One outing that had become a weekly feature during Dad’s short stay was a Sunday visit to his mother, who lived in Isles Lane, a cul-de-sac that branched off the Hawkhill and lay a few yards from Cathie’s pend. I couldn’t recall ever going to see my paternal grandmother before Dad’s sudden reappearance and it all became clear when I realised there had been some family feud between Mum and the Macdonalds.
To give Mum her due, she never said a bad word about them and whatever was the cause of the feud, no one in our house ever knew. In fact, Mum encouraged us to go and visit every Sunday.
‘When your Dad comes back again he’ll no be chuffed if he finds out you’ve no been going to see your granny and Auntie Evelyn.’
So it came to pass that every Sunday we were sent off to catch the Blackness tram, our faces scrubbed and our shoes polished. We raced down the Hilltown with our seg-tipped shoes clattering and clacking on the pavement like a pair of demented tap dancers before finally reaching the tram stop by the Wellgate steps. When the tram arrived with its wheezing, shuddering sighs there was always a race to climb the metal spiral stair to the upper deck, a manoeuvre that caused a great deal of shoving and pushing which the conductor wouldn’t tolerate.
He approached us as we sat down, his small moustache bristling and his steel-rimmed specs quivering on the edge of his nose. His leather shoulder satchel slapped against his side, making the change jump and jingle inside. ‘Right then, you two! If you don’t behave yourselves Eh’ll put you off and Eh mean it!’ he warned.
Duly chastised, we tried to sit quietly as the tram snaked its way through streets lined with stone tenements and grey, bleak jute mills. The mills now lay in silence with blank windows gazing out at the Sabbath landscape.
Although Granny’s house was situated a hundred or so yards from the noisy and bustling Hawkhill, the lane had a rural look with a few front gardens and some stunted trees. I loved visiting this house with its inside staircase with a toilet underneath it and lovely poky attic bedrooms with their frilly, floral bed valances and tiny skylight windows. There was a medium-sized living room with an enormous rosewood sideboard that stretched along one entire wall. In our opinion the crowning glory was the radiogram, an ornate cabinet that not only housed the wireless but also a gramophone. We had never seen anything like it in our lives and I always thought that Granny must be very rich to own something as grand as this. In fact, the whole house looked posh, especially when compared to our tiny two-roomed dwelling.
Granny was crippled with rheumatoid arthritis and she spent a great deal of her life in bed. Her daughter Evelyn looked after her, along with Evelyn’s husband Jack, who was a bus driver with Dundee Corporation. Auntie Evelyn had a tough job looking after the house and she seemed to spend most of her time in the tiny scullery that looked as if it had been a cupboard at one time. I’m sure she must have groaned out loud when she saw our silhouettes through the frosted-glass panel in the front door but I don’t recall her ever showing any annoyance at our arrival, which always seemed to coincide with the midday meal.
We sat at the table with Uncle Jack and wolfed down a big plate of mince and tatties but always making sure we still had room for pudding. After our meal we were taken through to see Granny who had a bedroom on the ground floor. This tiny room faced the lane and had one of the highest beds I had ever seen. It resembled a built-up dais with its crisply starched white sheets and huge pile of feather pillows. This room always had an antiseptic, hospital-like smell which was in sharp contrast to the rest of the house with its aromatic mixture of old wood and furniture polish.
Then there was Granny. In spite of her being confined to bed, I always thought she looked quite fierce and intimidating with her dark eyes, sharp nose and gruff-sounding voice that fired questions at us.
‘Well then, how are you getting on at the school? Are you good at your reading and your sums?’ she would bark at me, staring intently in case I was tempted to lie.
I never knew what to say. I was really good with my reading but definitely mediocre with my arithmetic. Still, I soon realised she didn’t want to hear about my failures and I simply nodded dumbly while envying George, who wasn’t subjected to the same third-degree interrogation.
