Shoes Were For Sunday (17 page)

We always came home on a Saturday morning, to give us plenty of time to get in some food for the weekend, and to give my mother opportunity to get her dungarees ready for her work in the Railway wagon-shop on Monday morning.

Springburn, where I was born and brought up, depended for its existence on Railways and their equipment. We children were proud to think that our mothers and fathers had helped to build the wonderful engines we watched roaring away under the bridges to far-away London, to Sheffield and to Aberdeen. There were other places too, places which were only names to us as we chanted the splendid titles of the engines and took note of their numbers in our little notebooks.

Widows deemed it the greatest good fortune to get a job as a carriage cleaner, and they devoted to the cleaning of the trains the same personal attention and thoroughness they showed in keeping their own spotless homes clean. They would stand back, affection in their eyes as they surveyed the sparkling train windows and well-brushed upholstery, and in their day there were no complaints of dirty trains.

As for the men, they never stopped discussing the finer points of engineering. It was their hobby as well as their bread and butter. They talked, breathed, ate and slept railways. My mother used to say scathingly that there were more engines built over the counter of the local pub than were ever built in the sheds, for they talked of nothing else.

The Calais, Cowlairs, Hyde Park – magic names which spelled pay-packets to the fathers and even the mothers of all my chums. The ‘horns’, as we called the hooters, took the place of alarm clocks in our community. We wakened to the ‘quarter to’ horn, we stole an extra eight minutes, clinging fast to sleep before the ‘seven minutes’ horn had us tumbling out on to the cold linoleum; and by the time the eight o’clock horn had gone, we had plunged gaspingly into the cold water from the tap and were vigorously rubbing our frozen cheeks to life with a rough towel.

My mother had already left by the ‘quarter to’ horn, and was on her way to Cowlairs, where she painted railway wagons. Hard, heavy work for a slight little creature like her, but she was glad to get it, with three of us to feed and house, plus Grannie, of course.

We loved her tales of the railway shops, of the pranks they played on the ‘gaffer’, of how she and her chum Lizzie would hide underneath the wagons until he had gone past, so that they could indulge their passion for tea from the Thermos, and French cakes when they could afford them, consumed in the firm’s time. There were no canteens in those days, and no ‘breaks’, and any nourishment was strictly unofficial. We shivered with fear as she told of near escapes, for we certainly thought discovery would have meant the sack – a dreaded word in the tenements.

She would describe in detail the vastness of the twelve-tonners and the sixteen-tonners, and the difference this
made to the arm-stretching and reaching, and therefore to the speed of the work if they were given too many sixteen-tonners in proportion to the smaller wagons. I used to go along to the gate to meet her on pay nights, when the air was filled with chattering and laughing, as she and her workmates tumbled out, glad of the comfort of the pay-packet safely tucked into the top pocket of their dungarees. On the way home, reckless with a week’s pay, we all went into Charlie’s, the Italian shop on the corner, and tucked into the delights of sugar or nougat wafers. Nobody worried about spoiling the appetite for the meal awaiting them at home. It was the end of the week, they only had Saturday morning’s work ahead of them, with maybe a dance on Saturday night and all day Sunday to relax. There was no hurry. They were all working. Life was good.

Sometimes my mother had to go on night-shift, and we grew used to seeing her come in at breakfast-time as we were getting ready for school. Her face and hands would be daubed with the paint she had been too tired to remove before she left the workshop, and her eyes closed with weariness as she sipped her tea.

Before taking this job in the paint-shop she had worked a machine at Hyde Park, where they made the big locomotives. She was very proud of her skill with the strong steel shapes, and sad when they had to sack all the women workers to make room for the men who needed the jobs. They made no fuss, the widows, at being ousted in this way. They accepted the fact that in
normal conditions man was the bread-winner, and quietly looked elsewhere for work.

