The travellers believed that there were people who lived in this world long before your time and mine who used to steal people away and take their bodies, kill them and cut them up, and use them for research in colleges for the education of doctors. The tinkers and travellers called them ‘burkers’ – body-snatchers. And they still believe that there are plenty of body-snatchers alive at this present moment, though the demand for bodies is no as much as it was in the olden days.
This was our favourite story that Daddy used to tell us; it was one of his favourites too – he told it to us as children often. We used to say, ‘Daddy, tell us a wee story when you were near burkit with1 the body-snatchers.’
Daddy turned around and said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you a wee burker story that happened to me a long time ago when I was very young.’
ME and my mother and father and the rest of the children were in this town. We had travelled all over the country and we were in a new town every day, and this was a strange town to us because we had never been here before. I was about fourteen at the time. We landed in the town and my mother was selling some baskets, my daddy was making and selling some tin. We always used to go and sit on the village green. My daddy would maybe go and have a wee drink and my mother would make us some tea. We could play ourselves in the village green but we didn’t interfere with the rest of the children that inhabited the village, we kept to ourselves.
But I got very curious, because I had never got much room to be on my own for a wee while. I said to myself I would have a wander through the town, see all the beautiful things that I had never seen. Because naturally, travelling people like us never had much chance to come to the town unless it was the week-end, when my daddy had something to sell. So I wandered through the town.
There were shops full of clothing, beautiful clothes that I would love to own but had no way of getting, and there were shops full of toys and shops full of food, butcher shops full of meat – it just made my mouth water! And I passed my time in the town for a long long while. But time had passed so fast for me I never realised that, looking at all these things in the town, hours had passed, and I had to go back. I made my way to the green where my mummy and daddy were supposed to be waiting for me. But when I landed back my mummy and daddy were gone! They had packed their little hand-cart with the tent – they went and left me.
I’m left in the middle of the town, and I never knew in a million years what direction my father went! He could have gone south, he could have gone east, he could have gone west, he could have gone in any direction. So I said to myself, ‘Now, I’ll have to find my mother and father,’ because I was only fourteen and I’d never been left by myself before and I’d never spent a night away from my father and mother in my life. And my father had told me all the stories about evil people who were burkers with coaches who would take my body and sell it to the doctors for money – I was terrified.
But anyway, I thought I’d take the main road out of the village because I thought, ‘That’s the road my mummy and daddy would take.’ And I travelled on and travelled on, by the time I got to the end of the town it was getting dark. And I said to myself, ‘I’ll never catch my mummy and daddy tonight, what am I going to do? I can’t stay by myself,’ because I was afraid.
So I travelled on and I travelled on and I travelled on, and the farther I travelled the darker it got, because it was the winter months and it got darker by the minute. It was very very dark when I came to a long straight piece of road between two forests with not a house in sight. Then I listened! And I heard coming behind me – the patter of horses’ feet – the thought dawned in my head, the stories my daddy had told me, the burkers’ coach! I said, ‘This is bound to be a burkers’ coach!’
And I got in the ditch among the long grass, I hid down in the ditch. Then I heard the horses’ coach coming, the patter of horses’ feet … they passed me by. There were two horses on the coach and the coach was all in black except for one light on the roof. I waited and waited and waited, till the coach got well on before me. I said, to myself, ‘As sure as God in heaven, my daddy told me, that is a burkers’ coach out looking for bodies tonight. Well, they’re not going to get me!’
So I travelled on, I travelled on, I travelled on, and I came to this piece of road going up a wee piece of hill, and lying in the road was a pair of boots – the most beautiful boots I had ever seen in my life – long brown leather boots! And they were tied together with a pair of laces. I picked up the boots and said, ‘This’ll do me,’ because all my life I had wanted to own a pair of boots like this. And I put them across my shoulder. I travelled on for about ten yards.
And I looked: there was a gate. The moon began to come up. I looked in the gate and I saw all these things standing up, all these white things standing up. But I wan’t afraid! The moon got brighter – and I saw that it was a graveyard, and the gates were open. Now my daddy had always told me, ‘You’re safe enough passing a graveyard if you don’t pass it by between twelve and one.’ I knew that I had left the village when it was only getting dark, that now it could only be about nine or ten o’clock. It couldn’t be evil time in the graveyard. So I naturally walked past the gates of the graveyard, about ten yards from where I had found the boots – they were on my back. I travelled on, I travelled on, this long weary road.
I looked at all the places at the roadside to see if I could see a light of a camp-fire or something – but no, there was no light or camp-fire. But now the hoolits began, ‘cahoo-cahoo-cahoo’. It was night-time, the road was long and dreary, I got kind of afraid. I said, ‘I just can’t stay out tonight, I can’t sleep under a hedge or something,’ because I had never done it before. And I travelled on, there wasn’t a house in sight.