As well as her keen interest in my school achievements, she was also fond of reminding us about our ancestry which, according to her, could be traced right back to the Macdonalds of Glencoe and the famous massacre.
‘In fact, you still have an auntie living in Glencoe,’ she would announce, leaning back on her pile of pillows.
George was always more interested in the massacre than the heritage. ‘What’s a massacre, Granny?’
‘That’s what happened to the Macdonald clan on the 13th February 1692 when the treacherous Campbells killed them after getting hospitality from them. In fact some Macdonalds still don’t have time for the Campbells even to this day.’
There was a niggling doubt in my childish brain. ‘Granny, if they all got killed how do we still have an auntie in Glencoe?’
She looked exasperated by this question but maybe she was only tired. ‘Only forty or so of the clan were killed and the rest managed to escape but it’s the treachery of the Campbells that rankled with everyone.’
Auntie Evelyn noticed she was getting tired so we were ushered out of this cold, clinical room. To our delight, the table in the living room was set for tea and a delicious aroma wafted out from the scullery. For the second time that day we both cleared our plates before it was time to say goodbye to the paternal side of the family and we set off to catch the homeward-bound tram.
I was barely inside our own door when I pounced on Mum. ‘Granny Macdonald was telling us that we come from Glencoe and we still have an auntie staying there. Is that true?’
Mum was usually busy when we arrived, either sewing on buttons or patching our well-worn clothes, and she gave me a look that implied our ancestors were the last thing on her mind. However, she nodded. ‘Well, if your granny says it’s a fact, then it’ll be true.’
Alice Kerr, one of Mum’s friends, arrived one evening and the conversation got round to Granny’s arthritic affliction. Mum was sympathetic. Granny may have fallen out with her but she didn’t like to think of the woman in so much pain. She confided in Alice. ‘Eh hear she suffers a lot of pain. She’s tried lots of different cures and Eh heard through the grapevine that she’s even had a course of bee stings tae help with her painful joints.’
To say I was agog at this news was an understatement. Then, on our next trip to Isles Lane I made the grave mistake of telling George. When we were ushered into the antiseptic-smelling room he couldn’t sit still. In fact, he almost fell off his chair in an effort to peer under the bed. Granny noticed this odd behaviour and she smiled warmly. It was obvious she had a soft spot for him. ‘What’s the matter, George? What are you looking for?’
I knew what was coming but, before I could administer a hard kick to his shins, he asked innocently, ‘Eh’m looking for your bees, Granny. Do you keep the hive under the bed?’
She looked in amazement at him for a few moments before deciding he was talking a load of gibberish, no doubt learned from me. ‘I’m sorry, George, but there’s no bees here,’ she said, smiling fondly at him.
The look of disappointment on his little face was laughable but when we were on our way home I started on him. ‘What did you do that for – asking about the bees? Didn’t Eh tell you it was a big secret?’
He was crestfallen but unrepentant. ‘Eh only wanted to see them. Eh thought there was a big beehive under her bed.’
‘Of course there’s no bees under her bed! Don’t be stupid,’ I said smugly, with all the panache of being three years older.
What I didn’t disclose was the fact that I harboured this same notion and thought there must be a beehive in the room with Granny, a huge swarm of buzzing bumblebees under the white valance. I never did discover the truth behind this story of a bizarre treatment. Perhaps I had misunderstood Mum but, of course, I couldn’t ask her because she was forever telling me off for listening to the grown-ups’ conversation. ‘Big Ears’ she called me. One thing was clear, however: to our continual and intense disappointment we never ever saw any bees or their hive.
But George and I soon had other things on our mind. One afternoon Auntie Evelyn gave us threepence between us and we made for the nearest shop to buy a bar of Highland toffee. She had also given us the sweetie coupon from her own ration book. On the homeward journey, I tried to break the hard toffee by giving it an almighty thump against the back of the seat. A large, steely-eyed woman was watching this ploy. She was dressed in her Sunday best, a suit of navy-blue serge that was too shiny from so many pressings and a large ugly hat of battleship-grey felt.
