Tears for a Tinker (23 page)

Talking about credit cards, here’s a poem on the subject penned by Shirley:

Shirley was working in a chicken and egg factory named Eastwoods. Her then husband had a good job managing a department within the local paper mill. My Davie got a job working on a building site
(Glenrothes was rapidly expanding) and guess who held the fort. That’s right, me. I made certain Christine and Hughie, Shirley’s wee ones, got off to school on time, sandwiches were
prepared for the workers to their satisfaction, the house cleaned (it was a big one) and dinner cooked for all eight of us. Could life get any better? Nope!

24

BELLS AND GHOSTLY CHAINS

S
o why don’t we all take another trip down memory lane? To a time when Daddy was a laddie of fourteen years old.

Every year Daddy’s family trekked over the old drove road leading to Ballater, to spend the winter working on a large estate. Their allotted campsite was behind a high dry-stane dyke, with
a hardy line of firs and Caledonian pine to stop the wild wind, and of course the snow that came in with September’s end; not a sign of brown peat was seen until it was vacated in April. My
grand-dad looked after the garrons, those sturdy hill horses which carry the deer down the mountain. He was given this job because he had a Horseman’s Grip, in other words no one knew the
hill ponies better than him. He also provided beaters for shoots. This was when my father, his younger brother Wullie and two cousins came in handy. Granny made pot-scourers from heather roots to
sell around the area. So you can see how important this place was to my father’s family.

Most travelling folk had their favoured winter place, and it usually centred on an estate where work could be plentiful. Some however considered themselves to be sea folk and worked along the
coastlines, fixing creels and whelk-gathering, to name two typical jobs.

So there they were, heading towards the campsite, a natural hamlet snuggling between two spurs of rolling hills. Suddenly Granny noticed a spiral of smoke coming from the exact spot. When they
last spoke in the spring, the factor had promised them the site would be cleaned and ready for their arrival that autumn. So who had got there first?

‘Away, you and Wullie, run down and peek at whoever has lit a fire in oor campsite, Charlie,’ she said, adding, ‘I expect it’ll be the factor himself burning brushwood to
clean the place for us coming.’

Grand-dad had tarried further back to adjust some loose strapping under the belly of his own old horse. They had been forced to abandon a fine cart the previous day because of twisted wheels,
and all they possessed was either tied to the horse or back-packed. They were already two days late in arriving, and Grand-dad was worried his boys would be missed at the beating.

Daddy and Wullie removed their bundles and did as Granny asked, jumping and running through the coarse heather like two young deer. In no time they stood eyeing the campsite. There was indeed a
fire, a big one. Four untidily erected tents cluttered the spot that their tents should soon be occupying. Matted-haired bairns ran back and forth, tearing at slices of braxy ham like young wolves.
Two massive black pots filled with foul-smelling meat hung from iron chitties, cooking over the reekit fire. An elderly woman sat cross-legged, poking a blackened stick into the flames as she
puffed on a pipe. A fine example of long life was this lady: she made Daddy think of a banshee resting before puffing life into a parcel of broom and scooting toward the day-moon peeping through a
veil of clouds.

‘Hello, laddies, whit dae ye want?’ asked another toothless woman, with a face that seemed to have been moulded by a drunken goblin. Running her hand across her wet nose and dipping
a bent spoon into the meat-pot she asked if they were hungry.

‘Thank you mistress, but no; we was wondering why you stole big Wullie Riley’s site.’ Daddy pretended not be related to Wullie Riley, and asked if they knew of him?

‘Aye,’ growled a deep croaky voice from within one of the tents, a dark shadowy hole of green tarpaulin, ‘we ken the Rileys, don’t we?’

A chorus of roars and cackles, joined with coughs and splutters, answered my father.

‘Noo git tae hell awa frae here, unless ye have drink and baccy,’ ordered the croaky one.

‘Oh shit,’ exclaimed Wullie, ‘wait until Mammy finds oot the wild MacSpits have stolen oor winter grun! She’ll rip a pound o’ flesh aff faither’s back for
sure.’

‘Oh, Lord roast thon MacSpits,’ Granny screamed, when her breathless sons told her who’d stolen the jewel in the crown of campsites. ‘Yon bare-heided, rid-eyed yaps
o’ the Devil’s ain wild folk ken fine that we winter there. Not an inch o’ spare grun is there tae pitch another tent.’ She turned to scan the hillside. ‘You’d
better go and see whit yer Faither has tae say.’ She ranted on about the factor, and how it wasn’t like him to let the site to anyone else. Daddy and Wullie, along with cousins Matthew
and Thomas, ran back to tell him about the campsite being invaded and taken over by yookies (rats). Granny, when riled, had the devil of a tongue in her head, and rats was the mildest name she
could muster to describe the undesirables down on ‘her’ land.

Poor Grand-dad, his back was burdened with a wheen of heavy gear, and the only thing that had been keeping him going was the thought of building a fire sheltered by the stane dyke, and a hot cup
of sweet tea.

‘You get doon among thon hantle, big Wullie,’ she warned him, ‘and fling yon buggers aff my winter grun. Bash them intae pulp if ye have tae, but I want them run aff afore
nicht comes.’

