Jessie's Journey E-Book

Jess Smith

• Herausgeber: Birlinn
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 475

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

From the ages of 5 to 15, Jess Smith lived with her parents, sisters and a mongrel dog in an old, blue Bedford bus. They travelled the length and breadth of Scotland, and much of England too, stopping here and there until they were moved on by the local authorities or driven by their own instinctive need to travel. By campfires, under the unchanging stars they brewed up tea, telling stories and singing songs late into the night. "Jessie's Journey" describes what it was like to be one of the last of the traditional travelling folk. It is not an idyllic tale, but despite the threat of bigoted abuse and scattered schooling, humour and laughter run throughout a childhood teeming with unforgettable characters and incidents.

Leseprobe

JESSIE’S JOURNEY

JESS SMITH

was raised in a large family of Scottish travellers. She is married with three children and six grandchildren. As a traditional storyteller, she is in great demand for live performances throughout Scotland. This is the first book in her autobiographical trilogy, which continues with Tales from the Tent and concludes with Tears for a Tinker. She has also written a novel, Bruar’s Rest, and a collection of stories for young readers, Sookin’ Berries.

First published in 2002 by Mercat Press Ltd Reprinted 2002, 2003 (three times), 2004, 2005, 2006 New edition published 2008 by Birlinn Limited

Birlinn Limited West Newington House 10 Newington Road Edinburgh EH9 1QSwww.birlinn.co.uk

Copyright © Jess Smith 2002, 2008

The story ‘A Natural Love’ was first published in The Scots Magazine, September 2000.

The moral right of Jess Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978 1 84158 702 8

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PROLOGUE

1 I AM A SCOTTISH TRAVELLER

2 A VERY LONG DRIVE

3 MANCHESTER • SAVING JEANNIE

4 I CAN FLY!

5 JOEY’S BRAINWORK

6 MURDER IN CLOVER

7 THE HUNTRESS

8 OUR PRAYER

9 BUS-BOOT BED

10 THE MIXI RABBIT

11 LOCHGILPHEAD MONKEY

12 MOUDIE’S FATE

13 THE PIPER

14 GLENCOE

15 TINY

16 JAMIE’S REST

17 BALQUHIDDER VISIT

18 THE BABYSITTER

19 THE LIVING NIGHTMARE

20 NEEP HEID

21 A FALLEN MAN

22 A NATURAL LOVE

23 GUNFIGHT AT ‘OK, YER A’ DEED NOO!’

24 THE SHEPHERDESS AND HER WEE DUG

25 KIRKCALDY

26 ONE COLD NIGHT

27 ARRAN SUMMER

28 SCHOOL BULLIES

29 MAGGIE-ELLEN

30 ARMADALE MARY

31 THE BEST TABLET IN THE WORLD

32 SCOTIA’S BAIRN

GLOSSARY OF UNFAMILIAR WORDS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Jessie’s mother’s birth certificate

Four generations of the Power family

Granny Riley

Granny Power

Granny Riley and Auntie Maggie

Jessie’s father aged 15

A gathering of relatives at ‘The Berries’

Jessie’s mother and father in 1940

Jessie’s mother and Uncle Charlie

Jessie’s father

Jessie’s mother with her older sisters

The bus and the ‘wee Fordy van’

Jessie’s mother and father with three of her older sisters

Jessie, eight months old

Jessie’s mother and Uncle Wullie

Mona, Chrissy, Shirley and Janey

Jess in her school uniform

Jess with her mother, Jeannie

Jess with her father, Charlie

To the bus driver Charles Riley (Daddy), I dedicate this book.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my husband Dave for his love and constant support.

Also my precious children and grandchildren.

My beloved mother, Jeannie. Always with me.

Shirley, Dave and family for believing in me.

My dear friends Maimie, Sonja, Mona, Alison, Kay, Donald, Malcolm, Harry and the Writers Group.

Maurice Fleming and John Beaton, who set the word in motion.

Tom, Catherine and Seán.

And to those too numerous to mention—thank you all, from my heart.

PROLOGUE

The ways of my people, their language, culture and livelihoods, are with each passing moment vanishing off the face of the earth. I am not learned enough to give you a history of the travelling life in its entirety. Nor do I wish to burden you with the ‘ethnic cleansing’ story others have written so passionately. ‘But’ I hear you ask, ‘just what is a traveller?’

Well, my friend, in complete honesty, I do not know. Ask me further, ‘Where do you belong?’ I say to you, ‘Wherever the feather falls or the seed is blown.’

Without feathers, there is no nest, and without seeds, there are no flowers.

We are the storytellers. Wandering minstrels, respecters of the soil, lovers of family and friends. Once we were your heritage, now we blot your landscape. Soon we will be gone and you will have no culture. I will be a ghost of Scotland’s colourful past, but before I fade, let me tell you about my life on the road with my seven beautiful sisters, protective parents and the mongrel dog called Tiny.

I have stories to tell—sad, humorous, outrageous, aye, even unbelievable, but tell them I must. Why? Because with our leaving we take with us to the grave our greatest gift—‘the spoken word’.

The art of storytelling, with which so many travelling folks are gifted, seldom finds its way through the pen. I am grateful to my parents for giving me the ability to do this, and to the many hardy souls we met on the road, for without their taking time for tales I would find it impossible to write this book.

Every person born is a story; from womb to grave we live a tale. Parents tell stories of the time we were babies, then how we grew into teenagers, and so it goes on, a rich tapestry of life.

Although regarded by many as Scotland’s outcasts, travelling people are as true to her soil as the roots of the heather. I proudly cleave to these roots, and preserve her culture and traditions.

And through these pages I claim my rightful place as one of Scotia’s Bairns.

Come with me, reader, and share a traveller’s campfire. I promise we won’t steal your children or fleece your pocket. You might even get a wee bit closer to understanding us.

1

I AM A SCOTTISH TRAVELLER

I start my life story at the age of five, in the year of 1953, and I will finish it in the spring of 1963, when I was fifteen. The reason for such a short span, I hope, will become clear in the telling of my tale.