She glowered at us. ‘If you two don’t stop banging on that seat, Eh’ll get the conductor to put you off!’
Cowed by her intense glare, I tried to break the bar by bringing my fist down hard on the golden, brittle surface. That didn’t work, so we had to suck the toffee, pulling it from our mouths in a long strip. Mrs Blue Serge Suit glared and muttered something about the younger generation while we slunk back in our seats, trying hard not to laugh.
Having money on a Sunday was a novelty as we got our pocket money on a Saturday. Our ‘Saturday penny’, as Mum called it, was actually a threepenny bit each but she could recall the far-off days when she had received a paltry penny. ‘When Eh was your age, Eh was lucky to get a penny and sometimes it was just a maik Eh got, especially when your grandad was out of work. When Eh think though what Eh could buy with it! A lucky bag or two sherbet dips. Maybe six gobstoppers and a visit to the pictures in Tay Street.’
As I listened to this catalogue of goodies I often wished I had been young in those halcyon days instead of these shortage-ridden and expensive times.
George and I usually spent the best part of the week day-dreaming and eagerly planning our financial strategy of how best to spend our money. The list of pleasures tended to be a long one. I knew that some of my pals liked to stretch their pocket money over the entire week but we liked one glorious splurge, even when it meant going without for the rest of the week.
Our first port of call was usually Woolworths, where we liked to browse around the high, dark-varnished counters, looking at the prices and trying to get an assistant to climb down from her high, gossiping perch and serve us. I liked to listen to the various conversations under the pretence of looking at the goods.
On one particular day two shop girls were discussing a very important highlight. ‘It’ll no be long till your wedding, Connie,’ said one girl, sounding slightly envious, ‘It must be a braw feeling, getting married next Saturday.’
‘Oh it is,’ gushed the lucky bride-to-be, ‘but what a job Eh’ve had getting my frock, Eh can tell you. The whole family had to put all our clothing coupons together, which means Eh’ve got this awfy bonny figured taffeta frock. Then, as if Eh didn’t have enough on my plate, my fiancé announced he would be wearing his demob suit. Well, Eh soon knocked that out of his head so he’s managed to get rigged out at the Fifty Shilling Tailors in the Murraygate.’
She stopped briefly to look disdainfully at us before resuming her tale of impending marital joy. We had been toying with the idea of a purchase but, as Connie was still engrossed in her wedding chit-chat, we decided to leave our purchase for another time and treat this visit as an exercise in inside window shopping.
We headed along the High Street and passed The Hub newsagent. It must have ranked as the tiniest shop in Scotland, squashed as it was between H. Samuel’s jewellery store and the Maypole grocery shop. Our destination, however, was the City Arcade in Shore Terrace. We both adored this horseshoe-shaped cavern with its small shops that sold everything from hairnets to brightly patterned linoleum and fragrant bunches of flowers. There was always a magical mixture of smells and noises in the arcade and, as we made our way towards the amusements section, I liked to linger for a few moments at one window that to me was like an Aladdin’s cave, with its positive plethora of cheap ornaments and shiny trinkets.
The amusements corner was always full of children and their high-pitched voices sounded distorted as they echoed and amplified against the high vaulted ceiling. The owner stood in the middle of the throng, shuffling a pile of pennies in his huge fist and shouting.
‘Get yer change here! Does anybody want their money changed?’ he called, in an effort to drum up business.
We normally spent one penny each on the machines and we usually began with ‘What the Butler Saw’. Standing close to each other, we placed one eye each against the large viewfinder and watched as a clutch of old-fashioned, faded and sepia-toned postcards flicked quickly over, giving the impression of movement. For half a minute or less the characters moved clumsily in front of our eyes before the light went out. This machine was billed as risqué, but none of the children knew what this meant. We never thought of this entertainment as anything other than a series of postcards.
