
The school day began at seven. Sister Alice stood like a sentry at the door. As we walked in she ticked each of our names on a notepad. ‘Bow your head, gypsy,’ she called out at someone, then added: ‘Have you no respect for a holy place?’
I looked around, feeling sorry for the poor soul who was being addressed, whoever it was, before realising I was the unholy offender! I felt my sister’s fear as she held my hand so tightly the tips of my fingers went white.
The day went by with the same rigorous form of religion, and by the week’s end we had learned nothing but prayers and more prayers.
For reasons known only to herself, Sister Alice had by now shown her dislike by using me as an example of ‘how not to be’. I was, she told everyone, disobedient, unwilling to learn, full of cheek and, oh yes, a heathen gypsy!
After I told my parents, they said they were disappointed in me for being a wee midden. It was as if nuns were superhuman. Scolding me, my mother said, ‘Nuns are next to God, they would never harm a child, Jessie. You must be misbehaving. Stop it or you’ll get a right leathering, my lass.’
Daddy tried to lighten the issue by saying, ‘Why don’t you get the gypsy lassies to show you how to make paper flowers, then you can take a bunch to the sister?’
That sounded a good idea, it was something I’d wanted to learn since first seeing the pretty gypsy girls. So after breakfast I sat amongst yards and yards of coloured crepe paper, learning the art of flower-making, gypsy-style. An old woman with steely blue eyes braided my hair, then tied a floral apron with a big pocket round my waist. Little cuts of fuse wire were held in the pocket.
Take a yard of the crepe paper, cut in two-inch widths, push thumbs gently into the paper making wee dents, and roll into flower shapes resembling roses. Then tie these using the wire to privet hedge cuttings of twelve inches in length to produce the lifelike flower that English gypsies were so famed for in days gone by. ‘Six red roses and a blessing!’ was the hawker call of these gentle nomads.
I made six for Sister Alice, and was glowing with pride when I tied them together with one of my tartan hair ribbons reserved for Sundays and visitors.
The strictest law in the convent school was Sunday worship. To miss the seven a.m. call was blasphemy! It was six-thirty on that particular Sabbath, and Mary didn’t want to go. I pleaded with her to hurry. Half-eaten jammy sandwich hanging from her mouth, I pulled her, half-running, half-dragging, along the still, dark road towards the chapel. We could hear the bell as if demanding we hurry up or else. I was forcing my poor wee sister to run faster, the chapel was in sight the last gong of the bell trailed away, when suddenly Mary went all her length, badly grazing her knee. Blood poured down, filled the crumpled sock and disappeared into her tiny brown shoe.
‘Oh pet, I am so sorry. Look, forget the chapel, your wee leg needs a clean. I’ll explain to the nuns in the morning, it will be alright, they’ll forgive us.’ Mary nodded through her tears as we turned and went off home.
I won’t say I wasn’t frightened to go into school that Monday morning, because I was terrified, but perhaps my peace offering of coloured flowers would smooth the waves?
Who was I kidding? Sister Alice took one look, then screwed my gift into a crunched-up ball between her fists before throwing it into the big dustbin at the playground gate.
I bit my lip. Her actions made me angry and confused. Looking back I am certain the woman had been verbally cursed by some rough gypsy body in her past, and it was fear made her act the way she did. We were marched along to the Mother Superior’s room.
Our punishment for being absent from Sunday worship would soon be known.
‘You shall both go in for punishment this morning. Mary, you will go first.’
‘No, that’s not fair, it was my fault we missed chapel! Please don’t put my wee sister in,’ I cried. ‘Look, she cut her leg yesterday. We went back home and were too late for your stupid chapel,’ I screamed. ‘She did nothing wrong, I tell you!’
Completely ignoring me and determined to rid the devil from our innards, the elder woman took hold of my sobbing sister and repeated her judgement. ‘Sister Alice, please put this child in for her punishment.’
As the nun grabbed my sister by the arm, I lunged at her fingers, sinking my teeth into her thumb. She screamed, instantly letting go of Mary’s wee arm.
‘You touch her and I’ll chew the hand off you,’ I warned.
‘To the boxroom, sister, at once,’ repeated the Mother Superior.
For a moment I was rigid with fear, but then, grabbing hold of my sister firmly by the coat sleeve, we ran as fast as we could, out of the wood-lined study, down the long corridor and we didn’t stop until halfway home!
Mary’s face was blood-red with running, poor wee cratur. I wet the edge of my cardy with my tongue and wiped it across her tear-streaked face. That’s what my mother usually did.
‘Blow your snottery nose, pet, it’s filling your mouth, you’ll be sick.’ Mary pulled a flannel square from the fold of her own cardy sleeve and did as I asked.
