We were in Miss Calvert’s English class, working out the intricacies of verbs, pronouns and adjectives when the news of King George VI’s death was broken to us. A pale-faced, sad-looking young teacher was the bearer of this bad news.
Miss Calvert then addressed her motley lot with the dramatic announcement, a grave expression on her face. ‘King George VI, after a long illness, has died. Long live the Queen.’
A sea of faces solemnly gazed back at her and I remember glancing around the group of girls who sat beside me in class 2AMC, wondering what this momentous news meant to them. No doubt they were thinking the same. To be honest, it meant little to me. My life was spent in getting through each day and I had no thought for people who had immense wealth. While it was a sad day for the country, no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t identify with the remote and now deceased royal figurehead.
It was a well-known fact that the late King had undergone a major lung operation and that he had looked increasingly frail. On our last visit to the Odeon Cinema, Mum and I had watched the Pathé News and there had been an item with the King saying goodbye to his daughter and son-in-law as they left London Airport for Kenya on a visit to the Commonwealth. The King stood with uncovered head in the cold drizzle of a February day, and Mum had remarked, quite prophetically as it turned out, ‘Eh don’t think the King looks awfy well. In fact he’s a poor soul.’
Miss Calvert’s voice brought me back from my reminiscences. She was informing us that we were now in a new Elizabethan Age and she voiced her hope that this second golden age would be as illustrious as the first, which had been a truly historic age producing such notable figures as Shakespeare, Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh. We were now two years into a so-called ‘brave new world’ and now that the country had a new young Queen then surely things had to get better.
I was now into my second year at Rockwell Secondary School, a large, attractive, red stone building in Lawton Road. It was so unlike the homely atmosphere of Rosebank Primary. It housed hundreds of pupils in its airy classrooms with their large windows that let in lots of sunlight. The curriculum was also very different from the primary school, the day being divided up into a series of periods, each one teaching a different subject. It was a constant round of shifting rooms as the corridors echoed to the sounds of clattering feet and ringing bells.
It was strange at first but as time wore on I got used to the routine and often longed for the bell to ring, to sound the end of a particularly hard or boring subject. This would include arithmetic or shorthand, a form of writing to my mind that smacked of hieroglyphics. The variety of subjects was quite overpowering at times, ranging from science and the mysteries of the Bunsen burner to typing blindfold to the accompaniment of a Victor Sylvester record. Or we could listen to garbled chattering of a French family on the radio or sing camp songs in the music room. Oh yes, it was all go.
One subject I really loathed with intensity was physical education, especially if it took place out in the playground with us running around in our navy-blue knickers playing netball in full view of leering, grinning pubescent boys. They must have sharpened their pencils down to the bare lead, judging by the time they spent hanging around the sharpener that always seemed to be on the windowsill.
Perhaps if I had owned a pair of chic, designer knickers then I might have felt differently but during the entire three years I spent at the school, half my time was spent making up a whole host of notes with a multitude of excuses. Some worked and others didn’t. I had no qualms about this ploy because, in my opinion, whoever devised such a costume for an outdoor activity for adolescent girls was either a fool or a sadist.
In spite of this one bête noire, I enjoyed most of the classes, as did my friend Sheila. We had hit it off right from day one, perhaps because we were alike, not in looks but in circumstances. Sheila lived with her granny and auntie and although she was slightly better off than me, it wasn’t to the same degree as the rest of our classmates. Affluence was beginning to creep around the edges of some people’s lives and this was evident with a lot of my contemporaries who would appear at the school with crisp, new clothes, nice shoes and smart leather schoolbags.
Sheila played the violin and if physical education was my pet hate then playing her violin at Friday assembly was hers. The headmaster had decreed that anyone with a modicum of musical talent was to be encouraged and sent to stand on the stage in a mini-orchestra before the morning prayers and hymn. In spite of all the intervening years, I can still see Sheila standing almost on the edge of the stage, dressed in her jumper and skirt and white ankle socks, looking awkward and ill at ease as if she hated every minute of these recitals. She freely admitted the truth of this at the end of most performances.
If she is still playing her violin, I hope she enjoys it better now.
One thrilling bit of news was the forthcoming coronation of the new queen. The newspapers were full of the coming plans but some Scottish insurgents were targeting pillar boxes with the new E II R logo on them. These purists were at loggerheads with the authorities, claiming that the Scottish postboxes should be emblazoned with E I R because, as they pointed out, the first Elizabeth had been Queen of England and not Scotland.