The ‘Gold Digger’ machine was next. This contained a huge claw that hovered temptingly over a selection of small toys and chocolate bars. No matter how carefully we worked the wheel, we were always disappointed. We would watch in growing excitement as the claw grabbed a bar of chocolate by the corner but by the time it reached the trapdoor the chocolate would have dropped back on to the bottom of the display and all we got for our penny was a handful of gravel.
One Saturday George tried the fruit machine instead and had beginner’s luck with a row of shiny cherries. Much to our astonishment three pennies landed with a heavy thud in the tray, and with this windfall we headed straight for another diversion – Ned Smith’s Temperance Bar. We hurried past the bus stances at Shore Terrace, pausing to watch with fascination as a double-decker bus skilfully dodged the small pug engine from the docks as it chugged up and down on its own rails. A group of swimmers on their way to the baths strolled through the Royal Arch with their rolled-up towels under their arms. These towels would contain their costumes and ‘shivery bites’, which were little snacks to be eaten after their swim.
Then it was on to Ned Smith’s. Long before the planners had discovered such things as prime sites, Ned’s shop was situated on the ideal spot on the steepest part of the Hilltown. It was a mecca for the weary and the thirsty. Many a trauchled housewife with a heavy message bag, a pram and maybe a couple of fractious toddlers found this a quiet haven where she could regain her breath and gather some strength for her final uphill journey. ‘Gie me three cream sodies and one sass, Ned! Eh can’t go another step with this load,’ she might sigh as she deposited her bag and children around her. ‘Ye ken something, Ned? Eh swear this hill is getting steeper or else Eh’m getting older.’
Ned, a tall, well-built man, was a bit of a character and always treated his customers with a genial smile and a pleasant manner. His shop was a square and spartan affair with little concession to luxury. Behind the counter were rows of wooden shelves that displayed two sizes of thickly ribbed glasses that were filled with an inch of various coloured liquids. I never discovered how these drinks were made but they tasted like nectar, especially after a hot tiring climb up the brae.
Sitting beside us that day was a small group of men in rolled-up shirtsleeves. They were scanning the newspaper and filling in their horsie lines, as they called their betting slips. There was always a great deal of amicable banter about the form of jockeys, horses and trainers and a lot of deliberation went into picking a possible winner.
‘Eh think Katie’s Lad has a good chance of winning the two-thirty race,’ said one man, confidently.
The choice was not shared by one of his companions. ‘Och, away you go! It runs like a cow with three legs.’
Sometimes two large and burly bobbies from the police box at the foot of the Hilltown would appear for some refreshments and on these occasions the betting lines would be made to disappear with the expertise one would expect from a world-class magician. In fact, these scraps of paper vanished so quickly that I often wondered if the men had swallowed them. Also doing a disappearing act on these occasions would be Jeemie, the bookie’s runner, who had a thin, pinchedlooking face and a furtive manner.
After leaving Ned’s shop we usually met up with George’s pal, Alex. Because he was normally financially better off than us we would accompany him to the small shop in Ann Street that sold penny Vantas. These were bottles of sugary water that were almost totally tasteless and had to be drunk in the shop.
As we took it in turns to have a swig, the owner kept a beady eye on his precious bottle. ‘Will you lot hurry up and finish or are you going tae take the entire day tae drink it?’
As soon as the last dregs were drained, he took the bottle through to the back shop where it would be refilled, no doubt after a cursory wash under a cold tap. No sterilisation in those days.
Our last visit on our spending spree was to the whelk stall. This was merely an old pram or cart with a fish creel perched on top. There were two such stalls near us – one outside the Windmill Bar and the other at the foot of the Hilltown. We always gave our custom to the former.
‘Three penny bags of whelks please,’ I asked while trying to extricate the pennies from the grubby, bunched-up fists of the two boys.
The fishwife deftly scooped a handful of shells into three small pokes and painstakingly pulled three pins from a long paper strip which she carried in the voluminous pocket of her apron. ‘Do you want any dulse?’ she asked. Dulse was long strips of khaki-coloured cooked seaweed which hung limply from her creel. They looked awful, like pieces of washed-out rubber, but they were supposed to be very nutritious.
