Gift from the Gallowgate (3 page)

We never came across Wreay again in any of our travels over the years, although I recently found it in a large-scale map, but it remained in our memories as ‘Forkytail Hotel’. Ah,
happy days!

On that holiday, we saw quite a lot of London’s attractions – Madame Tussaud’s, where Auntie Gwen was sent into hysterics by a young boy swinging a hanging
body round in the Chamber of Horrors (the huge hook was through her stomach and blood was much in evidence . . . well, red paint) – the Tower, Nelson’s Column, and so on. We also found
time to go shopping in some of the big stores. I can remember Mum buying me a lovely straw sunhat in Selfridges in Oxford Street – I even had my photo taken wearing it but I lost it before we
even got home.

Uncle Jim and Gwen Schaper became engaged shortly after we’d been there, but their cosy, happy world was soon to be shattered. I don’t know the ins and outs of the
operation he had to remove his tonsils, but from various accounts of it, I’ve gathered that a swab was inadvertently left inside. All I do know for certain is that it infected one of his
lungs and by the time the trouble was diagnosed and that lung had been removed, the other lung was also badly affected. Both lungs, of course, could not be removed – there were no such
miracles as transplants then – and his condition was so critical that his parents were sent for. Gwen insisted on marrying him although the doctors held out no hope for him, and the marriage
ceremony was performed at his bedside.

He did sur vive, however, and was given enough compensation to buy a small grocery shop in Stoke Newington. But it was no real compensation. For the rest of his life he had a hole in his back
about two inches in diameter, from which a rubber tube protruded. This was so that the poison from his one remaining lung could be drained out every day. Repugnant as this task must have been to
her, Auntie Gwen carried it out manfully until he died, roughly forty years later. He had still not reached retirement age.

One incident comes to mind regarding Auntie Gwen. While her new husband was recuperating in hospital, she and her friend, Alice, came to Aberdeen by boat to see her in-laws (my Granny and
Granda). This would have been about 1930 or ’31, and their cabin cost them £1 each. I was not much more than eight, but that was when I discovered how little the English knew about the
Scots.

They were both pretty girls, dark and vivacious, but it was Alice who made their visit so memorable, stunning everybody as she came down the gangway, by saying, in a disappointed voice as she
looked around the people waiting on the quay, ‘Oh, I thought all Scotsmen wore kilts and had red hair.’

This at a time when very few Scotsmen could afford a kilt and a redheaded man was not altogether common. My Dad had red hair though, as had his father, as had I, but then I wasn’t a man.
Granda used to tell us we weren’t proper Forsyths if we didn’t have red hair, which upset those of my cousins who didn’t. Of those who did, only one actually had Forsyth as his
surname. The others were either daughters of the sons, or children of the daughters, who, of course, bore different surnames.

Back to Alice. Her other gaffe came on the Sunday night when Granny set out home-baked oatcakes and a huge lump of Crowdie cheese on the table for tea, plus, of course, scones, pancakes,
shortbread, strawberry and raspberry jam, all home-made. This was the usual Sunday tea, because dinner (lunch nowadays) had consisted of broth or some kind of soup, boiled beef, carrots and
tatties, and maybe a jelly or semolina pudding or tapioca. There was no need for another three-course meal, but the tea-table was also laden with food . . . always.

Alice helped herself to a quarter of oatcakes – a triangle six inches at least at its widest because Granny wasn’t into elegance – and bit into it without spreading it with
butter or having anything to drink. After swallowing what must have been a bone-dry mouthful, she exclaimed, ‘Oh, I know what this is. It’s porridge in the raw.’

I’ll draw the curtain there. If they had stayed for much longer, my poor Granda would have had apoplexy from trying to hold back his laughter.

Some years later, we visited the Paul family in Stoke Newington, in the house above the shop. Auntie Gwen had a wicked sense of humour and one morning, while the Italians in
the ice cream shop in the street behind were all talking at the same time and flinging their hands about, my Dad said, quite innocently, ‘I wonder what they’re saying to each
other?’

‘Would you like to say good morning to them?’ Auntie Gwen smiled, and proceeded to teach him a short phrase in Italian.