Both my parents were from travelling backgrounds. Charlie Riley, my father, was the eldest son of Wullie Riley and Margaret Burns, who had eleven of a family (nine survived to adulthood). Grandad’s mother’s name was O’Connor, and I believe she came from Ireland. Although they travelled extensively through the north and west of Scotland, they chose Perthshire as the favoured place to settle down. When all but four of their family had left them, they put down roots in Pitlochry, north of Moulin, in a bonny wee cottage called Lettoch Beag. All of the Riley clan (except Daddy) eventually integrated into the settled community and gave up the travelling life for good.

My mother was Jeannie Power; she was the daughter of Nicholas Power, whose people came from Kilkenny in Ireland’s south. Her mother was Margaret Macarthur from Kintyre. They had a large family of ten. Grandad’s mother’s surname was McManus.

Like my father’s family, they settled in the Bobbin mill at Pitlochry, eventually spreading throughout Perthshire, Fife, Angus, Argyll and England. They too went into the ‘scaldy’ (settled folks’) life, all except Jeannie, my wee Mammy.

Not many folks can say this, but I have all through my life found my relations to be honest decent people, rich in kindness to everybody, never judgmental and always a smile to the stranger. And fair enjoying o’ the ‘crack’. They will pop in and out of my tales as I go along.

My parents between them gave the world eight girls. The four eldest were born before the Second World War, the four youngest, after the War; Mona, Chrissie, Charlotte (Shirley), Janey, Jessie (me), Mary, Renie and Barbara (Babsy).

Our mother had a difficult childhood. Every day from birth until she married was on the road; horse, cart, a father seldom sober and too fond of his fists. Although proud of her roots, she had foreseen that the ways of the traveller were changing, and not, sadly to say, for the better. She told our Daddy many times that the summer was the time to go back on the road.

‘The lassies must have a decent education,’ she reminded him often. Therefore a house for the winter was paramount. He verbally agreed, but his heart was yearning for the open road with the old ways.

The family settled in a fine house in Aberdeen—it went on fire; then to a large spacious dwelling house in Aberfeldy—it was flooded. Daddy even bought a plot to build his own house at Finab, Pitlochry, but was refused planning permission.

‘Sorry, Jeannie, my bonny lamb,’ he finally told my mother, ‘but it looks awfy like us travelling folks are just what the label says—“born to the ways of the road”.’

People said it must have been the shell-shock he suffered during the War that unsettled him—rubbish! He was a ‘thoroughbred’, my father. Born to travel.

So after a brief spell living in an articulated wagon, Daddy purchased our new home—a 1948 Bedford bus! My bus was created in the same year as myself.

Mammy was far from happy at the thought of her proud lassies crammed like sardines in a bus. The older girls were horrified, and the wee ones were neither here nor there. Except me!

There was Baby Babsy newborn, two-year-old Renie, three-year-old Mary, then me. I was five years old, and even as I write I remember well my feelings of excitement at living in a BUS.

A forever holiday. I was going home, something way deep in my young soul knew; here was my destiny, the road ahead had already been made for me by generations of travelling folks. I was about to be reborn into the old ways.

To me, my Daddy was the inventor of do-it-yourself. No matter what—building, electrics, plumbing, you name it—he could do it. Cleverest pair of hands in the whole of Scotland, I kid you not. We were living temporarily in a converted wagon at Walkers field outside Pitlochry. It was September 1953, and Mammy had just that very month given birth to my youngest sister—Barbara, her eighth child, and all girls.

I remember that day so well, the day he drove off Finab road end and onto the field with the bus, he looked so small inside it. My first memory of the inside of the bus was neat rows of seats covered with Paisley-patterned material. I watched as my Dad unbolted every seat and piled them outside, leaving an empty shell. What fun I had jumping up and down on those springy benches with the flowery purple covers.

‘Mammy, it’s going to look terrible, living in that thing, Daddy’s lost his senses.’ My oldest sister Mona had been used to living in houses; she thought of the travelling life as a way of the past, and a touch below her! ‘And you can just tell him I’ll be biding with Granny Riley from now on.’ Our Mona, nineteen at the time, was as refined as gentry.

‘Give me over another nappy, this wind will have all the washing dry in no time,’ said Mammy, ignoring her daughter’s haughty remarks and reminding her at the same time that Granny had had her full share of teenagers in her life and needed a bit of peace.

Her turning to see me leaping high in the air on her future furniture brought a volley of curses.

‘Jessie, get you off those bloody seats, your father’s putting some of them back into the bus, and look at the state you’ve got them in with your guttery shoes! Now do something useful and play with your wee sisters.’

Mona stormed away in the huff, as I took Mary and Renie by the hands over to the bus door and said, ‘this is our new home, braw isn’t it?’ My two wee sisters looked at me in total bewilderment. What did a three- and two-years-old know about anything, I ask you?

The long seat at the back of the bus was left in place, with bolts and brackets added, allowing it to be converted into a double bed. They christened it ‘the master bed’, and it was the courie doon of my parents. Next a sideboard was placed at the bottom right-hand-side of the bus. This took all dishes, pots, pans and cutlery. Our bed was placed lengthways on the left, and like the big one it had brackets fitted so it could be doubled up during the day into seating. But if ill health like measles or mumps visited then the big bed was left down. Of course in such times it became quite a squeeze to get past us. The two seats at the front were left in place, along with the one for the clippy, and as Mammy said jokingly she was the equivalent of a bus conductor she bagged this one. It was really so she could be navigator for Daddy, but we knew fine it was the seat with the best view. My father had other plans for our dear Mum though, she would have to learn to drive herself, and I’ll tell you why later.

Luggage racks were left in place, and into these narrow shelves went all our worldly goods.