‘God,’ I thought, ‘I’m for it now. I’ll get killed for doing this.’
Daddy hadn’t yet left for ragging, when we ran into the bus, panting. Like two gurgling turkeys we unsuccessfully tried to explain why we were not at school!
‘Jessie, what is it?’ he asked, sitting me down. ‘Take your time now, tell Daddy.’
I did the best I could to explain our absence from the convent school. ‘The Jesus Box, Dad, they were putting us in the Jesus Box!’
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘A punishment, Daddy. A place where you meet a monster called Jesus!’
‘Better not let your Mammy hear you say that. Now, while she’s at the shop getting bread, we’ll go back to the school and sort out this carry on.’
Holding each of us by the hand, he walked into the Mother Superior’s room. Surprisingly she smiled and held out her hand, saying ‘A misunderstanding, Mr Riley, let me explain.’
We were ushered out to stand in the cold corridor flanked by Sister Alice, while my father sat listening to the saintly-looking head-covered nun.
In no time he came out smiling and said, ‘Jessie, wee Mary will not be punished, but I’ve heard you’ve been a little madam, so you will have to take yours.’
Kneeling beside me on one knee he smiled, then winked, saying, ‘Now, lass, I don’t know where you got the idea that Jesus was a monster in a box, but someone has told you fibs. Be a good girl and take your punishment.’ Those words said, he walked off down the long passageway, leaving me to my fate.
Sister Alice walked Mary into the classroom while the Mother Superior marched me off. At the farthest end of the school we climbed a narrow, winding, metal stairway that clanked noisily with every step. Reaching the top she opened a heavy dark wood door of the smallest room I had ever seen, though I’d never been in a house apart from Granny Riley’s. Perhaps this was normal. I peered in, only to see a wee three-legged stool and nothing else.
‘This, my dear, is where we teach children that disobedience is wrong. Our Lord Jesus will decide if you are forgiven or not,’ said the holy lady.
She motioned me to sit down. I did as I was told. Before closing the door she said, ‘Always keep your head bowed. Do not look up, understand?’ I nodded as the door creaked shut, leaving me alone, and I remember thinking, ‘This isn’t so bad, that tall lad must have been pulling my leg right enough’. Perhaps I’d misjudged these saintly ladies of the cloth. ‘I’ll say a few prayers. If I say them loud and she’s standing listening behind the door, that’ll surely please her.’ So I closed my eyes, clasped my hands and prayed for everybody in the school. Parents, poor folk, sick ones, old ones, dogs, cats, on and on I went, finishing only when I’d totally exhausted everything worth praying for, or, come to think about it, everything I could think of whether worth it or not.
I opened my eyes, unclasped my little hands and sat quietly counting the cracks in the stone floor. Surely I’d soon hear the latch open and hear her call me out. But no! I could hear the big church clock ring out hour upon hour. All this time I sat with bowed head until my head became heavy and my neck sore. So, disobeying my superior, I stretched my neck up towards the ceiling. The sight froze my body. I grasped the wee stool beneath me for fear I’d fall onto the stone floor.
Suspended directly above my seat, the Crucified Lord hung from a wooden cross! From his thorn-crowned head to his nailed feet, painted blood trickled down his body like a river of red. So lifelike, so tortured. To go by my memory of it, whoever the artist and sculptor were, I can only imagine they must have been on Calvary and witnessed the Crucifixion themselves.
As if drawn by a magnet my gaze was forced further upwards. I stared deep into his crucified eyes. He stared down at me through the painted tears, and I swear it was as if he spoke to me, saying, ‘Bad child, wicked child. Hell for you!’
I closed my eyes tight. In my head I called in silence for wee Greenwing to take me away, and he did in a magically vivid dream. We flew over the smog-filled city, up and away from the Jesus Box. On and on we flew, over Manchester, Cumbria, the Borders, on and on until the smoking chimney of my Granny’s white cottage in the north of Pitlochry at the foot of Ben Vrackie came in sight. We sat on her rooftop until the pounding in my heart subsided. I had left the evil statue with the staring eyes far behind me.
Greenwing held my hand telling me it would soon be over, this fearful punishment, because he heard the bell ring for school’s out. ‘Open your eyes, Jess,’ he said, ‘the nun comes. I’m away now, be brave.’
‘Don’t leave me, wee friend,’ I pleaded.
I tightened my eyelids even more. I knew the statue would get me if I saw it.
My imaginary friend was gone. I was now vulnerable. Instantly I was back sitting petrified on the three-legged stool in the cold convent. Granny’s Heilan’ Hame was far, far away, and I was at the mercy of the Jesus Box. Here was the Lord of the bloodied cross who frightened children. Mammy never knew this Jesus.
