Jessie’s Journey

We said goodbye to our relatives, who went up to visit friends at Brora in Sutherland. We headed west to spend a week on the coast. Here’s a tale of sweetness for you. Also a story of evil and revenge. ‘Why?’ Well, this is life, is it not?

I am the country’s best butter-tablet maker! I can sense you think me a wee bit swelt-headed. Fine, think what you like, because it just happens to be fact. Ask anybody who has tasted my tablet and they’ll tell you the same. Reaching the heights of this culinary, sugary delight, however, was not achieved without a wee bit of an obstacle or two, to say the very least! Read on.

Edie (Edith) Dalrymple and her mountain of a man, Barry, acquired a field on the west coast somewhere twixt Irvine and Ayr. I remember hearing that he won it during a card game with a landowner. The deal was signed before the gent sobered up, and being a man of honourable seed he could do nothing about it. Barry owned several palomino horses. After a spit and slap day at Appleby Fair one year, he’d allowed his heart to rule the head, and ended up with five more ponies than he needed. Still, though nothing took precedence over his love of Edie, these dappled beauties came a close second.

The grand pair, who for reasons unknown were never blessed with bairns, were renowned, so before long the field where the horses roamed was filled with travellers who happened to be passing by. It was well-known throughout the circle of the wandering folks that a welcome awaited at Big Barry and Edie’s.

Barry was in his element, surrounded by little yins clambering to sit upon a pony. Older kids, those who didn’t yet have the knowledge, were taught to saddle and harness. The ones who did were allowed the freedom to gallop and canter within his field of equine delight. So if you have a memory of a green pasture down on the coastline filled with travellers and coloured horses, then you’re probably remembering the wild hospitality of two of God’s finest.

Local villages were more than grateful to the pair because of the rising trade they brought, especially when the site was full. Barry, being the gentle giant that he was, had no problem with any would-be troublemaker, because a firm hand round the back of the neck was all it took to rid the site of the offender. This meant local bobbies had no need to visit. Yes, peace reigned amongst the travellers who pulled on to spend a while by the sea in the sandy field of Barry and Edie Dalrymple. There was no charge (but if you felt the need to part with a bob or two, then Barry didn’t refuse) even although he’d built a block with toilets (hand-emptied) and one sink. Two taps supplied running water, one at either end of the field. The awful task of emptying the latrines was done by whoever had the most bairns or the fattest wives. (Only kidding, I can’t enlighten you on that one. Sorry!)

So here we were, then, mingling with friends and relatives after a long summer. This would be our final stop before heading back to Kirkcaldy for the winter and school. Yuck!

It was a Sunday and Mammy had lifted a stern finger, warning us to stay out of the bus. Had she not spent the morning polishing and cleaning? This meant one thing—Auntie Anna and Uncle Robert were calling in. Mammy made some soor scones, which were fly-protected under a clean muslin cloth on a plate near wee Reekie. He had a grand glow, our warm stove, and Daddy thought it a waste not to use it. He just wanted a cosy feet-up, but she insisted the bus stay empty and clean until the visitors had gone. Renie, like Janey, was horse-daft. She’d found a brute of a horse and could not be prised from it. The other girls were playing on a slide made of corrugated roofing, while I followed a smell, one that had filled my nostrils the best part of the morning. A hot, sweet aroma, which made me think, whatever it was, it would be damned tasty! Like a bloodhound I wandered round the site, sniffing the air, until I got the smell in my nose and throat, throwing my taste buds into turmoil. What could this be?

I was standing outside the open door of Edie’s caravan. Inside, a great black pot sat on her stove, bubbles blobbing gently at the surface.

‘Come in, lass, I’m making Barry some Scots tablet.’ I went up the high step of their caravan and sat down beside the bubbling pot. Around the narrow seat the smell rolled, engulfing me in its snare. I was being hypnotised. I sat transfixed as Edie stirred a long-handled wooden spoon in circles within the black pan. ‘Always stir clockwise. Never go the other way, you’ll annoy the de’il,’ she informed me.

‘He’ll guide you away from the straight and narrow if you stir even the porridge round agin the clock.’

Those words made me shiver, and even to this day I feel the same tingle if I accidentally find I’ve circled my spoon the opposite direction from the flow of natural time. I feel stupid telling you that, but it’s just one of those things.

Anyway, after half an hour she dropped a little of the now-brown fluid into a cup. ‘Hold that, Jess, and wait a minute while it cools.’ I sat staring, as the droplet formed a ball lying at the bottom of the cup, no bigger than a pea. Edie buttered a tin tray, then laid it on a tea towel. ‘Is it a wee ball yet?’