As it was, in my small corner, most of the historic events went almost unnoticed due to an accident Mum had at work. She was enjoying her job at the dairy and had made new friends with some of the women. It was very different from the mill. Instead of a dry, dusty atmosphere filled with a million particles of jute dust, the bottle-washing department was warm and steamy with an ever-present moist air. Instead of the chattering clatter of hundreds of looms, the dairy echoed to the constant racket of thousands of milk bottles as they marched relentlessly down the conveyor belt towards the huge milk machines.
It was a rogue milk bottle, jammed in the belt, that caused the accident. When Mum tried to remove it, the top shattered and the jagged edges sliced deeply into the palm of her hand, making a large gash at the base of her thumb. The first we heard about it was when she arrived back from the casualty department of the Royal Infirmary, accompanied by Nellie, who was to prove herself a very good friend to us over the following years. Mum’s hand was swathed in a mound of white bandages and supported by a stockingette sling. The wound had needed a few stitches and Mum, who hated the sight of blood, looked pale and ill.
Although we didn’t know it then, this unfortunate accident was to have effects lasting far longer than any of us could imagine. She was signed off work and we were now back to keeping the house on the paltry sickness benefit. Initially, the wound healed up quickly although the scar had a deep red, puckered appearance. It wasn’t until a trip to the hospital clinic as a routine check-up that the doctor confirmed what Mum had known right from the start. Her thumb was now totally useless and she was incapable of grasping anything in that hand.
She was to be admitted to hospital while the surgeon tried to repair the damaged tendons and nerves. Auntie Nora would have looked after us but Mum thought, because I was almost fourteen, I was capable of looking after George and myself with some help from Mrs Miller. It would only be a few days. At least, that was the plan but it turned out to be a nightmare. The few days in hospital stretched out to a fortnight and then another two weeks as the surgeon tried to repair the damaged hand. He probed several timed for the tendon but the jagged glass had severed it completely and, being like a strong elastic band, it had retracted, never to be found again.
Mum was in a dilemma. Firstly there were her two children, gamely trying to keep going, and secondly there were her cigarettes. She was almost on the point of despair over the never-ending financial situation at home and the non-existent chance of having a fly puff. The Sister on the ward was very strict, not only to the nurses but also to the patients. She was also dead against the horrible habit of smoking and would regularly inspect the toilets. Heaven help the culprit if she detected even the slightest whiff of tobacco.
On visiting days, George and I would trudge up endless stairs and along the antiseptic passages to the crisply starched ward where Mum lay under the unwrinkled bedcover, smokeless and totally fed up. Once a week I took the green sickness cheque for her to sign and received a list of chores and bills to be paid. At the start of every visit I would silently pray that she would be discharged but it didn’t materialise.
Then, a week or so later, she got the bombshell. I could see from her face when I entered the ward that something was amiss. I thought it was something medical and was almost afraid to approach the bed but it turned out to be another financial headache, that old bugbear. Before I had time to sit down on the hard, uncomfortable chair, she said, ‘Because Eh’ve been in hospital all this time, the hospital wants to deduct some money from the insurance to pay for my stay here.’
I was appalled at this statement because the sickness benefit money wasn’t covering everything and some bills were being left unpaid.
Her face was red and she looked distressed. A young nurse arrived and pushed a thermometer under Mum’s tongue. ‘Now, you’ll have to stop worrying as your temperature is high and Sister doesn’t want you to get an infection,’ she said, while looking at the slim glass tube in her hand.
Mum was still vexed. ‘Eh can’t help worrying, nurse. It’s this awfy letter Eh got from the insurance folk,’ she said. Then she explained all the sorry state of our finances. ‘And the worst thing is there’s Mrs What’s-her-name in the next ward. Her man is well off but, because she doesn’t work, the hospital is no taking a penny off her. It’s no fair.’ Mum, who was rarely a complaining kind of person, was now in full flow over the financial injustices of the insurance world and the National Health Board in particular.
The young nurse was very sympathetic. ‘I would see the almoner about this, if I were you, especially as it’s causing hardship.’
I almost told her this was the understatement of the year. It was bad enough living on the breadline but if this sum was deducted every week then we would be in dire poverty. After the nurse left, Mum decided to bypass the almoner, making up her mind to go straight to the horse’s mouth, so to speak, namely the National Insurance Office on the junction of Tay Street and the Overgate.
To be more precise, I was to go, post-haste after school the following day. My heart sank at this request. I hated visiting this building which had been erected at the conception of the NHS in 1948–49. This single-storey brick-built building was always overflowing with people, no matter what time of day you went there.