He was about to stick his head through the open window and repeat it, when Uncle Jim put his hand on his shoulder. ‘No, Bob, you’d better not. She’s taught you a string of
swear words.’

There was laughter all round, but to this day, that phrase still comes to my mind occasionally. I hope I never meet any Italians, otherwise I might feel like airing my linguistic ability and end
up with a broken nose.

On one of our holidays there, we went to Brooklands to the motorcycle racing, but got lost before we ever got out of London. Spotting a bobby on point duty at a junction, Dad
stopped and asked for directions – in his very best English. To his surprise and our amusement, the policeman answered in the Doric, the broad Aberdeenshire dialect. ‘Weel, weel,
laddie, you’re a lang wye fae hame.’

After a second, Dad joined in the laughter, and I was told to write down where the bobby was directing us.

The butcher’s shop closed early on Wednesdays, and in the summers we mostly visited Mum’s sister Nell at the various places where her farm-ser vant husband was
cottared. Like so many farm workers, he only worked at each farm for the obligatory six-month period before going to the feeing market in Aberdeen to sign up with another farmer. They moved around
a lot, mainly in Aberdeenshire, and I liked going to see them because there were plenty of cousins to play with, nine at the final count.

Eventually, however, they settled in Ellon, Auntie Nell’s husband taking up the life of a peddler in preference to the hard work on a farm. This was, perhaps, a good move for him, but not
for his wife and family, for they only saw him occasionally, at longer and longer intervals until his visits stopped altogether. He never supported his children from the time he abandoned them, and
Auntie Nell had a hard struggle to feed and clothe them, but she was a hardy woman, fit for anything.

On one occasion, the minister came to ask why she didn’t send her family to Sunday School and she answered him snappily, and completely honestly, by saying they didn’t have anything
decent to wear – a sentiment probably sprinkled with an oath or two. Maybe swearing was the only way she could cope with the worry of where the next meal was coming from, or new shoes for the
bairns, or clothes for school, and her colourful language didn’t seem to bother anybody – neighbours or friends alike came to her for advice in their troubles.

Our playground in Ellon was the north bank of the River Ythan – not a huge river by any means, but certainly deep and treacherous enough to carry off a child who fell in. No warnings were
displayed, and although Auntie Nell generally said, ‘Keep awa’ fae the edge, mind’, we didn’t heed her. We could look after ourselves.

If the ball went into the water when we were playing football or rounders, or whatever, and got wedged in the weeds, one of the older boys would shin up a tree, inch along a low branch until he
was over the water, and use a stick to try to fish it out. The rest of us watched with no idea of the danger involved, carrying on with the game as if nothing had happened when the ball was
retrieved. Sometimes, sad to say, the ball dislodged itself and was carried away altogether, which meant the end of the game . . . unless we could rope in somebody else who could provide one.
Looking back on the exploits we got up to then, I’m sure we must have had a guardian angel looking after us.

The only trouble we ever had came from people – men to be precise. Auntie Nell’s upstairs flat could only be reached by going through a close that also led to the back entrance to
the Buchan Hotel, and quite often, we were verbally accosted (no physical abuse, I can assure you) by one or more drunks. They could hardly stand, so we called them names back, safe in the
knowledge that they couldn’t chase us – Baldie, Fatty, Bandy, Baldy, Specky. My oldest cousin once tried Buggerlugs, but the cursing, fist-waving recipient wasn’t as drunk as he
looked, and we had to run for our lives. A whole crowd of us tore across the quadrangle, up the outside stairs and burst into the house, many more of us than actually belonged there. Auntie Nell
strode to her door and, looking over the top rail, she let rip with a mouthful of oaths of her own. She ended the exchange by shouting, ‘Awa’ an’ bile yer heid, ye drunken
bugger!’

Her four sons all grew to around six feet, her five daughters all married with no scandals attached to them beforehand, so all in all, and even taking her linguisitic failing into account, she
did a pretty good job of bringing them up.

Occasionally, we went to Peterhead on a Wednesday to visit a Mrs Lawrence, some sort of distant relative but I never found out exactly what the connection was – on my
Granny’s side, I think. Over ninety, she was bedridden, and it amazed me to watch her propped up on what looked like dozens of pillows, knitting socks, wearing a ‘busk’ round her
middle. This was a leather pad with holes in it where she stuck in her four knitting needles (wires, she called them) to keep them steady, or maybe because she hadn’t the strength to support
their weight, I don’t know, but by Jove, she could fairly click on. This is the house I describe in
The Three Kings
, although I couldn’t have been much more than eight or nine
when she died and I was writing about it sixty-five years later.

