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WITCHES AND DRAGONS
Posted on: September 11, 2008
- In: memoir | musings
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I seem to have lost my early years at school and only retain the bad memories – much what I have done with my grandmother The Dragon. I remember being excited at the thought of going to school and my brother being so impatient that he often disappeared from the house only to be found sitting in the janitor’s room drinking a little bottle of milk. I imagine the first time it happened the neighbourhood would have been out looking for him but after that the dragon just popped up to the school to drag him back home, or the janitor brought him.
My first teacher was Miss McIver, The Witch; she had a thin, nervous and seriously waspish manner that didn’t include smiling or any kind of kindness – I think she put a spell on me so that I can’t remember most of what she did. I was four and a half when I joined her class; she had thirty children around her, some of whom were still on the breast, according to a tale told by the dragon – she was standing at the railings to pass me some toast at play-time break when another woman popped her breast through the railing and suckled her five-year old (I was always the youngest in my class).
The only real memory I have of her is when I swapped pencils with the boy behind me; he had been given a red one and I a blue – I desperately wanted the red pencil and he wouldn’t swap me so I took it and he told the witch. She sent me to stand in the corner of a cold cloakroom all by myself, for what seemed like a very long time. I was distraught and frightened. I have no memory of the outcome of all this; whether the dragon came up to breathe fire on her or not, or if my mother berated her into sullen silence…but that takes up a year of my life, or more, and that’s all there is – The Witch.
Though, there is a vague memory that I came first in her class at the end of the year, second in the next and third in the third – after that it was downhill all the way!
CAN YOU HEAR ME MOTHER?
Posted on: September 1, 2008
- In: memoir | musings
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‘Help, help! Teddy, I’ve won the bingo!’ My mother would wake up the whole street two or three times a year. We’d get a quick glance at all the prizes and the handful of paper money waving through her laughter before we were pushed back into our little cupboard bed; it was folded away during the day so my brother and I had space to play.
There would be lamps, cutlery, tea-sets, clocks, ornaments, toys, chocolates and games for us to admire and squabble over in the morning. The cash was always £25, well it is in my memory – that was about a month’s wages for some people then. My mother was such an excitable woman; a bit like me now whenever/if-ever I win anything…you should see me at a roulette table!
When I compare my parents to anyone else’s, from that time, mine won on all counts, all sides – my friends always loved them. There were only two of us so money probably wasn’t as tight as it might’ve been, and the dragon looked after us while both parents worked. My friend Anne, who lived in the next close, had seven brothers and sisters so she’d never been to the seaside until we took her with us. I have an image of her mother’s washing line; it was full every single day. My mother used to accuse her of washing clean clothes. Anne was very clean: I sat in dirt every chance I got – I seemed to love it and was always covered in it. When we played at marbles I sat and she hunkered.
Only my mother was mad enough to feed all the children in the street; she made us chips for supper sometimes and served them up in a paper bag – so we asked her to make some more for all our friends. When we brought back blackberries and raspberries and demanded she make a pie, she did. Thinking back on all this now – she was pretty fabulous.
MARS
Posted on: August 29, 2008
- In: memoir | poetry
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It smelled of old grass
and Magnolia paint.
My brother and I would ease
our bodies in backwards
pulling the door shut
through coats hanging
on the inside, jangling
half-crowns and florins –
Fanny Hill lay on the top shelf.
Sometimes, there would be
pickles and cheese in Dad’s pocket
with crackers and wooden spatula.
We talked quietly on Mars
it was very dark
my brother was small and hushed.
I’d scoop out a fistful
of coins, squeazing tight
for silence, and spend them
into my dress
counting the clicks.
He would snake his fist in
for his share – I’d feel his eyes shine
and whisper a coin on to his palm.
Published in Verse Spring 1992
FRAGMENTS i MA MUTHER
Posted on: August 21, 2008
- In: memoir | poetry
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Sundays were a trial, whit wi straw hats
an elastic under yir chin, an orders
Don’t sit doon ootside; nae paddlin
in the burn; an straight hame; an make sure
the minister disney find oot
yir cousins ur cathlicks; don’t let them
cross thersells – tell them there’s nae
holy watter left. My God!
If yir Anty Mary wiz alive, she’d turn
in er grave – takin’ cathlicks
intae Sunday school.
Me an ma bruther an ma muther an the dug
crossin Victoria Bridge, an three lanes
a big rid buses comin o’er the rise
an ma muther dancing a panic in the middle
i the road, an me an ma bruther calmin er doon
leadin er tae safety afore the buses swept roon
ontae Clyde Street terminus.