The waiting room chairs lay in pristine rows and faced the various desks of the clerks. Sometimes, if you were lucky, all the desks would be manned and the waiting motley band of sick, newly well, infirm or just downright work-shy would be dealt with quickly. A multitude of human problems and frailties would all be neatly documented on duplicate or triplicate forms to be later filed away in the far blue yonder of a back room, probably in some pigeon-holed cabinet. We were now truly a form-filling nation.
The following day I trudged up the street to the building and was dismayed to see most of the desks unmanned. I settled down for a prolonged stay. Sitting beside me was a family with a husband who clearly suffered from a debilitating illness. He weighed about seven stone and had a thin, drawn, yellow-tinged face with a slender wrinkled neck. His wife, on the other hand, looked a picture of health with red glowing cheeks and contrasted sharply with the emaciated, shrivelled-up man at her side. Two small children sat quietly beside them and they looked like miniature versions of the woman, which must have been a blessing.
The weary-eyed woman at the desk called out sharply, ‘Next please!’ and I went forward, prepared to do battle over the letter in my hand. Mum had said I was to be adamant that we couldn’t possibly live on a reduced amount. But the clerk was merely there to take down all the details and it wasn’t her job to reach any decision on anyone’s benefit. At least that was what I was told.
I wasn’t looking forward to relaying this news to Mum on the next visiting day but she accepted it better than I anticipated. This was because she had been told she could go home in a couple of days. As it was, she got home the following afternoon, down in the dumps because her hand was virtually useless and there was nothing that could be done surgically for it. But she was glad to be home where she could sit with her favourite detective novels and a cigarette.
Fortunately, we never heard another word about hospital charges. Maybe the form disappeared between pigeonholes or whatever receptacle it had been destined for, preferably the waste-paper bin. Nellie came round with some good news. The foreman at the dairy had been pushing for Mum to get her wages every week. As he said, the accident had happened at work so now she would be paid until able to return to work.
Nellie also brought two tickets for the first house at the Palace Theatre for the following Saturday. ‘Eh thought we could have a night out but just if you feel up to it,’ she said.
Mum, who loved the variety theatre and the pictures, was thrilled. Sometimes both of us would go to the Palace Theatre for a treat but the last time had been years ago.
The theatre was at the end of a lane that ran down beside the imposing facade of the Queen’s Hotel. How well I remember the dancing chorus girls all dressed in skimpy costumes and black fishnet tights that sometimes had little holes in them, with small pimples of pink flesh poking through. Sometimes, if the theatre was a bit cold, the girls’ arms had a goose-pimpled effect that even the orange stage make-up couldn’t conceal. Oh yes, I loved the dancing act, as well as the singers and comedians.
Nellie was still explaining. ‘Eh’m no sure who’s on the bill, Molly. Eh’ve heard Jack Milroy and his Braw, Braw Heilan Laddie is coming but that’s at the start of the New Year.’
‘It doesn’t matter who’s on, Nellie,’ said Mum. ‘You’ve made my day with your kindness and we’ll enjoy whatever is on the programme.’
Meanwhile, back at school, the tattie holidays were looming and I was looking forward to getting out of the classroom and also earning a bit of money. The children had two choices, or three if you counted the fact that you could remain at your lessons. You could go privately and make your own arrangements with a farmer or do what the majority of children plumped for, which was to go under the school’s own scheme. Rockwell School laid on a fleet of buses and we were all allocated a certain farm for the day or, occasionally, for the week. A hot midday meal was supplied in a nearby school or village hall and the pay was eleven shillings and threepence per day. This sum filled Mum with rapture because we could now catch up with our bills after our poverty-stricken times a month or so ago.
I was full of excitement on that first day as I stood beside Sheila in the school hall at an unearthly hour, six-thirty if I remember right. We then filed on to an old-looking bus that slowly drove out of the school playground and on to the far horizons, which was Meigle or Muirhead, but could have been on the moon as far as I was concerned. The morning was crisp with a hint of autumn sunshine peeping through the early mist.
We all tumbled out on to the tattie field and watched as a weather-beaten grieve with strips of sacking tied around his trouser legs marched briskly up the rows of withered, brown shaws, measuring and marking out each person’s bit. The tattie digger churned up the thick brown earth to reveal what looked like hundreds of white-skinned potatoes. It was certainly backbreaking work but not really any harder than Mr Sherrit’s milk round which I had had to give up when the regular boy appeared back at his job.