Then, above the road a wee bit, I saw a light. And this road led up to it. Now my daddy had always said to me, ‘If you’re down and out, look for a light well back from the road,’ because coaches and burkers didn’t go off the road – it was too much of a pull for the horses. So I see this light up on a hillside and there was an old rough road going up the way.
I said, ‘Probably it’s an old farmer and his wife, probably I can sleep in the shed for the night and nobody’ll know I’m there till the morning. And I’ll jump out and be gone before they ever see me.’ So I walked up, slowly up the road, but my feet were making terrible noises on the coarse stones going up it.
I walked up and walked up and walked up, I just landed at the end of the road when out comes aman with a lantern. He had one of these old-fashioned lights in his hand, a paraffin lamp. And he sees me before I had a chance to get into the shed and lie down – he sees me. He says, ‘Come here, you!’ So naturally I was a wee bit afraid, and he came forward. He held the light up and shined it in my face – he looked at me. ‘And, hey,’ he said, ‘who are you and where do you come from?’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘sir, I’m sorry – I must have taken the wrong road – I’m looking for my daddy and my mummy and the children, my wee brothers and sisters.’
He said, ‘Say that again?’
I said, ‘I’m looking for my mummy and my daddy and my wee brothers and sisters.’
He said, ‘Who are you?’ And he shined the light on me, saw I was ragged and torn and my clothes weren’t very— ‘Are you one of the tinker people?’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘yes, sir, I’m one of the tinker people – I’m the oldest of the family and I was in the town today back there with my mummy and daddy and I lost them – and I didn’t know what road to take. And I, I–I’m looking for them.’
He said, ‘Come with me.’ He took me past the house right to the door, opened the door of the big shed, a barn. He said, ‘Get in there! You can sleep in there for the night, you’ll be all right!’ He closed the door and he locked it. I heard the key going ‘click’.
I walked forward through the barn and it was heaped with straw. And then I looked – there was a stall in the one corner, in the stall was a cow and the cow was chewing hay. I looked up, there were some couples1 up above the cow’s head and on the roof there was a skylight – I could see the moon shining through it. I tried the door but the door wouldn’t open; there was no other way out.
I said to myself, ‘I don’t like this very much. I can’t stay here. I don’t like this man very much.’ But anyway, I sat down among some straw and then I heard the key turning in the door. The door opened. And the light shone on me.
He said, ‘Are you there?’
I said, ‘Yes, I’m here – what is it?’
‘Come awa, come out a minute!’
I came out. And this man who had the lantern was about six feet tall, red-haired, with brown eyes, a red face. He said, ‘Eh, I suppose you’ll be hungry?’
‘Well, sir,’ I said, ‘I’ve had nothing to eat all day.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘come with me!’ And he led me into the house.
In the house was a big old-fashioned fire and a bare table, nothing on the table, some chairs. And there was this woman, about the same size as the man, with red hair, and freckles on her face. And I looked at the other side of the table – there was a young man who must have been his son, and on the other chair sitting was his daughter – she was red-haired! And my daddy had told me, ‘Beware of red-headed people, especially farmers or land-owners who are red-haired and have brown eyes!’ He told me they were bad people, ‘Never to be sure of red-haired people or brown-eyed folk, keep away from them.’ And me – I was as blond as a baby, fair curls down the back of my neck and blue eyes.
And the farmer’s wife said, ‘Isn’t he a pretty little boy – it’s a pity …’
When she said ‘it’s a pity’, didn’t I think – ‘it was a pity that I had lost my daddy and my mummy’! I didn’t know!
She said, ‘Isn’t it a pity, isn’t he a beautiful boy! Where do these travelling tinker people get all the good looks and the beautiful hair and blue eyes?’ But I didn’t pay much attention. I heard her saying this but it didn’t dawn on me then what she was meaning.
She said, ‘Are you hungry?’
I said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I’m hungry.’ So she brought me a big bowl of porridge and milk.
She said, ‘Eat that up!’ So I sat there and I was really hungry and I ate this big bowl of porridge and milk.
Then the man took the lantern and he said, ‘You sure you’re all right now – had you enough to eat?’ I didn’t like him very much because he had a big high Roman nose, hooked nose, curly red hair and evil-looking brown eyes.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you to your bed!’ And he took me back into the same place. ‘You can find a place to sleep among the straw.’ And the cow was busy chewing away on the hay, chewing away.
So I lay down but I couldn’t sleep among the straw, I couldn’t sleep. I said to myself, ‘I remember all the things that my daddy and mummy told me about red-haired people – they swore that they were burkers!’ And they had a reason to believe that, because they had known from past experience these people really would sell someone’s body for money. And I was terrified.