‘Right,’ she said, ‘this is the secret of making tablet taste divine.’ Taking her pan carefully from the stove and sitting it gently on a thick wooden chopping board (Edie had all the mod cons) she began turning the spoon hell for leather! Round and round she went, like the devil himself was fast on her heel. ‘Look, do you see the mixture change colour?’

I stared in at the forming tablet, like a whirlpool it was. Edie’s forearm was bulging like her man’s and for a moment I thought it would burst. The smell was swirling round too and into my mouth and nose.

Yes, it certainly was. What was transparent seconds before was now sandy-coloured and thickening. ‘Did you put butter in it?’ I asked, ‘I can smell butter.’

‘There’s the best part o’ a cow’s mornin’ offering in there and a good pint of it as well, melted together with a full bag of sugar, lass,’ answered Edie, before pouring the finished mixture into the tray. As I sat and watched the tablet solidifying in its rectangular bed, Edie offered me a drink of lemonade, saying it would take up to an hour before the sweetie was edible. This brought a huge feeling of disappointment and I didn’t think I’d last that long. She told me to come back later, but I felt the tablet might either get eaten or stolen, so making the excuse that I’d nothing to do I stayed where I was—on guard, so to speak. She smiled, perhaps reading my thoughts. We cracked a while and our blether took on a conversation about Crieff. ‘Do you know the story of Baby Bairn?’ she asked, running a knife lengthways across the hardening tablet. I told her I had no recollection of the tale.

Edie asked my age. When I said I was a teenager, she said that was a good age to hear this tale. We sat cupping our lemonade, and here, reader, is the harrowing story of Baby Bairn, which I tell to you word for word as Edie told it to me.

A popular campsite for the Perthshire travellers was a place called Lady Mary’s Walk, on the banks of the Turret river which flowed opposite the lower end of Macrosty park. Across a bridge spanning the burn, a path leads to an area which used to hold up to a dozen or so families. This filled to capacity around the tattie-howking time in October. The main railway line from Perth to Oban ran through the campsite. Old folks talked of the friendly train staff who would throw sweeties to the bairns as the train trundled loudly along the track. Wee laddies used to run alongside the engine as the driver pulled on the whistle, much to their delight, though not so to the angry mother who had just got the wean to sleep.

At this time the tatties hadn’t yet started, so there were only a few families on the green. One was a family consisting of a mother with two grown sons and a daughter of sixteen years. The lassie, though grown in body, had the mind of a five-year-old; ‘a simple wee cratur’ was how folks described her. They said it was sad seeing the lassie playing in the sand by the burnside, and thinking how unfortunate that this poor thing would never know the joy of getting married or having a family, because she would never grow up. She had the body of a woman, though, and for this reason her elder brothers watched over her like a hawk. Her mother called her simple child ‘Baby Bairn’. Although conscious of her daughter’s disability she never fussed over it, and was just grateful to the Almighty for her bonny lassie. And what a beauty she was, with long blonde ringlets cascading down her back, touching the ground when she sat on the grass. She had blue eyes as big as saucers and skin like the elusive pearl. Travelling folks who knew the family said she had the face of an angel, and all who saw her remarked on how she could brighten the dreichest day.

Soon, as the tattie time drew near, others arrived on the green. Everybody more or less knew each other, and before long the place was full of cheery folk, eagerly awaiting the chance to make enough money to see them through the long winter ahead. Apart from the tattie-dressing there was no more work on the farms until the planting in the spring. The bairns all had to be schooled, so extra money was needed for clothes and sturdy shoes.

No-one saw the lone man arrive on the green and pitch his small tent. He must have come during the night. He had with him a bike and khaki-coloured haversack, and that was all. Travelling folks did not shun the stranger, nor did they judge him, but they were always mindful of his lone status and kept a wary eye on him when he was near the bairns. He did not seem to cause any problems, however. In fact he seemed a decent enough man, and after several days was welcomed at the campfires.

Soon the tattie-lifting was in full swing, and everybody was busying themselves, taking advantage of the unusually mild weather enjoyed that particular autumn. Weans eagerly awaited the friendly train workers for the free sweeties thrown from the old steam train as it trundled past the campsite, while mothers cooked the big pots of stovies for the hungry workers coming home from the back-breaking tattie-lifting.

The lone man had struck up a friendship with the two brothers of the simple lassie, spending his nights at their campfire. He seemed genuinely fond of the girl, spoiling her with gifts of coloured ribbons for her hair and bracelets. She called him her uncle, and being childlike in nature she trusted him as she did everybody.