On winter Wednesdays, my father played football in the Shopkeepers’ League (none of them available for Saturday games). He was a very athletic man; a photograph shows him
to be in the Porthill Gymnastic Club Session 1912–13, and another in the Excelsior Football Club 1919–20. When he was not so engaged, however, he took his wife and small daughter to the
Cinema House, just along from where we lived in Rosemount Viaduct.

Mum often laughed about one particular incident but I can’t truthfully say that I remember it. It was during a silent film featuring ‘Baby Peggy’ (the Shirley Temple of her
day) who often watches her Daddy shaving. One day when nobody is looking, she goes to the bathroom, stands on a chair to reach the shelf, and lifts his cut-throat razor. At that point, apparently,
pre-school, I sprang to my feet and shouted, ‘No, Baby Peggy! No, don’t! You’ll cut yourself!’

I had watched my own father shaving, and he had often nicked his face with his open razor, so I knew how lethal it could be. Anyway, I think the usherette came and warned my parents to keep me
quiet, otherwise we’d have to leave. This was a threat I dared not flout, so I sat with my hands over my mouth for the rest of that adventure of my favourite film star.

There were no trips on Saturdays. The butcher’s shop remained open all day; didn’t close until nearly nine, sometimes. There were always women who left it until the
last moment to buy in their Sunday lunch – probably their men didn’t get paid until they finished work on Saturday afternoon and stayed in the pub until they reeled home fit only for
bed. The Gallowgate was a poor working class area, with a diversity of employment for the unskilled – in the shipyards, the railway and the quarries, delivering coal and other commodities by
cart. There were, too, some jobs in the comb works, glove factory, paper mills and Grandholm Mill, where they made Crombie cloth and tweed.

In the 1920s and ’30s, of course, even those who had served their time and were qualified tradesmen found themselves unemployed, having to sign on for money from the ‘Dole’
(‘the burroo’ in local terms) or the Labour Exchange to give it its proper title. For some, that was a disgrace, as, even more so, was applying to the parish for help. It was a time for
Soup Kitchens, and although I only know of the one in Loch Street, which was still going into the sixties, there may have been others.

The two universities – Marischal College and King’s College – were only for those whose parents could afford to keep them there, but for some of those fortunate enough to be
given that chance, there was no post open for them when they graduated, which is why so many left their home town and looked further afield – England, of course, and the Dominions.

But that is by the by. None of the Forsyths attended a university. Only the very rich attained that height. Clever boys from poorer homes stood no chance unless someone took an interest in them
– a teacher or minister, perhaps, or a father’s boss – and financed them to a certain extent.

The year before I started school, Dad rented a big wooden shed at the side of a lovely granite house outside Kintore. It wasn’t more than ten miles from Aberdeen, but it
was like we were in another land, another era. The house belonged to two elderly sisters, the Misses Taylor, who looked after their brother Joe. He had been gassed in the war, the Great War, that
is. World War II was in the far distant future.

Joe did all the dirty jobs about the place, cleaning out the hen runs, doing what had to be done to the dry privy, making sure the midden didn’t spill over, as well as growing loads of
vegetables – tatties, carrots, neeps, leeks, shallots, peas and broad beans. He also looked after the rambling strawberry plants, the raspberry canes, the gooseberry and blackcurrant bushes,
so that his sisters could make hundreds of jars of jam for the winter. He loved jam, did Joe, and was often to be seen with a jam sandwich, what we called a doorstep, the slices of bread were so
thick. There were no sliced loaves then. A loaf was bought, often still warm from the bakehouse, and wrapped in tissue paper to be carried home.

The sisters kept the front garden looking beautiful with all kinds of flowers – peonies, red hot pokers, rambler roses, pansies, hollyhocks, antirrhinums, nasturtiums – a mass of
strong colours, and honeysuckle round the glazed front door, so that the evening air held a lovely perfume, helped by the night-scented stock.