chapter fourteen

taking on the world once more

By the time I got home, the effects of the epidural had long worn off and the strong painkillers that I had taken after the morphine had also been stopped, so I was in a lot of pain for the first time since having the operation,. This was to last for six weeks before the pain began to recede.

As has always been the case throughout my life this was another problem I just had to deal with. As usual I had a project on the go and it helped to keep my mind off the pain. My plan to buy a building plot on the island and build a new house was at last making some headway.

I couldn’t shake my anxiety about how people might view me now that I’d had the operation and was now anatomically a woman. The reaction I was getting from them wasn’t the reaction I’d been expecting. Most people I met on my short walks to the shops or along the sea front just said, ‘Hi Jules, how are you doing?’ and not much more. Some would not even broach the subject because they didn’t know what to say. The other thing that bothered me was that no one came to visit me and I felt a bit disappointed and hurt at the time, thinking no one was interested or cared.

A couple of folk did explain to me later that they didn’t come round because they didn’t want to put themselves, or me, in an awkward situation, which was fair enough, I suppose. And those who had been critical about me getting the operation on the NHS didn’t want to go on about it any more. What was done was done. Over time, most folk came to accept the fact that Jules was now anatomically a woman and they became increasingly courteous to me once that they got used to the ‘new Jules’.Eventually I started to get out a bit more and was tentatively driving again, with extreme care (and against the advice Trevor had given me), so that I could visit Ian and Terri who lived about two miles away. Apart from them and my next-door neighbours, Pauline and Julian, who brought me meals when I first came home, I didn’t have much contact with anyone apart from the doctor, of course. None of my work colleagues came to visit and I was becoming increasingly lonely. This was nothing new. I’ve known loneliness for most of my life and to a certain degree, I still do to this day.

Six weeks after my operation it was time to go back to Trevor in Edinburgh for my check-up. Although I had been in touch with him on the phone about the pain, which by this time had almost gone, I was really excited about seeing him again and I was keen to let him have a look at his handiwork. I also wanted to tell him how it was changing my life already, as well as thank him properly.

After the full check-up, Trevor was happy to sign me off for good, which surprised me, but he said there was no need for any further check-ups as my healing and recovery were good.

His final advice to me was, ‘Go and enjoy life as a woman. You risked everything to get where you are now. Life is precious, live it to the full.’ We then said our goodbyes and he wished me the very best of luck for the future. By the time I got out to the car park I had tears in my eyes. I still think of Trevor fondly and we swap emails occasionally. I have invited him and his wife to come to Coll for a wee break, which they say they will get round to one year.

It was now April 2006 and I was starting to do a little light work in my maintenance business which was helping me to get as fit as I could in preparation for going back to work at the ferry terminal – something I was desperate to do as soon as possible. I would need to be 100% fit before going back there, though, as you need a bit of strength when hauling the ships’ ropes. The company doctors would have the final say as to when I could go back.

My time off work did allow me to concentrate on concluding the deal to buy the building plot and plan my new house with my builder. With the conclusion of the land deal getting closer, I was now starting to think about the financial aspect and that was another reason I wanted to get back to work. Although I was on full wages from CalMac for the whole time that I was off work I was self-employed in my maintenance work, so if I didn’t work I didn’t get paid. I had over £50,000 in the bank left over from the sale of my boat charter business, this was only enough to buy the land and pay for the planning permission and the solicitor’s fee. On top of that, I still had to finance and build the house and the cost of that would be close to £100,000.

I was so desperate to get back to work that there was a point in mid-May when I thought I had taken on too much. Dealing with my house plans and the aftermath of my operation became very stressful. I had to learn very quickly to pace myself and allow a bit more time for my full recovery from what had been a major operation.

At long last the legal wrangling between our solicitors was over and I was able to give my builders the go-ahead to start building the house. I did the first piece of groundwork myself by symbolically laying a culvert pipe across what would, in a few months, be the entrance to my driveway.

Eventually the time came when all the doctors concerned agreed that I was fit to go back to work at the ferry terminal. I would start back on the 15th of June 2006, after being off work for four months. The Julie Clarke who was returning to work would be a very different person to the one who had gone off on the 15th of February. Back then, I knew the mission I was going on would be life changing and I was in tears and full of emotion, as well as apprehension, on my final day before I went off for my operation. However, when I returned to work on the 15th of June I was full of confidence, optimistic and on top of the world. I was ready to take on that world once more, a world that for so long had conspired against me. Although I had been living successfully as Julie Clarke for the last two years, the day I went back to work at the ferry terminal to the job I loved, in some ways heralded the beginning of my new life.

My body and mind were now living as one and all my confusion and disillusion had gone. I now went to bed at night with a huge smile on my face and when I woke up in the morning I was eager to get out there and take on anything life threw at me. I now only allowed positive thoughts to enter my mind and wouldn’t accept anything negative or dark in my world. I’d had half a century of that and now I just don’t do darkness.

Being back at work really was the best thing for me in many ways. I was meeting people again, locals and visitors alike, some I hadn’t seen since before my operation. My job is as high profile as it gets on the island in terms of meeting people. In a way I have contact with almost everyone who enters or leaves the island. I have to collect the tickets of those boarding the ferry and I also greet those disembarking. In fact, because of my position at the mooring station, where I catch and let go the ships’ ropes, I am the first person people see when they arrive at the island and the last person they see when they leave. I am sure there is no one else on the island who has had their photo taken more than me as cameras are always flashing from the decks of the ferries as they arrive in the harbour or leave. Occasionally someone will send me the photos. I even once had one that just said ‘Julie Clarke, Isle of Coll’. I presume these total strangers got my name from the badge on my uniform.