The tatties that year had been very good, and the farmers were pleased with the yield, so everyone received a bonus. The two brothers were not ones for drinking, but with their mother’s approval they took a dram from the kindly stranger whom they had befriended. The mother had no objection to her laddies having a dram or two, so after making sure her precious lassie was asleep she bedded herself down for the night. Soon her boys bade their friend goodnight, and apart from the sound of a lonely hooting owl high in a nearby tree, the happy campsite fell into a welcoming slumber.

Just before dawn the old train headed by on its journey north, and that was when the demon showed the real reason for his attention to the simple lassie. With the cunning of a fox he sneaked her out from the tent, her muffled protests disguised by the noise of the passing train, did to her what is unspeakable, and killed her.

A woman filling her kettle from the burn found her. The blood was splattered across the autumn grass and down over the sand, where the lassie used to build sandcastles at the burnside. The mother’s screams were heard for miles, as the sight of her bonnie wee lassie’s body was indelibly imprinted on her mind. The two brothers knew only too well what had to be done. They would find the beast before the law did and mete out their own punishment. Travelling folks had little respect for the law, and if retribution was to be made then the victim’s relatives carried it out.

They packed a haversack and set out after him, ensuring that their distraught mother was in the safe hands of folks who promised they would take care of her. People say the lads found the monster a mile north of Comrie, washing himself at the burnside. One can only imagine what form of justice was dealt to that man, the devil who had robbed them of their baby sister, at the hands of those two heartbroken young men.

They say that the poor mother, filled with hate, cursed his soul to the spot where he savaged her lassie. Moreover, from that day a tree at the fateful site bore in its trunk an uncanny resemblance to a man’s face, and neither leaf nor bud grew on that tree since!

‘Good God in heavens, Edie, that put the thought of the tablet out of me right enough. Why did you tell me such a tale?’

‘Well, being a travelling lassie, and one who is not far from womanhood, it does no harm to be wary of strangers and not so trusting. Now, I think this sweetie is ready for tasting.’

Baby Bairn would come into my thoughts and dreams again, but not today—I had some tablet to eat. What a delight for the gods it was. Never have I tasted such wonder. Edie gave me a square before putting the rest in a biscuit tin. The piece was far too little to satisfy me; I just had to have more, but how? I wasn’t a thief, or forward enough to do an Oliver Twist and ask for more. No, the only thing to do was to make my own.

I was only too aware of the gleaming bus awaiting its visitors. There was no way under Heaven’s fluffy clouds that Mammy would allow the desecration of her bonny wee stove, but I had no choice— my taste-buds were in total control.

Sneaking in I checked the press to see if there was enough butter, milk and sugar, and there was. The big jam pan was plonked on the heat and off I set—my first attempt at tablet-making. Soon the bubbles began to plop on the surface, and the same aroma I’d enjoyed at Edie’s began to fill my own home; the taste-buds were doing a tango on my tongue. I kept a vigil between the pot and the door to see that Mammy wasn’t coming back. She had wandered off in the direction of the caravan of Maggie Bunt, a Border gypsy. Once that pair got to yapping I knew that it would be at least an hour before the lips closed again. Swirling the spoon clockwise so as not to antagonise Auld Nick, I soon had something resembling what Edie had produced. Time to finish my task.

I dropped a little into a cup. Yes, it formed a ball. Time to remove the pan from the heat, and by God, it seemed I was going to get away with it after all!

‘Now,’ I remembered Edie saying, ‘don’t forget, when handling hot pans, always wrap a cloth round the handle.’ So, with these wise words in mind, I reached over the stove to remove a dishtowel from the wee cupboard above. As I did so I knocked something out of its place and stood open-mouthed as it fell into the pan. What happened next was like a scene from a Walt Disney cartoon. The contents spewed up and over the side of the pot; hot browny liquid shot up like mini-rockets, hitting the bus roof. It spewed over everything like molten lava from the belly of an active volcano. It was unstoppable! Mammy’s neat and tidy cushions and curtains, arranged just so for her expected visitors, were spotted with tan-coloured drippy blobs. And still the eruption continued, sticking to the Tilley-lamp, covering the back window and running down the Paisley-patterned seats— it missed nothing. Never had I seen the place look so awful; I was dead for sure. This was out of my control. Flying like a banshee I tore across on my wee legs to fetch Edie; she would know what to do. We all met together at the same time—Mammy, Daddy, Edie, me and, who do you think? That’s right, our visitors.

Edie laughed (she was the only one) when she realised what had happened. ‘You silly lassie. You’ve knocked enough baking soda into the pan to make puff candy for Scotland and all her neighbours!’

Not only had I learned the art of tablet-making that fine Sunday, but I had made puffy into the bargain. Two treats for one day, wouldn’t you say?