Aye, the bus runs wur the best. Sometimes
we’d catch the shows up oan a field
oot by Bishopbriggs; we wur well-travelled weans
coz thur wuz oany two i us, when some people
wur still hivin loads a weans, but oor muther
didnay dae ‘IT’…well, she must’ve dun it twice!
She’d run us oan thae buses fur oors –
ah really liked er then.
Ah saw er tits wance; wan Christmas
when ah wiz peekin tae see whit we’d goat.
Big white baws. Ah niver said anything tae ma bruther
tae anybuddy. It wiz like a stranger wiz sittin
oan the side i the bed wi er hons in nylon stokins
some big wuman who hid nuthin tae dae wi me.
QUEENIE and FATHER TED
Posted on: August 13, 2008
My mother was a Mantle-machinist; that means she made the whole coat – she didn’t do piece-work…in fact she sneered at piece-work. Her skills gave her power; she worked to her own timetable and her boss let her away with murder, apparently. I vaguely remember the mention of a company called Silvers. (for security purposes I will give my parents new names). Mum can be Queenie and Dad shall be Father Ted – but he wasn’t Irish or priestly.
She made most of our clothes. One of my jobs was to rock the treadle for her sewing machine, though I don’t suppose I did it for more than a few minutes. I couldn’t wait to try on her creations, especially when the dresses had a beautifully long and wide sash that tied in a great bow in my back; there’s a red one in my memory that I never tired of twisting at the mirror to see. The first thing I did with a new dress was twirl to see how high the skirt went – I think I wanted to flash my knickers like Ellenor Powell in the tap-dancing video below; I adored skirts that fanned out around their waists but mine never quite did that. My mother kept my legs well-covered; when other kids were wearing clothes up their legs mine reached mid-calf! I knew I was different even then.
Queenie doesn’t appear much in my early childhood, probably because she was always in the background – she couldn’t have done anything too startling to get my attention or really star in my memoirs: my father was the star for opposite reasons; if I got to see him before bedtime that was a real treat – he worked long hours but I don’t know what he did then, after he left the Merchant Navy. When I was very young he worked on the Renfrew ferry. I was told a story about him taking me to work with him and telling me to sit quietly and don’t move – which I did, so I got to go several times. My brother only got to go once and he was barred because he wouldn’t stay still. That must be where I get my sea-legs from.
My brother was a holy terror and drove Queenie up the wall. We had a huge back garden with four poles to string washing across the green; after getting up and running after my brother a dozen times my mother tied him to one of the poles with a length of rope so he couldn’t escape out into the street; all she ever wanted was to rest in the sun with happy children around her, not bothering her or anyone else. I know that we were difficult.
OLD PICS OF MY MOTHER c 1946
Posted on: August 12, 2008
- she was probably in her early twenties hereyoung enough to have fun
PARKS & VERANDAS
Posted on: August 7, 2008
My mother spent her afternoons in the parks; every day, rain, hail or shine – only fog kept her in. Fog wasn’t good for the chest. She and her sisters met in various parks around the city and we cousins splashed, jumped and snow-ball fought to our hearts’ content; those of us too young for school, until we moved out to the great suburbs on the very edge of civilization and country.
Alexandra Park up Denistoun way; The Botanic Gardens in the West-end, with Kelvingrove Park; Glasgow Green and The People’s Palace on the South-side.
When we moved to Carnwadric there was the wonderful Rouken Glen Park with its waterfall and wooded paths; the lake had three islands, a motor launch and rowing boats – every trip there was like a full-blown holiday. We’d play crazy golf, swing, twirl on roundabouts, eat in the cafes, feed ducks and swans, fly on the see-saw, hide and seek in the woods, Pooh Stick in the river from the little wooden bridges – all this within walking distance of home, through the remains of the old internment camp.
My Aunty Jean had a veranda; now in my mind that was the most exotic thing in my life. And, they lived on the other side of the train tracks; the tracks had long been ripped up but the sleepers were still there. Arden was a much more modern and exciting place to live; oh, the adventures we had sliding down The Red Hill on a piece of cardboard or linoleum. I yearned for Arden, even the name was magnificent, and the fact that it had a ghost-train track and hills put it top of my list along with London and my father’s ferry boat.
Everything was outside in my early childhood; being inside was only necessary to prepare for going out, and sleep came and went so quickly that it seemed invisible. Fog, the most magic of all, called to me but my mother pulled me back, always.
BUBBLES IN TIME 