What amazed experts who saw the finished product was ‘how did he manage to change the fixed windows so that they wound down?’ He never said. Like I told you earlier, cleverest pair of hands in the land. He laboured the best part of a week to get the bus liveable—not just that, but pleasing for his fine lassies. Well he knew, by the long faces, they would take a damn lot of coaxing.

Most important of all to convince was Mammy. She had to feel comfy, clean and secure in her new home. So next day, leaving us wee ones in the care of the older lassies, he took her to the town of Pitlochry, where she chose curtain material and a good quality carpet.

What a right bonny bus it was when Mammy finished hanging up those bright blue gingham curtains with matching tiebacks. Lastly, the Paisley-patterned Axminster runner, almost identical in colour to the seat-covers, was laid neatly on the floor. ‘To keep your wee feet warm in winter, bairns,’ she said.

‘One thing left to do, Jeannie,’ said Daddy, ‘I’ll be back later.’ He waved cheerio as he set off that warm September morning in his old lorry, accompanied by his younger brother Wullie.

It was suppertime before he eventually came back, minus the lorry. In its place was a wee green Ford 10 van. I remember thinking it looked like a frog with a swelt head!

Our father opened the van’s back door and revealed, sitting like old Queen Victoria when she was right fat, a wee three-legged Reekie stove! ‘Why mention that?’ I hear you ask. Well, through the coming years I hope to share with you the warmth from its coal-stapped body. Winters in the bus were to be a mite cold, I can tell you. Of course, the family pots of soup and the morning porridge were another blessing, thanks to our wee Reekie. Summertime cooking was done outside on the open campfire, but if the nights were damp and wet the wee stove couldn’t be beat.

Daddy positioned the stove behind the driver’s seat. With him being the driver, that made sense; he was not so silly, my Dad liked his heat.

Bolting the stove securely to the floor, he made a partition around the back, protecting the wall from the heat generated by the chimney that protruded out of the bus roof. I wouldn’t mind, but of all things that partition was made of dangerous asbestos! Thank God, none of us suffered any ill health as a result.

‘Now, Jeannie, can you ask for a better home than that?’ asked Daddy, admiring his handiwork.

‘Aye, lad, you’ve worked wonders, but something bothers me,’ answered Mammy.

‘What’s that, then, lass?’ A look of concern spread across his face.

‘Who do you have in mind to drive the van?’

He laughed, then took the breath from her with his answer: ‘Jeannie, there is nothing easier.’

‘For God’s sake, man, I’ve just had a baby, I wouldn’t say I was fit.’

‘Rubbish, you’re the picture of pure health, sure I don’t know a stronger lass than yourself!’

So, several driving lessons from Daddy later, and a provisional driving licence, the necessary bit of paper needed, she became a rare sight for those days—a woman driver!

Mona was still protesting at living in the bus. After a while Chrissie had joined in her disapproval. Daddy had his work cut out trying to convince them. So when supper was over he sat them down to talk it out.

‘Now, lassies, fine I know your lives are about to change. But travelling ways are not like they used to be; those days are well gone. You don’t have to see life from a tent mouth like your mother and I did. This braw bus with all its modern ways will make sure you want for nothing.’

My big sisters hummed and hawed, but they knew Daddy was the boss and no amount of moaning faces would change his mind. Nevertheless, our Mona still had to get her tuppence worth: ‘Modern, huh! We still have to fetch water from the burn, hang kettles and pots from an iron chittie over an outside fire. Washing, now, it will still be hung from tree to tree. And worst of all, God help me, washing my tender face in a cold burn. Modern, what difference is that from your and Mammy’s days?’

‘Come now, lassie, a bit of country living did nobody any harm.’ He attempted to put an arm round her shoulder and she instantly brushed it away.

‘I’ll be old and wizent before my time!’ she shouted. ‘Long before it.’

Daddy laughed at his oldest daughter’s remarks, then walked off, saying, ‘make sure you don’t keep that frown on your bonny face for much longer, the wind will change and you’ll stay that way!’

We all laughed. She tutted, reached inside her skirt pocket and took out a nail-file. Storming outside she sat on the dyke by the side of the road, and the more she thought about the life ahead of her the harder she shaped her fingernails into talons.

‘You could do with a pair of wings now, seeing as you’ve the claws of a hawk on yourself Mona,’ mocked Shirley.

‘It wouldn’t bother you if you stayed on a dung heap, so shut your face or I’ll rip it off!’

‘If you try that, lady, then I’ll turn your backside into a sieve when I ram those talons up your arse!’

‘That will do with the foul tongue,’ said Mammy, pointing a finger sternly at Shirley.

Then she whispered to Daddy, ‘Perhaps she would be better staying with Granny after all.’

‘Definitely not, she’s our daughter, and until a suitable lad comes along then she’ll stay with the family!’

2

A VERY LONG DRIVE

Protests ignored, we were on the road, and you’ll never guess where to—of all places, over the Border, our feet were to travel to England! In those days a distance like that was seldom contemplated.

Perhaps sitting behind the wheel of a grand bus made Daddy feel like ‘King o’ the Road’. Have castle, will travel. One with wheels, that is. Maybe it was the sense of freedom he felt after six war years; especially the last three spent fighting from a tank. He never told us, but I think it made him claustrophobic. By God, though, he didn’t half eat up those long tarred miles as we trundled down to England.

Mammy adapted no bother to her wee Fordy van (as she christened it). And a mite too fond of it she became. Because, at the brow of every hill, her insistence to stop and give the wee green van a rest, then check if it needed a drink of water, had her and Daddy shouting at each other more than once, I can tell you.

After several days on the road, everybody began to think the land went on forever. Mammy asked Daddy, ‘Where do we stop, Charlie? My bum’s gone past the point of rigor mortis.’

‘I mind chumming an English lad during the War,’ he answered, ‘who sang the praises of his home town—Manchester, he called it.’

‘Manchester, where in heaven’s name is that?’ She looked at him as if he had mentioned a far outpost on the moon.

‘Lancashire,’ he answered, putting a reassuring arm round her waist. ‘The county o’ the Rose.’