Well, after things were cleaned up, the visitors gone, and one of my ears near pulled from its socket by Mammy, I took the time to remember the tale Edie had told me. As I lay in bed I told it to my mother. She said she too remembered that crime, and that in the papers at that time there was a report that ‘a headless body, thought to be a vagabond’ had been found a mile or two from St Fillans at the mouth of Loch Earn. Could it have been the killer? It may well have been. Travellers say that the brothers buried his head beneath the roots of the cursed tree, so that his spirit would look on the spot where he took the life of the beautiful and innocent Baby Bairn.

Recently I told members of Perth and Kinross Council why the tree with the imprint of a contorted face had a history, and without a word they sent someone to cut it down. It is now a small bench for weary walkers to rest upon. I walk down there. I get weary feet. But it’d be a cold day in hell before I rest on the twisted soul bench.

We bade farewell to the couthy folks of Ayrshire, and before finding the road for Fife, we spent several days in Perthshire. Daddy’s sister Lizzie lived in Muthill, a tiny village south of Crieff, and it was there we headed.

In the area of the ‘Sma’ Glen’ I remember falling asleep to the whining of the engine, and rain pelting off the roof. Several sharp bends on the old road wakened me. The window wipers fought hard against the ferocious rain, prompting Daddy to find a lay-by to rest things down. Mammy wiped condensation from the window nearest her and stared out. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘is this not the Grey Lady’s field?’

‘It’s the only spot big enough to stop for the night,’ answered Daddy. ‘And I need to investigate a grinding sound I heard from the engine.’ Mammy’s eyes widened as she turned to look at us. She said that when she was a lassie, traveller folk never stopped at the roadside next to the ‘Grey Lady’s’ field, and here we were, right in the very spot. I was curious.

The story goes that after Culloden a young woman hid her husband in a cave near their tiny cottar house, but the English Redcoats put the lad to the sword after discovering him there. She believed the soldiers would never have found the cave, had a tinker not told them where it was. The distraught woman, before ending her life by hanging on a rope tied to the rafters in her home, cursed every travelling tinker. A shepherd tending his sheep heard her curses as she hung from the rope. He immediately went to her aid, only to find an empty house. So the curse of the Grey Lady was born.

The rain stopped, leaving a mist-shrouded glen. If ever a place had an air of haunting about it, then this was it. Mammy gave me the kettle, telling me to fill it at the burn. I remember a feeling of icy coldness as I looked back at the mist creeping over the bus; in an instant it was gone from view. As I knelt down to fill the kettle, something brushed against my face. Leaving the half-empty kettle in the burn I stood up to see who had approached me. Thinking Mary was playing tricks, I swung round to see, but there was noone there. Feeling hair rise on my neck I swiftly retrieved my kettle and started making my way back towards the bus, but try as I might I could not find where it was. My heart was pounding so much it was the only sound I heard. Then I saw her: a woman had appeared from nowhere and was standing feet away from me! I froze. Water soaked my socks and shoes as the kettle fell and spilled. She towered over me, wispy grey chiffon like the mist itself shrouding her thin form. I was at her mercy, unable to move. I watched as she knelt down at the burnside, then removed a long cloak and began washing it in the water.

Ignoring me, but obviously aware of my presence, she folded the wet garment and laid it on a flat stone. Then very slowly she got to her feet, swaying all the time. I stared, still unable to move and terrified, as she spoke cryptic words in rhythm: ‘You shall meet him on the Samhain. If he throws not the silver coin then the Kelpie shall take him away.’ With that, she circled round me with a swishing scream and was gone. Fear shot through me, and taking to my heels, not knowing where I was going, I ran and ran.

‘Jessie! Jessie! Wake up, lassie, you’re dreaming.’ I opened my eyes to see my mother leaning over me. We were still on the road, rain still pelting off the windows, as Daddy called to us that Muthill was in sight.

‘Thank heavens I was only dreaming, but what a strange dream.’ I told everyone, including Auntie Lizzie.

‘You had a Banshee dream,’ she told me. ‘It should have meaning. Let me know if anything comes of it, lassie.’

Something did come of it, but that’s later on in my story. I hope you stay with me.

Dreams...

We are the messengers of life,

The passing strangers in the night.

In flights of fancy we may seem

A yellow road of sheer delight.

We set the rhythm and the tone,

The mind to stretch in many ways;

We touch the soul, the heart, the bone,

We are the masters and the slaves.

We are the guts of life’s machine,

The passion of forgotten time,

We are the blankets or the ice,

We are the names on parchment signed.

We are the aches, the hurt, the blight,

We are the angels or the freaks,

We can delay the planned awake,

Then take great care before we speak.

We are the keepers of each thought,

To each one’s own in deepest sleep;

This strong desire to dream alone

Does help the Lord one’s soul to keep.

Charlotte Munro

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