Happy Memories

[Lachlan09]

Do you have special memories of simple joys of Scotland which make you smile fondly ? Or special memories of somewhere else ? Ireland, Wales, England, Europe, USA, Canada, elsewhere ? Can we share them in a pleasant thread of cherished memories please ?

Mine are of childhood and as a youth visiting Kintyre in lovely summers in the late ‘50’s and through the 60’s.

My Auntie Maude, from Walsall, was my Great Uncle Neil’s wife and they lived in the old schoolhouse just up from the beach and the rock outcrop, next a small group of crofts on a lane bounded by cow fields. The tiny hamlet was called A’ Chleit. There was a local CofS Church next door and a disused school-room and kitchen. The first time I went in 1958, when I was 5 and my brother 9, we didn’t have a car and my Mum and Dad got us up very early on the big day to get a taxi to Waverley Railway Station in Edinburgh. We traveled to Glasgow and changed stations and trains to continue to Dunoon. From there, we got on a MacBraynes ship to sail to Tarbert. My Dad had to hump all the family’s luggage every time ! Gt Uncle Neil met us in his big, black Riley Pathfinder, a quiet car whose wheels made crackly sounds on the little stones covering the winding, tarmac coastal road. He was elderly but jolly, still well-built with a bushy moustache and full head of grey hair. He smoked a pipe. Then I met Gt Auntie Maude for the first time. She was white-haired, with a well-weathered face and she looked so healthy. All that Atlantic air ! I also met Zoe, their Cairn Terrier, who instantly became the love of my young life ! The freedom of it all !! The beach was beautiful yellow sand and the sea crystal clear. Only my brother, Zoe and I used the beach, there was no-one else around, like our own private beach. This was all perfect. When my brother and I became sick due to too much sun and were confined indoors, my Dad came in cradling an eider duckling he had “borrowed” from its mum. I was amazed and once the duckling’s pounding heart settled down from fear, it was more relaxed and dropped something gloopy on my Dad’s foot ! He took it back to where its mum was waiting. Next day, he came in with a wee rabbit he’s borrowed from its mum ! He took it home afterwards too. Looking back, it was like being in the Teletubbies !

I tasted fresh caught salmon for the first time then too, the whole silver fella surrounded by a cold salad, with all home-grown potatoes, lettuce and cucumber and tomatoes from the greenhouse. That’s where I also got my love for Heinz Salad Cream !

Gt Uncle Neil kept all his boat-stuff in the old school-house and when it was time to go to the boat, he, Dad and Uncle Willie MacDonald (the farmer/fisherman/ambulance driver and sometimes posty) went back and forth over the grassy slope and down to the beach, where the boat was. I always got excited for the boat and and Uncle Neil was in his favourite white rubber thigh-boots and my Dad in thigh boots too. Uncle Willie was in his chest-waders. The oars, the net and the big long-shafted Seagull outboard engine were all put in the boat, a big, clinker-built Scottish wooden Atlantic fishing boat maybe 17 or 18ft long. One time, Uncle Willie (or Uncle Woollie as I called him) was pulling the rope up on a creel and he leant over too far and fell in. There were no life-jackets worn in those days and with his chest-waders, he was soon in trouble, disappearing under the water more and more. My Dad and Uncle Neil manoevred the boat and grabbed Willie by the shoulder straps of his waders. With a great struggle, they pulled him out and into the boat. Then I noticed his pack of cigarettes floating on the water. I shouted “Uncle Woollie, look, there’s your cigarettes !!” Still gasping and spluttering, he let out “B*gg*r the cigarettes !”. But we rowed over, scooped up his smokes and lo and behold – they were still dry !!!

In a croft just up the lane lived Auntie Babs MacIsaac and her son Charlie. Her husband had died. Auntie Babs was a character ! Like Auntie Maude, she too had a weathered face and normally she went around without her false teeth, so with her large chin she looked like a half-moon. She wore her silvery-grey hair in a sort of chopped pageboy style. Every morning, day after day, year after year, she used to put on a bathing suit, go down the shore and swim up and down the Atlantic Ocean, whatever the weather. My brother and I used to go down the beach with her often and she knew how to have a good sand-fight ! She’d dig way down through the wet yellow sand at the water’s edge to find the soggy dark grey sand which she’d dredge up and use as ammo ! When our parents appeared during our first fight, Auntie Babs, my brother and I were all coated in wet dark grey sand from head to foot. She was young at heart ! She used to clean the church and put fresh flowers out, but on a Sunday, she looked really smart and had her teeth in !

The lane between her house and my Uncle Neil’s/Auntie Maude’s was like Argyle St Glasgow on a Saturday night. There were always loads of geese, ducks and hens all doing their thing on the road and the verges, in the outhouses, on the dry-stane wall and even the roof of her croft (hens that is). Then there was that really bolshy cockerel !! God, I hated that bird ! Auntie Maude had hens too and we’d help pick the eggs.

There used to be a butcher’s van which came around. One day, I noticed on the side of the van, under the butcher’s name it said “Butcher and Game Dealer”. Ever the enterprising wee lad, I went up the steps at the rear of the van, went up to the counter and asked “Excuse me please, but what games do you have ? Do you have Ludo ?”. Well, I bet that story went the rounds of Kintyre for weeks to follow. Also, the butcher told my auntie who told my parents who fell about laughing. Oh well, can’t blame a boy for trying !

Auntie Maude and Uncle Neil didn’t have a television and know what ? I didn’t miss it one bit !

Over to you, please help this thread with stories to enjoy.

All the best

Lachlan