‘Dad, that’s where Glasgow is!’ shouted Shirley, who was reading a ‘true romance’ comic on the back seat of the bus.

‘No, that’s Lanarkshire,’ said Janey, ‘and hurry up with the comic, you’ve been reading it for days.’

We spent a few weeks getting acclimatised to the shire, stopping at Lancaster, Preston and several towns round about. Best place was Blackpool. ‘It would have been nice to live there for the winter,’ I heard the older girls say. But Manchester was where my father had set his sights, and he wouldn’t be swayed.

Everybody settled back as we travelled the last few miles to our destination.

Soon it was time for tea, and after eating and tidying up Daddy smiled, saying we’d soon be there, adding when we came into the town that Mammy had best stay close behind the bus. ‘If you get lost, lassie,’ he warned her, ‘I’ll never find you.’

We all laughed, imagining our Mother driving wee Fordy round in circles.

‘Is there a place to pull on, in this Rosie-shire town?’ she asked.

‘Jeannie, there’s miles of houses, surely a wee corner can be found to winter on. When we get there we’ll have a drive round in the Fordy and find some place suitable.

He added, ‘there will be a lot of waste ground, because the brave folks who live here have seen the worst of Hitler’s flying bombs flatten whole streets.’

‘I just hope the polis give us the freedom to settle, then,’ she said.

‘Oh, I hardly think we’ll cause any difference to the landscape,’ he reassured her.

‘Another thing, I hope this town isn’t too big, I don’t like the idea of my lassies living in a place where I can’t keep an eye on them!’

It was easy to sense our mother’s fears. She had seldom been in a place any bigger than Aberdeen.

‘Everything will be fine, wife, never fear, just think on the hawking you can do among so many folk. When we go home in the spring you’ll have plenty to crack to the folks about, it’s not just anybody who can say they travelled so far, now is it?’

Little did our father know just what a tale she would tell! Oh my, if we but knew what Manchester had in store for us, the bus would have been put in reverse there and then. Ochone! Ochone!

I can’t recall much of the actual journey down to England; being only five I played with my toys and my wee sisters. One thing I do remember thinking was how much like Scotland the bonny welcoming hills of Cumbria were. Great rolling giants clothed in green and brown velvet.

I conjured up a friendly monster with wings who followed us from the midst of the hills, all the way to the smog-shrouded county of our destination, then disappeared as quickly as he came. I named him Greenwing. My imaginary friend.

Not like home ground, though, was the thick grey smog of Lancashire!

Smoke from a million reekit factory coal fires lifted itself up to meet the sun then fell back and covered the whole of the otherwise bonny countryside. Like a shroud, it was terrible stuff, filled lungs and brought early death to the weakest of folk. Aye, a shroud indeed!

Thankfully the use of that so-called fossil fuel has all but gone, replaced by healthier alternatives. I feel a fraud saying that, though, because nothing can ever replace the welcome one got from a coal-fire on a winter’s night.

As young as I was, one thing I do remember was Mammy saying to Daddy and the older lassies that she wasn’t feeling very well. Given that this was late October, and wee Babsy, her eighth child, was born in September past, she put her state of health down to natural weakness and the upheaval of the bus life. The War itself left its mark on many a wife, especially those left holding the fort. Her state was no different than that of many another woman in the country in those days. That thought consoled my Mammy, so she put her health to the back of her mind and got on with things in hand.

Things being Manchester, for here we were at last in the smog-shrouded city. The first thing—where to winter settle?

The journey had been a difficult one, especially when Mammy insisted on resting the wee Fordy at ever hill’s brow and refreshing it with a drink of water. Before I leave the road for this chapter, I would like to mention that when we came upon the notorious Shap Fell (an extremely steep hill on the old Cumbria A6 road), Mammy point-blank refused to put her van through such torture. This resulted in Daddy towing it while she walked behind, to make sure it was all right!

3

MANCHESTER • SAVING JEANNIE

Daddy found a scrapyard, and got permission to pull on at the rear for the night. We hardly slept for the noise of lorries coming and going. After breakfast our parents headed off to find a suitable wintering ground, leaving us wee ones in the firm hands of the older girls. By the time they eventually came back, Chrissie had skelped me three times for spitting at Mary.

‘Mammy,’ I cried, shoving my legs up so she could examine them, ‘look at the welts on the back of my legs with her leathering me!’

‘You must have been a bad bairn to deserve that,’ she answered, hardly glancing at the very visible red stripes across my poor wee limbs.

You see, if any of us wee ones got walloped by our older sisters, then without question we had most likely been bad! No why, or how, we must have been misbehaving. I remember many a time being the innocent party, but getting punished because of the mood my big sister was in (whichever one was taking care of me at the time), and Mammy always believed her, because she was the elder. Some justice, but it never did us any harm, and certainly, on this occasion, I was guilty! Well, she did stand on my big toe did our Mary, and it was right sore because Dad cut my toenail the night before and snipped it too far down ‘to the quick’, I think it’s called. It bled, and ached. So I spat, for I wasn’t allowed to slap her.

Mammy ignored us, drank her tea, then said they’d found a smashing place in an area called Cheetam Hill. An acre of waste ground, with a water tap and next door to public lavvies, you couldn’t ask for anything better. Next day we pulled on.

It was here for the first time we came across English gypsies. We had heard many a tale about our southern neighbours, and here they were in the flesh.

Beautiful floral painted bow-wagons, a dozen of them sat in a half circle. Massive shire horses grazed close by, tethered to metal poles embedded in the earth.

There were wicker baskets filled with paper flowers, red, yellow, purple, green, pink: all the colours of the rainbow came from those baskets. I remember thinking, ‘Wish I could do that,’ when I saw the women folks, hair braided with colourful ribbons, winding crepe paper into flower heads.

Our arrival by bus seemed to cause quite a stir, and they gathered in a crowd wondering who we were, uncertain about our presence. Several men approached at the bus door. When they saw we were all female with no big burly brothers, they softened and began introducing each other.