‘Well, child, have you discovered the beauty of your Lord?’ The Mother Superior’s voice brought me back to the world as she pulled open the heavy door.
Keeping my eyes shut tight, I nodded my head vigorously.
‘Good, then that will be the last time we see the bad side of you, my dear.’
Yes, the Jesus Box was a dreaded punishment, because from that day until my little sister and I left, we were, to say the least, angelic!
The tall lad came up to me as we were going home that unforgettable day, and pushed something into my hand. When the school faded into the smog I opened my fingers. There, all crumpled up, was my wee tartan ribbon. He had seen Sister Alice throw it in the bin and retrieved it for me.
On reflection I can say now that that place would have been better suited to a gang of criminals rather than innocent children. Make no wonder that the playground was an unnatural place, it was more like a graveyard with all those sad, silent, little bairns. Not a bit like how they should have been—skipping, playing, loud, happy, healthy children. I have never forgotten them. Even to this day I find my thoughts wandering back. Where are they now, all in holy service maybe, or perhaps not? Who knows? I still believe that was the wrong way to teach religion.
It took me a long time to find a different Jesus from the one a sculptor and an artist had fashioned to frighten little children in the convent in Manchester all those years ago. I would further like to say that as an adult I’ve discussed that place with many nuns, priests and convent-educated people, who assured me that my experience was the exception, not the norm.
Before I leave this tale, I would like to add that there was something else in the box-room with me all those years ago, a strong smell. One of urine.
In the meantime the smog became more of a hazard as cars and buses crept along the streets. Mammy worried night after night waiting on the older lassies coming home from the factory.
‘That thick smog had the clippy walking in front of the bus with a torch, showing the driver the way,’ exclaimed Mona, coming home one night from work two hours late.
‘Good God!’ said Daddy, ‘fancy a bus with its powerful lights needing to be guided by a wee torch!’
‘The street names, the driver couldn’t make them out, the poor soul didn’t know where he was going,’ added Chrissie.
‘He must have been new to the job, that’s all I can say,’ answered Dad.
As the month went on, Mammy’s concern for her girls, plus the ragging, then standing for cold hour upon hour selling freshly washed and ironed clothes from the ragbags at the open market, took its toll.
Daddy stayed at home to watch after the wee ones that day. Our Janey was needing a change from babysitting, so she went with Mammy to the market. Two hours into the morning, Mammy asked Janey if she’d fetch some hot tea from the wee café. When she came back a terrible sight made her drop the tea, because Mammy was lying across the stall clutching her stomach.
‘Help, somebody, please!’ she cried out.
‘God sake, Mam, what’s up?’ sobbed Janey, trying to hold her up.
‘Take my lassie home,’ was all she could say, before collapsing in a crumpled heap on the freezing concrete.
By the time an ambulance arrived, a dark pool of blood had formed round her feet, and within minutes she was lying in a Manchester hospital. Her body had had enough. She was at death’s door. Our nightmare had begun!
Chrissie asked first. ‘Is she going to be all right, Daddy, when is she getting home?’
By the pale frightened look etched across his face it was easy to tell things were far from right. He looked round at each of us and said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Influenza with standing all day at the market,’ Mona gave her answer, the one she’d convinced herself of. ‘They’ll keep her a fortnight with that.’
‘Bloody big smoggy town, she’s not used to this way of doing, she needs Scottish air, does my mother.’ Shirley was frightened. She feared ill health, worried for Mammy. ‘No wonder she was always swallowing pills and powders!’ said Janey, before covering her face with her hands, then adding through floods of tears, ‘All that blood, my Mammy’s precious blood. It was pouring from her.’
‘Oh my God, she’s only five feet in height,’ cried Shirley, ‘she needs all the blood she’s got.’
This brought us all to tears. We were frightened, confused and turned to Daddy for the answer. ‘Lassies,’ he said, removing his bunnet and running a hand through his thick black hair. ‘You know I’m not a man for prayer, but if there is a time for it, then this is the time.’
Those few words told us just how sick our mother was. Silently we gathered round our father’s feet, bowed our heads and prayed. I prayed with hands clasped so tightly my wee knuckles went white. But not to Jesus. No, my pleas were to my wee Cumbrian monster Greenwing. He came immediately into my head and sat behind my eyes. I felt instant comfort from his velvety invisible wings. I needed my friend more than ever. I was very afraid.
The Jesus Box with its terror wasn’t a patch on the fear that made its presence felt right inside my very heart. Somehow life without Mammy had never entered my head. At my tender age the possibility that she and I would be parted by death was unimaginable, and unthinkable!