Now I had left my boots in the shed when the farmer took me in to give me some supper. And I picked my boots up, put them around my neck, and I said, ‘I’ll have to find a way to escape.’ But the door was locked, I couldn’t escape. There was no way out. ‘I’ll have to escape!’ And then the moon came up again, it shined through the skylight and I said to myself, ‘That’s the way out for me!’ Me being a tinker, I knew how to get out. I said, ‘I’ll climb up that wall and I’ll get through that skylight window.’ But the thing was, the skylight was directly above the cow and the cow was tied right at the bottom. The cow wouldn’t bother me. Now there were two long wooden beams to the left of the cow’s head that went straight up to the roof. I said, ‘I’ll climb that beam and get up there, open that window, go out on the roof and escape – get going! But,’ I said again, ‘probably I’m just exaggerating a wee bit. Probably if I stay here the people’ll not bother me.’
Then I lay for a wee while, not asleep, when I heard a horse and coach coming in to the front of the farm, with lights on it. It stopped! And the farmer came out with a lamp in his hand and he said, ‘Okay, come in and have a wee drink! I’ve got something for you tonight, I have something for you.’
And the man who stepped down from the coach had this long coat on him, a swallow-tail coat and a tile hat. Three of them stepped from the coach, three men. And I could see by the light – with their long coats and their hats – they were the evil people my father had told me about. I could see the horse, a black horse, and a black coach parked right in front of the farm. I said to myself, ‘They’re here for me! But they’re no going to get me!’
‘Come in and have a drink,’ he said, ‘you can pick him up later!’ That was me they were talking about – they were going to pick me up later! They were going to burk me, take me and kill me and sell my body to the doctors.
I said, ‘No-o-o-o, they’re no going to get me!’ So I picked the boots up, put them around my neck and started to climb the pole above the cow’s head – right to the skylight. And I climbed and I climbed. I got up and I put my arms right up, and as I reached up my arms the boots fell off my neck. But as the boots fell, I looked – o-oh, I nearly fell off too – there were legs in the boots cut from below the knee! Raw bloody legs, and they fell right at the cow’s nose! I managed to reach the skylight window and lifted it – it was open. I lifted it up slowly, crawled out through the hole, got out on the roof, ran along the roof. And I looked all around, it was kind of dark, and I jumped. I said, ‘I’m no caring suppose I break both my legs, I’ll crawl on the grass before I get taken with these people!’
And then I landed, in the dung heap in the back of the place. It was lucky for me that the farmer had packed all the dung at the back of the shed. I landed right to the waist in the heap; I never even hurt a bone in my body. And I crawled out and ran away for my life, down through the moor and on to the main road. I said, ‘I’ll make my way back to the town as fast as I can!’ Now I don’t know what happened behind me, but this is what I believe happened.
After they had something to drink, the farmer said to the three men, ‘I’ve something for you tonight, a nice young man for you. I’ve got him locked up in the byre with the cow. And he’s a good specimen. You can have him tonight!’ And they paid the farmer a lot of money – for me – for my body! The farmer said, ‘He can’t escape, I’ve got him locked up. Just grab him when you go in!’
They opened the door and they looked all around with their lights. But they couldn’t find me, I was gone! They searched every place in the byre. They couldn’t get me.
And then somebody said, ‘Maybe he’s hiding behind the cow.’ They took a light up beside the cow and the cow was chewing away at the grass. ‘Maybe he’s hiding under the cow’s head, at the front of it.’ And they looked. ‘Oh,’ somebody said, ‘oh look! There’s his boots – grab him!’ And they grabbed the boots and they pulled them out and looked … nothing in the boots but the legs.
The farmer said, ‘That’s him, that’s his boots – I remember his boots.’ (He never noticed the boots had been on my back.) He said, ‘I never knew – a cow ate him, the cow has eaten him!’ And the poor simple cow was standing chewing away at its cud. It had saved my life, chewing away, chewing its cud. And they believed the cow had eaten me! Because the boots that I had found at the gate of the graveyard had legs in them, and they believed that was me.
And I made my way back the next morning. I hid in the wood till the sun came up, then made my way back to the town. I wandered round the town and the first body I found was my mother, who was in tears looking for me.
She said, ‘Where have you been?’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Mother, where have you been, where have I been? Look, Mummy …’ and I started to cry. I said, ‘I can’t tell ye the noo but I’ll tell you the night when you take me home to my daddy!’
She said, ‘I’m in here looking for you – your daddy’s only along the shore a wee bit. We’ve got our camp just at the end of the town. I’m only in for to get some messages to make something for the bairns to eat. We’re frantic looking for you all night. We’re near off our heads looking for you!’
I said, ‘Mummy, take me back.’ So my mummy took me back.
My daddy said, ‘Where have you been?’
I said, ‘Daddy, listen, and I’ll tell you where I’ve been …’ and I told my daddy the story that I told you. And that is the God’s honest truth – that really happened. That was me when I was near burkit many many years ago!