Mammy knew she’d need eyes in the back of her head. There were plenty handsome young men, who were already crowding round, eyeing up her lassies; but it was only curiosity, if any fancying was done, then it certainly wasn’t noticeable.

Mind you, being so young I hardly noticed anything like that—it’s with the passing of time listening to my sisters round a campfire I learned enough to slip such comments into the writing of those past times.

Within a week we had settled, and the gypsies treated us like kin. That was, after all, exactly what we were, their Scottish cousins.

We were on the site for a week or two when our first frightening experience with the Manchester police left this incident vivid in my mind.

Daddy had been cracking round the dying embers of the fire with one of the older men. He stood up and, stretching his back, said, ‘It’s a cold night for sure, and this damnable smog fills my lungs, so I’ll say goodnight to you, lad.’ That said, he pulled seats and stools back from the hot ashes and doused the fire. Once, as a boy, he witnessed an old man burn to death after a fiery stick set his trouser-leg ablaze, and had ever since been vigilant where campfires were concerned.

‘Yes, Charlie, it’s bed for me too. I’ve ten dozen clothes pegs need whittling first light, so I’ll be a busy man tomorrow.’

Closing the bus door tightly behind him, Daddy came over and unfolded the top of the blanket covering my face, whispering, ‘Jessie, don’t do that, you’ll smother yourself, lass.’ I had a bad habit of lying under the bedclothes. I moaned that it was cold, so he tucked the blanket under my chin, saying, ‘Only the dead have covered faces’.

‘Charlie,’ whispered Mammy, ‘before you bed yourself, bring me a drop water from the can, I’ve an awfy headache. I’ll take a powder then hopefully get some sleep.’

‘You’ll turn into a powder, Jeannie, that’s the third one today.’ He was becoming more and more concerned with her daily headaches.

‘Just give me the water, will you, man!’ she retorted as she sat up in bed and shivered.

As young as I was, I can still remember my dear mother constantly complaining about her health the whiles we stayed that winter in Lancashire.

The night grew colder. Mary had lodged her knee under my ribs, and Renie had removed half my blanket, and claimed it for her own chin.

Now, had my mother not been sore-headed I’d have wakened her, but that would have been selfish. So, unable to sleep, I sat up, pulled back the curtain and—Lord roast me if I lie—the ugliest face in God’s kingdom was staring at me through the window from the smog-shrouded night. It was a police raid! They banged their fists on the windows and rattled the sides of the bus with rubber batons. I began screaming.

My screams, coupled with the awful din, wakened everyone. Daddy was groping in the dark for the matches to light the Tilley lamp, when suddenly the thump, thump, thumping on the door added to the state of terror we were put in that night. It was the first time we had had any bother from the law.

‘You in there, come out now,’ a man shouted through the darkness.

Daddy found the matches and calmly pumped up the light until its welcome glow shone through the bus. Like moths we gathered round it. Baby Babs had wakened and Mammy held her tight into her breast. We were whimpering and shaking with fear, eyes staring from sockets like frightened owls. What was happening, for God’s sake?

Daddy slowly opened the door, not knowing what manner of awfulness stood on the other side. ‘It’s all right, Charlie lad,’ said a familiar voice. The old gypsy man my father had bidden goodnight to earlier on stood in his shirt-tail and bare feet, surrounded by several fearsome-looking men dressed in black.

‘It’s the hornies,’ said the old chap, ‘they say we’ve to move on.’

My father leapt down from the step, buttoned up his trousers, clumsily slipped his braces over each shoulder and shouted at the nightmare visitors closing round him.

‘Have you bastards got nothing better to do than frighten innocent folk in the dead of night? I’ve a puckle wee bairns in here.’ He pulled on his jacket and stood face to face with a big policeman, made six inches taller by a ridiculous pot-hat perched on his head, and waited on a response.

‘Arrest this one,’ the man ordered.

‘He’s from Scotland,’ pleaded the old gypsy man, ‘He don’t know this be common practice in these ’ere parts, sir.’

‘We’ll arrest him, then, and maybe in future he’ll remember.’

Daddy had no time to answer, as two policemen bundled him away in the back of a shiny black van. I can still see his bewildered face staring out at us, and all I could think was, how strange it was seeing my Dad in a motor car without his bunnet on.

We huddled round our mother completely dumbstruck, shivering with fear. Eventually Janey broke the eerie silence. ‘What if they come back and murder the lot o’ us!’

‘There now, pet, that doesn’t happen these days.’ Mammy gently held her close. ‘You’ve been taking far too much of those Suspense Comics to heart,’ said Chrissie, draping a tartan rug round her shoulders.

‘The polis are wicked in England, Scottish ones wouldn’t do a bad thing like that, now would they Mammy?’ asked Shirley, peering out at the darkness through the half-open curtain. At that moment I’m sure the whole bunch of us wished we were home in Scotland.

‘Polis are the same the world over, some bad, some good. Give me my cardigan, it’s getting cold in here. Mona, put some coal on the fire while I make the bairn a bottle.’ Her milk had dried up; she hated ‘false milk’ (her description of dried milk), but the baby was belly-greeting and she was more than eager to calm her.

‘I hope my Da is all right,’ said Mona, stapping extra coals on the fire and hoping he’d be home any minute.

‘They big polis will have kicked half the shite out o’ him before we see him again.’ Shirley’s words sent a shiver through the bus.

‘You better pray they don’t or else we’ll never see Scotland again,’ said Mona.

Mammy told them not to think like that, then added, ‘I’m right angry with your father for coming this far down the country, at least if we were nearer home the folks could help if we were stuck.’ Then she ran a hand over her head and said, ‘God, these powders are rubbish, I’d be as well taking the wee one’s dried milk for this headache!’

A knock on the door had us clinging onto each other in total fear, thinking the polis were back to finish us off.

‘Lassies, come now, you’re working yourselves into a state’, said Mammy. ‘Chrissie, put the kettle on the stove. Shirley here, put Babsy to bed, I’ll get the door.’