It was a tremendous excitement for us children when one of the big locomotives was ready for its journey through our streets to the docks, there to be shipped to China, or India, or some similar far-off land which knew, of course, that we made the best locomotives in the world. The huge iron gates of the works would swing open, and with the sure telepathy of children for knowing what was happening, we would be there clustered on the pavement, watching with bright-eyed interest and admiration as the gigantic locomotive was eased with deceptive skill on to its waiting trailer. It was a splendid thing of shining steel, beautiful in shape, and full of strength. The men who had fashioned her would spit casually to hide their pride in their workmanship, and the unemployed who joined us on the pavements would straighten their shoulders, for they believed and knew that they too were part of this great engineering tradition of Glasgow and of Scotland.

Because of its weight and size, it had to travel very slowly over the cobbles, vibrating the dishes on our shelves, and we whooped and cheered every inch of the way, only turning back when we were frighteningly far from our own familiar streets.

At lunch-time the horns were the signal for our streets to be filled with the crunch of hundreds upon hundreds of tramping feet as the railway workers hurried home for their dinner. No canteen meals for them.
They all worked within walking distance of a hot meal, and we ducked among them on our way home from school, avoiding many a half-hearted cuff on the ear as we nearly tripped them up. Wives had to have everything ready on time, and could tell to a second when their men would be turning in at the close, and mounting the stairs. Nobody used buses or trams, so there was no confusion over time-tables. Everybody walked, and dictated his own turn of speed.

After lunch, they didn’t go in through the big gates until the final horn summoned them. It was their habit to squat down on their haunches along the walls flanking the works, smoking a final cigarette, studying their newspapers, or just enjoying a joke with each other, making the most of their last few minutes of leisure before the horn drew them to their feet and back to their machines.

They had skill in their hands, and the pride of the craftsman in their eyes, and my mother agreed with them when they declared that each steam loco had a personality of its own. Anyone who ever saw them taking the road out of our big works would know that. Each engine bearing its proud name, its boilers all ready to send sparks and smoke like a miniature volcano into the night, once its willing acolytes were in attendance. And we children felt a great sense of pride in these giants, for hadn’t our mothers and fathers helped to create them?

The horns didn’t sound on Sundays, and on that day
we had to learn to look at the clock again. My mother had a long lie on Sunday mornings, for it was the one day of the week she hadn’t to be up early for work. Grannie put on her white apron and got out the big bowl, and baked the most mouth-watering scones and pancakes in case anybody dropped in for tea. And we children played in bed till the baking was finished, and then fought and scrambled to get into the zinc bath in front of the fire, and enjoy splashing in hot soapy water. We took it in turns to be bathed, and I was usually first, and my hair was washed too, and my brothers would lather it with soap until they could pull my front curls into a stiff point, like a rhinoceros horn, and I’d pretend to stab them as they drew a foot through the turbulent waters. Then I’d be whisked out, and more hot water was added for my brothers, from the kettles Grannie kept filled on top of the range. At the end of all this, the bath was rinsed and dried and put away for another week. In winter we dried our hair before the glowing fire in the range, but in summer we were sent down to the back court to let the sun adorn us with shining caps of curls. And afterwards, everything revolved round the church. What an enormous place this took in our lives.

As a four-year-old, I was trotted solemnly off to the morning service by the neighbours’ older children, my penny or ha’penny clutched tightly in my hand. How important I felt as I dropped the coin into the plate when it came round, proud to be copying the actions
of the big girls. I would gaze at the lofty ceiling, which I was sure reached right to heaven itself, and then turn my fascinated stare to the stained glass windows, almost drowning in their rich jewel-like colours. The minister’s voice rose and fell, but I heard nothing of the message. The atmosphere of church was soothing and mysterious, and I loved every minute of it.

Later, I went to Sunday School with my brothers, and this was a much more light-hearted affair. Each class occupied a portion of a pew, with the teacher perched on the desk facing us, and thrilling us with stories from the Bible. We had little coloured texts to memorize for each week, and we studied the catechism and the creed. I was very worried about having to say ‘I believe in the Holy Catholic Church’. How could I believe in this, when I was a Protestant and a Presbyterian at that? I felt this was betrayal of the most terrifying order, and could never get a truly satisfying explanation which my conscience would accept.

