Tears for a Tinker (12 page)

LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE

I
promised to take you on board with my Davie during his brief career upon the wild ocean as one of that hardy breed who put their lives on the
line, the Scottish fishermen.

I’ve a tail-wagging yellow Labrador by the name of Brigadoon, and a twelve-year-old Heinz variety with foul breath that both desperately need walking. So while Brig, auld Jake and I
saunter off, I’ll leave you in the expert hands of my man.

‘She pestered me to death, did Jess, to take up my trade, but to be honest there were already plenty well-established joiners and carpenters around Banff and Macduff.

After Charlie and I finished painting, I did the odd homer with my tools, but everywhere a body goes in these parts the sea is never far away. Lads I’d met while having a pint kept me
informed as to which boats were in need of deck-hands. There weren’t many, sad to say, and if one did come up there was a long list of lads ready to set sail. I didnae fancy being thrown
about on the ocean’s swell, but the money sounded good. However taking to a life at sea had to be a serious business, not something you go in for lightly. So a visit to the Broo Office was
first step. “Try it first,” was the advice given, so I did. At twenty-two years old and eager to learn, I accepted a trial run on a sturdy seine netter. After it was over and the guts
somersaulted a dozen times, I decided yes, it might be the very life for me. So off to Aberdeen to be schooled in the ways of fishing, staying at the Fisherman’s Mission. First boat I was on,
the
Ardenlea
, was a big trawler, with a great bunch of lads who made me welcome. I’ll tell you about the cook who never (and this amazed me) entered a boat sober. When I saw him sway
and bounce around the deck I thought, “what the hell am I daeing here?”

Yet as the boat set towards the wide ocean, he immediately sobered up. Captain, mate and crew batted not an eyelid as the man who would be sustaining us throughout our trip began the day as
pie-eyed as a one-legged hen. “Why?” I hear you ask. Well, the reason was that this lad was as gourmet a ship’s cook as you could find, a brilliant chef of very high standards.
The only time we ate fish was on our final journey home. The rest of the time it was steak, beef, chicken and so on. But sad to say, my trial trip on
Ardenlea
soon came to an end.

While at the mission I met Danny, and what a lad he was. “Davie, boy,” he asked minutes after being introduced, “will you do me a big favour?”

I always feel uncomfortable when strangers ask favours, but before I could answer him he continued, “if I give you half of my money, will you look after it until tomorrow?” Too young
and too naive for my own good, I said yes. Then, on second thoughts, I wondered why he should part with a sum of money, big or small, to a stranger for safe-keeping.

“If I take all my money intae a pub, I’ll come out fu’ wi’ empty pockets. If I take half of it, I’ll still be rocking drunk. It’s best to be sensible and
leave enough for another time.”

“This guy,” I thought, “is mental!” However, I agreed, but only if another chap witnessed the transaction. So me and this witness, we waited outside the Fisherman’s
Mission for well over an hour past the agreed time, but no sign of Danny did we see. Next morning after breakfast, I wandered out to stretch my legs, and there, draped around a lamp-post singing to
an empty bottle of rum, was the bold lad with not a penny to his name. Two wee black-clad nuns sped past, crossing themselves at the sight of the half naked torso. He was totally oblivious to the
world and its wean.

When we later became better acquainted, he told me tales of his sea-faring days. Sine-die is the worse label that can ever be hung around a seaman’s neck. It means he has been judged to be
a degenerate and has forfeited the right to sail from the harbour where the sine-die is given to him. Danny, while working out of Grimsby, had been allowed little or no time off. His feet ached for
a time on dry land, while his belly yearned for rum. In protest, he climbed a ship’s mast, refusing to sail unless he was allowed time off. This act ended in his being sine-died out of
Grimsby. Not long after that he came to Aberdeen, hence our meeting. He had a terrific sense of humour and never failed to make me laugh. Here is one of those times. We were together on my second
boat,
Cedarlea
. This state-of-the-art vessel was fitted with all mod cons apart from the cook. He was as stern-faced a bloke as ever sailed the sea. Unlike my trial boat where our cook was
of the finest, this teetotallar was as useless as they come. The food was bland and tasteless. Fish was served daily.

On the last day of our trip, and sick to death with watery soup and rubbish grub, someone insulted the cook by calling him a c—. “Who called the cook a c—?” demanded the
Mate.

Danny stood up and replied, “who called the c— a cook!”

Well, folks, I can hear “she who must be obeyed” coming home with the jugals (her traveller word for dogs), so I’ll say thanks for allowing me to share my time at sea with
you.’