Mammy needed major surgery. For a start her womb was removed. She lost a large part of her stomach. Her right lung was weak with infection. However, she was made of stern stuff, our mother, because against all the odds she slowly began to recover. Each time Daddy came home with the news, ‘She’s a wee bit better’, it brought a warm glow to our hearts.
Christmas came and went, but there was no sign of it in our wee home. No toys or talk of turkey, Santa and his reindeer or fairy lights on pine trees. All we thought of was her getting well and heading home to Scotland, for us to be a whole family again.
I always imagined that because of the closeness of us living in such a tiny space, we became as one body. Let me put it simply for you: our parents were the head. Then, according to the age of my sisters, we were joined into limbs and so forth, one living body! If one took sick, then we all felt the symptoms, so think how we were feeling when the sick part in Manchester was the most important part of all, the one who gave us life!
On New Year’s day we all piled into wee Fordy. We were going to see her. Up till then only Daddy was allowed in. How excited we were. I even took Greenwing, who’d now become a permanent member of the family. But only I saw him.
‘Mr Riley, we’ve a bit of a setback, come with me please.’ The nurse looked concerned.
‘Girls, if you could stay in there, please, Dad won’t be long.’ She pointed to a half-shut door. Without a word, we followed each other into the room and sat close together.
Daddy came in several minutes later, as white as a sheet!
‘Mammy’s taken a turn for the worse, she’s losing blood, the doctor told me she needs a lot more! Without it...’ He stopped himself saying the inevitable in case we became hysterical. Instead he drew in a heavy sigh and said, ‘Let’s leave her sleep.’
But now came the frightening realisation, something he never knew before, that she had a very rare blood group. The only person the hospital had on their list who was a match was a captain in the Merchant Navy.
Would this man come and save her life? Thanks be, he did, all the way from Singapore!
I believe the hospital paid for his flight, plus several weeks’ accommodation while he donated his precious blood, saving our mother’s life. And all that for Jeannie, a simple little traveller woman from Scotland!
Daddy needed to shake this man’s hand, to say thank you, but he wanted anonymity. So not one of us got to meet him, let alone thank him in person. Mammy later told us that sometimes, through hazy eyes, she saw a tall man standing at her bedside, and wondered who he was. Once her sight was clear enough to define a bearded face, but she wasn’t sure. When she began to gather her strength, she asked the doctor if her saviour would visit. He said the good man had left the country, his task complete. So she never did get to thank the tall, bearded navy captain who gave so much.
If you are out there somewhere, sir, know this, that you have the thanks of a very grateful family. With your gift a woman lived to see eight sons-in-law, twenty-one grandchildren, and eight great-grandkids.
It was mid-February before Mammy was finally allowed home. She had lost half her body weight and her hair saw its first grey. Daddy wouldn’t let her lift a finger. Mona and Chrissie were more than pleased to give up the factory work and help at home.
To see her sitting cracking away with the gypsy women was a treat. Just looking at her was a gift for my eyes. She had spent too long away from us. I stroked her hair and simply touched her apron, as if assuring myself she wasn’t a dream.
After she came home my friend Greenwing came less and less to visit me. One night, while everybody slept, he told me there was a sad little girl who needed him more than I did. He said she was a shepherd’s child who’d lost her rag doll, and he had to find it for her. I was sad to let him go, but it didn’t matter all that much. After all, did I not have my precious Mammy back? So we parted, my imagined friend and I.
The middle of March saw little openings in the clouds, revealing a blue sky with the odd bird or two. Daddy was becoming restless; if he’d been under the bonnet of the bus checking the engine once then he’d done it a dozen times. A wee touch oil here, a wee bit water there; yes, soon it would be time to go. But who would drive the Fordy?
‘I’ll drive my wee van,’ said Mammy.
‘Never, you’re not well enough,’ said Daddy.
‘If we take our time, say twenty miles a day, maybe a day’s rest here and there, we’ll get home before the summer.’
Mary and I were more than glad to leave school; the older lassies said their farewells to friends made. The gypsies gave us a wee going-away party with promises to come and visit us at the Berries, but as is the case so many times, we never saw them again. The concerns Mammy had for her lassies being courted away by the handsome lads came to nothing, they were all spoken for. It seems they seldom marry outwith their own kind.
Next day we parted with the rosy city of Manchester, the place that saved our Mother’s life. She later told folks that, had it not been for the list of blood donors kept by that particular hospital, she might not have survived.
The journey home was, as Mammy said, ‘slow but easy’. We arrived in Crieff, Perthshire, for the start of June, with another bit mishap to report to our friends.