I gazed at the dollops of dulse, as if considering a purchase, then said, ‘No thanks. Just the whelks.’
Alex’s house was situated up the narrow opening between the Plaza Cinema and Campbell’s drapery shop and it was overlooked by the high brick wall of the cinema. We carried our whelks and sat on his doorstep to eat them. On warm days the door of the projection room was kept open and the soundtrack from the latest film drifted down to us. I always thought it a special pleasure to eat my whelks in the prestigious company of Bogart, Bergman and other elite film stars. With the whelks now a happy memory of empty shells we stood up to go. The dramatic strains of Errol Flynn fighting a one-man battle against an army of nasty villains boomed downwards and followed us to the edge of our street as we ran home for our tea.
As Christmas approached, Auntie Evelyn asked us to come to the house straight from school to pick up our presents. Afterwards we ran down to the mill to wait for Mum. Snow began to fall as we waited patiently outside the mill gate, clutching our presents, mysterious wrapped parcels in bright holly-patterned paper with a ‘Don’t open until 25th December’ sticker on the front.
Out of all the depressing streets that surrounded most jute mills, the lane that led to Little Eddy’s was by far the most dismally disheartening. The slime-covered road was witness to the fact that this corner was always without the warmth of the sun and on this snowy winter evening it was miserable. Sometimes, if we were lucky, the lodge-keeper would take pity on us and ask us into his tiny office to keep warm. He had the same elderly look as Grandad and he was just as kind. The lodge always had a large fire burning in the grate. Small cinders sometimes spilled on to the tinplate fender where they lay smoking like miniature Vesuviuses. The kettle always seemed to be boiling on the small gas ring and the old man would hobble across with a bashed and ancient teapot to make the tea. This was poured into enamel mugs which were white with a blue rim and, by a small coincidence, looked exactly the same as Grandad’s ones.
On this particular night, the mill’s siren sounded loudly, casting its eerie wail into the winter air. The large gates opened to disgorge an army of mill workers, most of whom were women. They wore coats over dusty, floral pinnies and the cotton turbans on their heads made a splash of colour under the street lamps. As they all made their way through the narrow street these bobbing heads formed an undulating, technicolored sea of humanity.
Because of the snowstorm Mum decided to get the tram home and we walked to the Westport. The tram was already quite full when we scrambled aboard and the conductor had to move niftily in and out to collect his fares. ‘Any more fares?’ he called, his voice rising over the hum of gossip.
The air was filled with the aroma of wet woollens and damp varnished wood as well as the sweet, sickly smell of jute. We sat with our parcels on our laps while the women complained about the terrible weather. Now and then a voice rose over the general babble.
‘Eh just told him if the tatties are no boiling by the time Eh get home then he’ll get holy hell.’ This came from a small, meek fragile-looking woman.
A ripple of agreement went round the car, and another woman added her lament. ‘You can’t send our Lizzie out for a simple message. The other night Eh sent her for five pie suppers and a pudding supper for the bairn and what does she bring back? Five pudding suppers and nothing for the bairn! Eh had to share mine with her.’
Of course these were the days when the words diet, calorie or cholesterol were unheard of, and no one gave a thought to the high salt content of the meals. Still, I expect the bairn enjoyed her pudding supper and for all we know might be still hale and hearty. I know I am.
While all this talk of gourmet meals went on I looked out of the window. Big fat wet snowflakes slapped against the glass as the storm gathered strength. Lights from small shops cast golden pools of brightness on to the snow-covered streets while the hissing and guttering street lamps tried vainly to illuminate this increasingly white world. George sat beside me. Chirping with Christmas excitement, we hugged our parcels close to our bodies, dying to know the contents but having to wait till the magic day.
Still, Grandad always said that good things come to people who wait.