Grand-dad shifted his bonnet and scratched his head, saying in answer to his wife’s call for arms against the MacSpits, ‘lassie, them craturs have every right tae settle where they
want. Who am I to order them anywhere?’

‘But I thought you and the factor had an agreement tae keep that place free fer us?’

‘Well, something must have happened. What bothers me mair than the grun is all the work we usually get frae the estate. You ken fine, without it bellies will be hard-filled.’

Granny fell silent as Grand-dad laid aside his pack and set off to find the factor.

Meanwhile, with night rearing shadows, it was decided to find a dip in the glen and set up camp. Granny warned the boys not to go down among the squatters in case they were fuelled with drink.
‘Whit Tam o’ Shanter saw was nothing tae yon witches.’

They laughed—not Granny, though, the dour scowl was on her because she’d a mother’s worry to contend with. Winter in those parts took old and young alike when it had the bite
of a hard frost, especially those that had no good food in their bellies.

‘Auntie, you sound like you have a grudge agin them?’ asked Matthew, amused by her temper. Such a wee creature, hardly five feet tall, but by the gods she had a rage in her towards
those folks.

‘I have nae grudge agin ony living soul, but thon hantle are soulless. Now away and fill the kettle at the burn, and make sure no tae fill it with heather seed, or else the grouse will go
as hungry as us if we fail tae get work on this estate.’

Boys will be boys, they say, and my father’s lot were no exception. It bothered them that these uncouth travellers, who had little respect for themselves, would have none for the ground
which had always been theirs. Daddy knew every tree and bush. Granny had left her drying rope tied from one tree to the other to be there for her return. No doubt the squatters would have used it
for securing their dirty tents. Wullie had more reason than the rest to feel aggrieved, because wee Florence, his beloved collie pup, was buried down there in the ground under those filthy
drunkards.

Yes, the more they thought about it, the more determined they became—they had to go! Be moved on, shifted. But how?

Grand-dad arrived at the factor’s house, much to the man’s surprise. ‘Riley, ma man,’ he exclaimed, ‘I was told you weren’t coming this
year.’

‘Aye, for sure, sir, what else would I do over the winter? Who told you such a lie anyway?’

‘Och, it was the MacSpits. They’re doing the hill ponies and the beating. Granted I’d rather have yourself, but we shook on it, and you know me, I’m not a man to go back
on my word. I let them stay on your spot.’

‘Well, fine I ken, sir, because yon wee wife o’ mine is daein loops at not getting herself intae the stane wall. What other kind o’ work have you? I’ve four sturdy
laddies can graft harder than any youngster if you’ll give them a chance.’

‘Sorry, Riley, but the only work I have is emptying and gutting the old shooting lodge. There’s no payment, but you’re welcome to any scrap metal you can shift.’

Grand-dad, with a heavy pair of shoulders on him, headed back with the news to Granny that other folks had stolen her site. Before he set off to meet the factor he was of the mind that the
MacSpits deserved to stay, but not now—not after discovering they had lied, the bisoms.

When Daddy and the other lads heard this they set off downhill to challenge their rotten, lying enemy. Only boys, the four of them, but boys when angered can take on the best of men.

Chests puffed out, they strode down, and soon the smoke from wet green sticks met them on the old ground. There might have been a blood-bath, had it not been that the travellers from hell were
all stone horned drunk. Drunk as cuddies, as my Granny was wont to say.

The boys lined up behind the dyke, eying the enemy, before deciding to warm themselves at a half-dead fire. A moor wind was picking up the reek and swirling it into their eyes. The sound of
snores filled the bitter cool air and mingled together like an orchestra of locusts. Daddy shrugged his shoulders at the futility of the MacSpits and decided all-out war was not the answer, at
least not while the ale had rendered them as helpless as starlings on a maggot-less tattie. No, some other tactics would have to be applied. Meanwhile they made a dart back to their own cold
make-do campsite. Thomas, who was a master storyteller, would entertain amidst the shadows and heather winds until sleepiness sent them all to bed.

It might be the best point here to add the names of my father’s other family members. His oldest sister was Jessie, Anna came next, then Lizzie; a lot of mouths to feed.

The giant structure of the shooting lodge designed to please Queen Victoria’s eye loomed above high trees. Turreted granite walls built to withstand eastern Grampian
winters were now considered useless and destined to be pulled down and rebuilt. Prince George and his spoilt brother Edward didn’t like the way the lodge was designed, so on a whim decided it
had to be changed. That’s what a ghillie had told my Grand-dad, but the truth wasn’t important. What was, however, was his task of gutting the place of anything that might make some
money to feed his family.

Granny, with her home ground firmly in other hands, set about tearing an old blanket into strips. Jock’s Road was a long trail through the mountains before descending to lower ground.
They’d settled one winter at the Blackwater, several miles north of Blairgowrie; maybe if they hurried and the snow kept to the heights they might just make it. The torn blankets would
provide the bairns with puttees to protect their ankles. Armies march for miles with cotton puttees wound around their exposed lower limbs; her breed would do it with puttees of wool.