I enjoyed being out in this different world of fields, trees and quietness. It was such a change from the city. Because we were given our dinner at midday, all we had to carry was a bottle of lemonade and two rolls and butter for the morning and afternoon piece-break. This break was always greeted with relief as it allowed you to straighten up for a quarter of an hour. It was a glorious autumn that year and at the end of the three weeks I was almost as weather-beaten as the grieve on that very first day.
Mum commented on my newly rosy cheeks. ‘Maybe Eh should go out to the tatties as well and get braw red cheeks.’
We did get some rain but it always appeared at the end of the day or at the weekend. There was an unfortunate accident on one of the farms one day. A boy from another school was determined to get conkers and, unlike his pals who were content to throw sticks at the giant horse-chestnut trees that lined the edge of the field, he decided to climb on to the branches. The result of this foolhardy exploit was that the master daredevil fell and broke his arm.
This threw the farmer into a fury. ‘What have Eh told, you wee beggars? Never climb the trees!’
I didn’t recall him saying that but, apart from this one mishap, it was a very enjoyable experience. Not everyone lasted the course and by the time we returned to school, quite a few stragglers had given up and had returned to their studies.
As usual, Betty enjoyed hearing all the stories about the various farms and farm workers, but most of all she enjoyed listening to the slightly bawdy songs some of the boys used to bellow out on the homecoming bus. Unfortunately, Mum overheard me one evening and she was really annoyed by the words. They were quite innocent but I was warned not to sing such shocking songs again. That just made Betty and me laugh all the more.
A couple of days before Hogmanay, Betty announced that her mum said she could visit a couple of aunts who lived on the Hilltown. At first I didn’t believe that Mrs Miller would allow Betty out late at night, even to visit the two elderly women who lived next to Martin’s fishmonger shop, but it was true. She could go provided I went with her. Betty started to make secret plans to visit the City Square to see in the New Year and enjoy the celebrations and festivities. I was really worried about this plan because of the cold and the mass of people who regularly crowded into the square at midnight. But Betty was adamant.
I was torn between the desire to be in the throng of things and the worry about keeping Betty away from the place. Many years before, Grandad had always promised me he would take me to see the old year out but his death had put paid to these plans.
By ten-thirty we were ready to leave. Betty was always well wrapped up every time she went outside and she always wore a woollen balaclava with a scarf attached. On this particular night, we wore our best clothes. Mine weren’t that new but because Betty was dressed in a slightly more old-fashioned way than me, I reckoned we were equal. We were wearing black net gloves that would have been more suited to a French café than a murky Scottish Hogmanay but Mrs Miller had unearthed them during a spring clean and we had pounced on them like some long-lost treasure.
Perhaps it was our whispering manner but Mrs Miller was suspicious. ‘Now, Betty, you’ve just to go to your aunties’ and no further. Now remember.’
Betty nodded. We set off in high spirits, past all the brightly lit tenement windows towards the City Square. By the time we reached the Hilltown clock it was clear that she should slow down her walking pace, and we did. I was getting more worried by the minute. Her breathing was coming in gasps but still she was adamant about getting to her destination. We were at the edge of Ann Street when we heard the bells and within a few minutes we were caught up in a throng of good-natured revellers who were streaming up the Hilltown. To my immense relief we had no option but to turn around and head uphill with this happy, singing band.
Betty’s aunties greeted us with undisguised relief. ‘We thought the pair of you had got lost!’ they cried.
We were handed a large glass of ginger wine which I didn’t really like but I had to sip it to be sociable, trying hard not to screw my face up. The parlour of their small flat was furnished in an opulent if somewhat prim manner that matched the two owners. The antimacassars on the three-piece suite were smooth against the uncut moquette fabric and it was easy to believe that a wrinkle never lingered on the crisp linen. Holding them in place were small safety pins discreetly fastened at the back of the chairs.
The aunties raised their glasses of ginger wine. ‘A happy New Year to everyone and let’s hope we all have health, wealth and prosperity,’ was the toast, then, looking at me they observed. ‘And we’ve got a dark-headed first-foot, which will be lucky for us.’
I was surprised. I had never been a first-foot before and I wouldn’t have bet half a crown on being a lucky one. Ironically, as it turned out, I wasn’t.
During the first few weeks of January, the elderly ladies’ wireless set blew two of its valves and I was told in no uncertain terms not to be a first-foot ever again. And, apart from one other time when I was another unlucky first-foot, I make sure I keep well away from doorsteps at midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Meanwhile, Betty gave me a big wink. ‘We’ll make the City Square next year!’