It was the friendly old gypsy who had tried to speak up for our father. ‘Jeannie, don’t worry about your man, they’ll let him out early morning, but what is more important, we have to move on now.’

The usual procedure with gypsy harassment (and this is the same today as it was then), was that when the police came with orders to move on, that meant—move immediately, right then and there!

‘But it’s the middle of the night, they took my man away. Who do they expect will drive the bus and where will we go?’ For our sake, Mammy tried to disguise the worry in her voice, but without success. ‘This is bad doings right enough,’ she said.

Our kindly neighbour, though, soon set her at ease by saying, ‘My eldest son will drive it for you, pack your things away, dress the children, just a couple of miles along the way there’s a nice bit of waste ground will do us all. Come on now, Jeannie, you have no choice: the police will drive your home onto the road then charge you with obstructing the King’s Highway.’

She smiled, took the kindly man’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Thanking him from the heart, she said, ‘God will see that you and yours want for little. The kindness you show us this night will be rewarded.’

‘We stick together, us wanderers, and one day you may return the favour if we come to Scotland.’

Shirley took no time in telling the man that in Scotland only God and Mother Nature determined where and when travellers lived. Not big bullies with cosh sticks and pot-hats.

He laughed, and said England had its free countryside too.

Mammy told Shirley to mind her manners, then said to the man, ‘You’ll find a grand welcome among us, that’s for sure.’

Soon we had everything secure. The old man’s son came and said the caravan was hitched up to the horses and ready for the road. Before leaving he said to Mammy, ‘I think it wise if you stay with your girls. I’ll get my cousin to drive the van, will that be all right?’

She gladly accepted his offer; the last thing she wanted to do was drive through the smog-thick streets of Manchester in the middle of the night.

As our replacement driver trundled slowly the two miles towards the new campsite, I thought of Manchester as a place of menace, where in every dark corner a polisman with a pot-black hat was lurking, and began whimpering. My sisters joined me, and before long hysteria was taking hold amongst us. Mammy recognised the signs and quickly worked her magic on us. ‘Did any of you lot ever see a bigger nose on a man than the one on the polisman who arrested Daddy? Fancy the disappointment of his poor mother the first time she set eyes on that. The nearest I can think to compare it with would be a rhino’s horn. Yes, the biggest honker in England, wouldn’t you say girls?’

We looked at each other, and within no time thoughts of menace were replaced by giggles and laughter, as we pictured in our mind’s eye the policeman’s big red hooter.

This was our Mother’s way of avoiding mass hysterics amongst her brood, change the subject quickly. It worked. A clever woman, my mother.

For the rest of the night I worried dreadfully for my father’s safety. It was then my imagination conjured up Greenwing, the wee Cumbrian flying monster. He told me children shouldn’t worry. Instead they should play. So off on his wings I went, as he flew me over the velvet hills of his home ground. After playing all kinds of fun games he took me back to bed, where I slept soundly.

In the morning weary Daddy came home, muttering to himself about keeping his big trap shut next time. Thankfully, though, that was the one and only time we had to go through polis night visits. They left us in peace for the duration of the winter on the waste ground at the far end of Cheetam Hill.

Mona asked if the polis hurt or manhandled him in the jail.

‘God, no, they were a fine bunch o’ lads; we played cards all night long, won myself twenty-three bob.’

‘The last time I worry about you, then,’ snapped Mona as she huffed out the door.

If she’d taken the time, as Mammy did, she’d have noticed at his hairline an ugly, bruised swelling. Or if she’d looked closer at his face she would also have seen a dark red trickle of dried blood round his nostrils.

After another week passed, the three eldest girls found work at a hamburger canning factory in Sale, on the outskirts of the city. Janey, although only twelve, didn’t go to school that winter; she and Mammy took turns ragging and watching after the wee ones, Renie and Babsy.

Ragging consisted of handing round big brown paper bags containing six washing pegs and a sample-size packet of Rinso (older readers may remember this washing powder). Included was a note saying ‘we are not begging, please accept the contents for the filling of the bag with rags, preferably woollens.’ The ragman gave more money for woollens.

Most folks were grateful for a free box of washing powder with pegs, and took the contents before filling the bags with cast-offs, but there were dirty, vile people who, after helping themselves to the pegs and Rinso, left the fillings of their bowels as payment instead. I won’t tell you what my father called these creatures. Thankfully they were few and far between.

Mammy washed and pressed the best of the rags, selling them at the local open markets, which were common in English cities, even up to the present day.

Mary and I went to the nearest school, a convent. Not because of our religion, but because it was the nearest to the site, a mere half mile away. That doesn’t seem far, but in the thick smog on a freezing morning it felt like miles and miles.

Let me tell you about our nun-run school, and I promise you this, it certainly wasn’t the proper way to start an education. Mary was four years old in the December. This was when we both started at the school. The Mother Superior, after a visit from Daddy to say he didn’t want Janey taking care of three little girls, said there were plenty under-fives at the school and she’d be happy to take us both.

As we walked hand in hand to school that morning, the cold December wind blew smog into our eyes. Mary cried that she wanted Mammy. I reminded her that I too was frightened going to a new school, after all I was not yet six. But I pretended to be brave for her sake.

We gathered in the playground: a crowd of pitiful-looking children with running noses and sad faces. Some had thin, torn coats and bad-fitting shoes. Others didn’t even have coats, only flimsy woollen jerseys with darned elbows. Several hadn’t even the luxury of shoes. Instead they wore plimsolls on their wee feet, and it winter time too! I think they were from the poorest run-down areas, ones the gypsies called slums.

A loud bell rang, not like a school bell, more akin to what you’d hear from a church. We all rushed in together like ewe-less lambs and huddled close for warmth. Perhaps we totalled thirty in number, not much more. A woman dressed in black and white, I heard kids say she was the Mother Superior, led us in. Other women in grey and white followed; they were called sisters. Then it was us, into a hall with a ceiling so high I could hardly see the long thin flex the yellowed light bulbs were suspended from.