I was now overseeing the building of my new house and the most stressful part was keeping the bank manager happy. The build started to go over budget which was probably my own fault. I was back working by then, but the after effects of the operation were still affecting me and I still wasn’t as sharp as I should have been. So, because of the financial straits I was in, I took on quite a large bridging loan until the build was completed and the pressure was on to work hard to pay for it. All I now seemed to do was work, work, work, and I simply didn’t have time to enjoy my new-found – and hard-won – womanhood, but I was determined to get everything done so that I could live my life as I intended.

By the end of July the new house was more or less finished and finally, on the 25th of July 2006, I moved into my dream home. The house is situated on a hill overlooking the estuary and village bay, with the open sea beyond, and was more special to me than any other house I had ever owned. It was the culmination of my life’s work and I put everything I had into it. What made it so special was that it was Julie Clarke’s house, mine alone, and I’m so proud of that. I achieved that goal in the same year as I achieved my gender reassignment. Yes, 2006 had been a tumultuous year so far, but for the first time in my entire life I was truly content. So I had no trouble when it came to naming the new house – it is called Ancaster Cottage, named after the farmhouse where I was born in Callander, the place where I had a happy and carefree childhood before my gender confusion set in. I still had a long way to go in terms of making my house absolutely perfect and I was also aware that I had even further to go in terms of perfecting Julie Clarke.

I had been fairly comfortable financially for most of my adult life, but since I built the new house this changed. I had completely overstretched myself, to the point where it was touch and go every month. I had to channel everything into making sure the mortgage was paid before anything else and there was one point at the end of the year when I only had £4.50 left in my bank accounts. But I was damned sure I wasn’t going to lose my house so I had to come up with a plan. In some ways it was obvious, the solution was right in front of me when I looked out of the window, but I just didn’t notice it because I was so busy working and worrying about my situation.

After I had built my house I still had a huge chunk of land lying idle and I began to realize it was far too big for me to ever turn in to a garden. That’s when I came up with the idea of getting planning permission for another house, with the intention of selling it, in the hope that this would get me out of the financial hole I now found myself in.

After much negotiation with the council planning department, I finally got planning permission for a second house. I immediately divided up my land, which still left me with a large garden, and put the new building plot up for sale. But it was now early 2007 and the credit crunch was beginning to bite. The property markets had collapsed and no one was buying, so my financial difficulties continued. With no money to spare this wasn’t the greatest of times for me although I knew that the building plot would sell eventually – I just had no way of knowing when. I knew I would have to be patient and keep working just to stay afloat. I wasn’t able to get out much and I certainly couldn’t afford to go to the mainland, let alone have a holiday. Much as I longed to I still couldn’t get out and show Julie Clarke off to the world. Despite this, I was still totally content in myself, knowing that some day my fortunes would change. That said, loneliness has been a constant feature of my life, right through to the present day. Until a person has experienced being utterly alone, with no one to turn to, no one to share hopes and dreams with, they can have no idea how truly isolating loneliness is, and for me it has been profound at times. Even if there are lots of folk around it can still affect you. Always having had to hide my inner feelings at all cost meant that I had learned very early on to withdraw into myself. Even in the company of others I could never share my thoughts with anyone; the only place I could live out my desired role as a female was behind closed doors, alone. And it seemed like the loneliest place on earth. After my secret came out in the 1980s, the way I was often treated by others meant that even in a crowd I was often left standing on my own, shunned by almost everyone.

By the spring of 2007 I had a come a long way since those days, but even so, loneliness was still there. Yes, I do have this high-profile job where I see hundreds of people some days and I have a lot of interaction with mates at work and with the travelling public, but at the end of the day it’s back home to my own space and that can become very lonely indeed. I’m sure this doesn’t apply only to the likes of me; loneliness affects people from all walks of life who find themselves on their own, for whatever reason. But I got to a point where I decided I needed some kind of companionship since I didn’t have a boyfriend or partner. I did have my dream house, but it wasn’t complete. I had now been living there for a year and I knew there was something missing, something that I always had in my life in the past. That missing link was a cat.

My beloved cat, Geal, had died in 2005 at the ripe old age of seventeen and I now felt I was ready to welcome a new cat into my life. So the search was on. I wasn’t keen on a Coll cat. I felt that too many of the island cats were closely related and I thought I would try and find one on the mainland. Life is full of coincidences though, and one day while I was checking in passengers going to the neighbouring island of Tiree, I happened to meet the Tiree vet, who had been on one of his regular working visits to Coll. I asked him if he ever came across any kittens on his travels and he told me that he did, his neighbours on Tiree often had kittens on their farm. I asked him if he could watch out for one for me.

A few weeks later I got a call from him, asking if I still wanted a kitten as his neighbours had a five-week-old litter. He said he was coming to Coll in about a week and could bring one over if I was interested. I excitedly said yes please and he said he would let me know when he was coming over. He phoned a couple of days later to say that he would be over on the first Monday of July – only about four days away. The ferry running that day was the Lord of the Isles, often shortened to Lotti. I was really excited and just couldn’t wait to meet my new companion. I had to be patient, the vet said he would leave the kitten in our office for me and I wouldn’t see her until I finished casting off the ferry. As it turned out my work mates all got to see her before I did. When I finally came into the office I was united with my new companion, a beautiful and tiny six-week-old kitten. One of my colleagues suggested that I called the kitten Lord of the Isles, knowing that was my favourite ferry, but I said, ‘No, it’s a female kitten, so it will have to be Lotti,’ – and that’s how she got her name.