The flowing language of the Bible stirred me, and it was no trouble to memorize whole passages. Indeed at one time I actually committed to memory the entire book of Luke in preparation for a special examination. It was like learning a play, and the answers fell into place so aptly I walked off with the prize, to Grannie’s delight. She was sure I was going to be a minister, and felt this was a splendid antidote to my passion for play-acting, which could come to no good.

Later still, I was old enough to join the Bible Class,
and at the same time I plunged into the activities of the Girl Guides, while my brothers were by this time in the Boys’ Brigade. Getting the uniforms presented a bit of a problem, with our limited budget, but we made toffee apples and sold them to raise cash, and we found older boys and girls who were only too pleased to let us have their outgrown uniforms at bargain prices.

These uniforms were cleaned and polished to perfection for Church Parades, when the eyes of the entire congregation were on us as we formed into fours and then twos and marched down the centre aisle to fill almost the whole of the downstairs pews. There was no question of mothers or grannies helping us. It was all part of the discipline and the fun to wash and iron our ties, press the uniforms and polish belts and shoes, and Grannie watched this activity with a vigilant eye, amused at our industry, but full of encouragement of this excellent training in looking after ourselves. ‘Aye, learn young, learn fair,’ she would say, ‘it’s a grand thing to be independent.’

We weren’t sure if Grannie and my mother would let us go with the Guides and the Boys’ Brigade to summer camp. There would be billy-cans to buy, and mugs, and sand-shoes, and about a pound needed for the ten days’ holiday, and the train fare. It seemed a fortune. ‘Well, if you can each save up the pound you can go,’ my mother at last announced. From that moment on we were in a whirl of excitement. We ran messages for neighbours, we gave special back-court concerts, we
organized jumble-sales, and we made and sold trays and trays of tablet to those better off than ourselves. This delicious Scottish confection was a great favourite. Firmer than fudge, but not hard like toffee, it melted in the mouth. The piles of pennies grew and were changed to shillings, then into ten-shilling notes, and at last we had a whole pound each. The boys were going to Ayr and we were going to Berwick. We didn’t need an alarm clock or a ‘horn’ to waken us on the morning of departure. We were up as soon as it was daylight. The sun was shining. We shivered with excitement. Grannie and my mother checked again and again that we had our pyjamas, a change of socks and underwear in our haversacks, and that our billy-cans and mugs were safely fastened to the outside strap. ‘Noo mind and behave yersels,’ they called after us as we clattered down the stairs, to meet with our companies outside the church. We were off. The officers had gone on ahead to see that the bell tents were erected, and we caught our breaths at the sight of those lofty tents spread over soft green grass, like a scene from Shakespeare’s Agincourt we thought. We ate in one big marquee, and how good everything tasted eaten under canvas and in the company of our chums. It was a complete novelty to us to eat in company like this, outside our own homes, and our eyes met over the half-cold food, pleased with the strangeness of it all.

I was somewhat taken aback to find we had to take turns in the cook-house, and this meant not only
cooking, but lighting the fire between an improvised fireplace of bricks. I trembled with fright at the responsibility of providing sustenance for all those hungry youngsters,
and
officers. I needn’t have worried. Grannie’s good teaching stood me in splendid stead, and once my cooking had been tasted, I was detailed to kitchen duties for the rest of the camping holiday. I didn’t really mind. I was flattered that they should like my catering so much. Mass approval was more than I had ever expected, and I put it down to the fact that they couldn’t all have grannies who were so expert as mine in giving us tasty and delicious food for next to nothing. And I had a few enviable privileges. All parcels sent down by more affluent mothers went straight to the kitchen. Oh the bliss of an unexpected pineapple tart sent down by a fond mamma and shared with me. This was a bonus to make the mouth water.

One of the surprising rules at this camp was that we must lie down on our sleeping mats and rest for an hour after lunch. This seemed to us quite hilarious. Big girls of twelve lying down during the day! We, who ran about from dawn till dusk at home, fitting in shopping, baby-minding, housework and a dozen other ploys between and after school, to need a rest on holiday! We couldn’t lie still for laughing the first day, much to the officers’ annoyance. But soon we grew quiet, and that lovely hour became something we looked forward to, and gave us a springboard for the rest of the day’s activities.