Silently everyone knelt down: a thin arm belonging to a tall lad yanked me onto my knees, and Mary did as I did.

‘Bow your head. If she sees you, you’ll get the Jesus Box!’ said the lad, glancing swiftly over in the direction of a nun who I later was told went by the name of Sister Alice.

One whole hour later we left the assembly hall. Prayers were said for the morning, the lessons, and the poor little ‘black babies of the world, the food in our bellies, the clothes on our backs’.

Prayer followed prayer and finally, when we got down to lessons, prayers were said at the start and finish. If we needed to go for a pee, we had to pray.

We were the ones who needed the prayers. Our wee knees were lumpy and sore. My head felt like a rain-soaked tennis ball, having hung it down for so long!

There weren’t classes as such, because we were all taught together, and our ages ranged from as young as three up to ten. Three nuns took turns teaching, with the Mother Superior taking morning prayers. The only named nun I remember was Sister Alice, because she took an instant dislike to my wee sister and me. She never missed an opportunity to let us know how she felt. Being so young, the words ‘dirty heathen gypsy’ meant nothing to me.

At playtime I asked the tall laddie what he meant by the Jesus Box.

‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ he said. ‘Even if you’re saintly they’ll still find a reason to put you in it!’

He ran off to join a small band of lads congregating over by the school wall.

That night my wee sister and I had very little to tell the family about the school, except we could now recite several prayers.

‘What did lessons consist of?’ they enquired. So far not much, but that was understandable; after all nothing much happens on the first day.

As I lay in bed that night it was freezing, but I didn’t feel the cold. My mind had visions of a big box with something scary in it, a thing named Jesus! Not my mother’s precious Christ. He didn’t punish little children. No, this must be someone else.

As the night grew darker my fear grew with it. I floated in and out of one nightmare then another. So awful were my fears that Greenwing stayed away from my dreams.

The school day began at seven. Sister Alice stood like a sentry at the door. As we walked in she ticked each of our names on a notepad. ‘Bow your head, gypsy,’ she called out at someone, then added: ‘Have you no respect for a holy place?’

I looked around, feeling sorry for the poor soul who was being addressed, whoever it was, before realising I was the unholy offender! I felt my sister’s fear as she held my hand so tightly the tips of my fingers went white.

The day went by with the same rigorous form of religion, and by the week’s end we had learned nothing but prayers and more prayers.

For reasons known only to herself, Sister Alice had by now shown her dislike by using me as an example of ‘how not to be’. I was, she told everyone, disobedient, unwilling to learn, full of cheek and, oh yes, a heathen gypsy!

After I told my parents, they said they were disappointed in me for being a wee midden. It was as if nuns were superhuman. Scolding me, my mother said, ‘Nuns are next to God, they would never harm a child, Jessie. You must be misbehaving. Stop it or you’ll get a right leathering, my lass.’

Daddy tried to lighten the issue by saying, ‘Why don’t you get the gypsy lassies to show you how to make paper flowers, then you can take a bunch to the sister?’

That sounded a good idea, it was something I’d wanted to learn since first seeing the pretty gypsy girls. So after breakfast I sat amongst yards and yards of coloured crepe paper, learning the art of flower-making, gypsy-style. An old woman with steely blue eyes braided my hair, then tied a floral apron with a big pocket round my waist. Little cuts of fuse wire were held in the pocket.

Take a yard of the crepe paper, cut in two-inch widths, push thumbs gently into the paper making wee dents, and roll into flower shapes resembling roses. Then tie these using the wire to privet hedge cuttings of twelve inches in length to produce the lifelike flower that English gypsies were so famed for in days gone by. ‘Six red roses and a blessing!’ was the hawker call of these gentle nomads.

I made six for Sister Alice, and was glowing with pride when I tied them together with one of my tartan hair ribbons reserved for Sundays and visitors.

The strictest law in the convent school was Sunday worship. To miss the seven a.m. call was blasphemy! It was six-thirty on that particular Sabbath, and Mary didn’t want to go. I pleaded with her to hurry. Half-eaten jammy sandwich hanging from her mouth, I pulled her, half-running, half-dragging, along the still, dark road towards the chapel. We could hear the bell as if demanding we hurry up or else. I was forcing my poor wee sister to run faster, the chapel was in sight the last gong of the bell trailed away, when suddenly Mary went all her length, badly grazing her knee. Blood poured down, filled the crumpled sock and disappeared into her tiny brown shoe.

‘Oh pet, I am so sorry. Look, forget the chapel, your wee leg needs a clean. I’ll explain to the nuns in the morning, it will be alright, they’ll forgive us.’ Mary nodded through her tears as we turned and went off home.

I won’t say I wasn’t frightened to go into school that Monday morning, because I was terrified, but perhaps my peace offering of coloured flowers would smooth the waves?

Who was I kidding? Sister Alice took one look, then screwed my gift into a crunched-up ball between her fists before throwing it into the big dustbin at the playground gate.

I bit my lip. Her actions made me angry and confused. Looking back I am certain the woman had been verbally cursed by some rough gypsy body in her past, and it was fear made her act the way she did. We were marched along to the Mother Superior’s room.

Our punishment for being absent from Sunday worship would soon be known.

‘You shall both go in for punishment this morning. Mary, you will go first.’

‘No, that’s not fair, it was my fault we missed chapel! Please don’t put my wee sister in,’ I cried. ‘Look, she cut her leg yesterday. We went back home and were too late for your stupid chapel,’ I screamed. ‘She did nothing wrong, I tell you!’

Completely ignoring me and determined to rid the devil from our innards, the elder woman took hold of my sobbing sister and repeated her judgement. ‘Sister Alice, please put this child in for her punishment.’

As the nun grabbed my sister by the arm, I lunged at her fingers, sinking my teeth into her thumb. She screamed, instantly letting go of Mary’s wee arm.