13

MY POETS

B
efore we go back to Macduff, I want to tell you a wee bitty about the poets who have freely contributed to my trilogy. Perhaps you may have
wondered about them. Take my sister Charlotte, for instance, better known through these pages as Shirley, my honest as the day is long, ‘I’ll take on a giant if he annoys me’
sister. Born on a freezing January afternoon in a small hut huddled between trees at the Bobbin Mill, she came into the world with (according to my mother’s endearment) ‘one eye
open.’ A tiny baby, who came into a war-torn world of uncertainty and misfortune. It was 1940, and Daddy was away some place in Europe, when Mammy, with three-year-old Chrissie on one side
and four-year-old Mona on the other, gave birth to Shirley. When we chat about the Bobbin Mill, she laughs and wonders what other person can claim that on her first nights in the world, rats had to
be swept out from beneath the bed before she was laid down. I sometimes think that maybe her honesty and forthright approach at calling a spade a spade might have led her to be isolated. Never one
to tolerate fools gladly, she was left many times friendless and alone. Yet, if she lacked the art of tact, she excelled in having a natural beauty not many could match. Boys sometimes thought her
aloof, and females looked on her as one so lovely she’d lure their men away from them.

At the young age of nineteen she met a handsome six-footer from Kirkcaldy. Within a few months they wed. Two children followed, first a girl, then a boy.

Everything in my dear sister’s life seemed to be rosy, until deep in her throat a nasty growth began to flourish. Her thyroid was diseased. One illness followed closely behind another.
Days spent in bed, soaking sheets in sweat, left her drained. Her moods swung from gentle to violent. Almost overnight that armour of strength she wore peeled away, leaving a weak and
out-of-control young mother. This illness, undetected, crawled freely through her body for years. Only after a terrible pregnancy, ending with the tragic loss of a still-born son, did doctors
discover what was slowly destroying my sister. The course of treatment was harsh and as violent as her mood swings. Her husband, a petted son of an over-protective mother, gave her no help and soon
found another woman.

Left alone, the mountain seemed unclimbable, the road never-ending. Her only saving grace was her inner desire to become a songwriter, a verser, a poet. All the pain, the anxiety, the
self-sacrifice, went into verse. Long nights she spent head down, scribbling feelings of love, hate and lost desires onto whatever piece of paper came to hand. This brought her back from the brink.
Anger, hurt, heartache, the joys of watching her child’s academic progress went into verse. If the words sang to her, she wrote the emotion; a haunting melody smoothed the feelings. Joy
bounced over the page with loud operatic tones. Yet no one listened, nobody cared. The children grew and left home; this too she turned into songs with beautiful silent music; played them in her
mixed-up head with a full orchestra.

She reminded me of a bluebell flourishing yearly in a field of nettles; one solitary flower wishing to be part of the bluebell wood. But no matter how she wanted to be like everyone else, it was
never to be, because just as the bulb from which the bluebell lives withers and dies, it only emerges in spring once again to a solitary existence among those stinging nettles.

Then Dave Munro, ex-soldier, man about the house, came along, and they hit it off. Not only did he see the budding petals of her gift, he encouraged every minute of her life. Never far from her
side, in fact close at hand when sleep-terrors filled her with nightmares, his strength guarded her vulnerability. Most of all, though, Dave encouraged her gift; installing a PC, recording
equipment of every kind, books etc. Now, at long last, she is what she always thought it was her reason to be on the earth—a songwriter and poet. To date she has seventeen published works, is
featured in Tim Neat’s book as one of the ‘voices of the Bards’, and is working on her masterpiece,
Kingdom of Marigolds
.

Here’s a song she wrote for Dave who is her ‘bees knees.’

More of Shirley later, for now we’ll talk about a real legend in his time—my friend Mamie’s dad, Keith McPherson. He owned and ran a garage at the far end of Comrie in
Perthshire. He’s no longer with us, having passed away in 1973, yet the poems he left will remain. As long as his poems are enjoyed and respected, then how can oor lad be forgot?

Mamie trained as a nurse in the Western Infirmary in Glasgow, doing her training in the Royal Maternity, better known as Rotten Row. German POWs imprisoned at nearby Cultiebraggan Camp (those
who posed no danger) would find a benevolence, seldom seen in one so young, from fourteen-years-old Mamie. When they visited Keith’s garage she would give sweeties to the youngest and
cigarettes to the older prisoners. In a recent television programme, Mamie met some of those POWs who came back to Comrie to say thanks for the kindness which helped them through a terrible time in
history.