‘You touch her and I’ll chew the hand off you,’ I warned.

‘To the boxroom, sister, at once,’ repeated the Mother Superior.

For a moment I was rigid with fear, but then, grabbing hold of my sister firmly by the coat sleeve, we ran as fast as we could, out of the wood-lined study, down the long corridor and we didn’t stop until halfway home!

Mary’s face was blood-red with running, poor wee cratur. I wet the edge of my cardy with my tongue and wiped it across her tear-streaked face. That’s what my mother usually did.

‘Blow your snottery nose, pet, it’s filling your mouth, you’ll be sick.’ Mary pulled a flannel square from the fold of her own cardy sleeve and did as I asked.

‘God,’ I thought, ‘I’m for it now. I’ll get killed for doing this.’

Daddy hadn’t yet left for ragging, when we ran into the bus, panting. Like two gurgling turkeys we unsuccessfully tried to explain why we were not at school!

‘Jessie, what is it?’ he asked, sitting me down. ‘Take your time now, tell Daddy.’

I did the best I could to explain our absence from the convent school. ‘The Jesus Box, Dad, they were putting us in the Jesus Box!’

‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘A punishment, Daddy. A place where you meet a monster called Jesus!’

‘Better not let your Mammy hear you say that. Now, while she’s at the shop getting bread, we’ll go back to the school and sort out this carry on.’

Holding each of us by the hand, he walked into the Mother Superior’s room. Surprisingly she smiled and held out her hand, saying ‘A misunderstanding, Mr Riley, let me explain.’

We were ushered out to stand in the cold corridor flanked by Sister Alice, while my father sat listening to the saintly-looking head-covered nun.

In no time he came out smiling and said, ‘Jessie, wee Mary will not be punished, but I’ve heard you’ve been a little madam, so you will have to take yours.’

Kneeling beside me on one knee he smiled, then winked, saying, ‘Now, lass, I don’t know where you got the idea that Jesus was a monster in a box, but someone has told you fibs. Be a good girl and take your punishment.’ Those words said, he walked off down the long passageway, leaving me to my fate.

Sister Alice walked Mary into the classroom while the Mother Superior marched me off. At the farthest end of the school we climbed a narrow, winding, metal stairway that clanked noisily with every step. Reaching the top she opened a heavy dark wood door of the smallest room I had ever seen, though I’d never been in a house apart from Granny Riley’s. Perhaps this was normal. I peered in, only to see a wee three-legged stool and nothing else.

‘This, my dear, is where we teach children that disobedience is wrong. Our Lord Jesus will decide if you are forgiven or not,’ said the holy lady.

She motioned me to sit down. I did as I was told. Before closing the door she said, ‘Always keep your head bowed. Do not look up, understand?’ I nodded as the door creaked shut, leaving me alone, and I remember thinking, ‘This isn’t so bad, that tall lad must have been pulling my leg right enough’. Perhaps I’d misjudged these saintly ladies of the cloth. ‘I’ll say a few prayers. If I say them loud and she’s standing listening behind the door, that’ll surely please her.’ So I closed my eyes, clasped my hands and prayed for everybody in the school. Parents, poor folk, sick ones, old ones, dogs, cats, on and on I went, finishing only when I’d totally exhausted everything worth praying for, or, come to think about it, everything I could think of whether worth it or not.

I opened my eyes, unclasped my little hands and sat quietly counting the cracks in the stone floor. Surely I’d soon hear the latch open and hear her call me out. But no! I could hear the big church clock ring out hour upon hour. All this time I sat with bowed head until my head became heavy and my neck sore. So, disobeying my superior, I stretched my neck up towards the ceiling. The sight froze my body. I grasped the wee stool beneath me for fear I’d fall onto the stone floor.

Suspended directly above my seat, the Crucified Lord hung from a wooden cross! From his thorn-crowned head to his nailed feet, painted blood trickled down his body like a river of red. So lifelike, so tortured. To go by my memory of it, whoever the artist and sculptor were, I can only imagine they must have been on Calvary and witnessed the Crucifixion themselves.

As if drawn by a magnet my gaze was forced further upwards. I stared deep into his crucified eyes. He stared down at me through the painted tears, and I swear it was as if he spoke to me, saying, ‘Bad child, wicked child. Hell for you!’

I closed my eyes tight. In my head I called in silence for wee Greenwing to take me away, and he did in a magically vivid dream. We flew over the smog-filled city, up and away from the Jesus Box. On and on we flew, over Manchester, Cumbria, the Borders, on and on until the smoking chimney of my Granny’s white cottage in the north of Pitlochry at the foot of Ben Vrackie came in sight. We sat on her rooftop until the pounding in my heart subsided. I had left the evil statue with the staring eyes far behind me.

Greenwing held my hand telling me it would soon be over, this fearful punishment, because he heard the bell ring for school’s out. ‘Open your eyes, Jess,’ he said, ‘the nun comes. I’m away now, be brave.’

‘Don’t leave me, wee friend,’ I pleaded.

I tightened my eyelids even more. I knew the statue would get me if I saw it.

My imaginary friend was gone. I was now vulnerable. Instantly I was back sitting petrified on the three-legged stool in the cold convent. Granny’s Heilan’ Hame was far, far away, and I was at the mercy of the Jesus Box. Here was the Lord of the bloodied cross who frightened children. Mammy never knew this Jesus.

‘Well, child, have you discovered the beauty of your Lord?’ The Mother Superior’s voice brought me back to the world as she pulled open the heavy door.

Keeping my eyes shut tight, I nodded my head vigorously.

‘Good, then that will be the last time we see the bad side of you, my dear.’

Yes, the Jesus Box was a dreaded punishment, because from that day until my little sister and I left, we were, to say the least, angelic!

The tall lad came up to me as we were going home that unforgettable day, and pushed something into my hand. When the school faded into the smog I opened my fingers. There, all crumpled up, was my wee tartan ribbon. He had seen Sister Alice throw it in the bin and retrieved it for me.