Gift from the Gallowgate (21 page)

A year or so after we moved in – it may even have been less – the council sent all its tenants a letter saying that they would have to pay £4 for the cooker that had been
supplied with the house. £4 for what was practically a new cooker? I paid it before the powers-that-be decided to double the price, but a few of my neighbours thought it was outrageous. I
don’t know what happened about this, but I would imagine they’d have had to stump up or lose it.

Back to our pre-entry inspection. The stairs were quite steep, but we were young and fit and thought nothing of the bathroom being on the top landing. I’d be in dire
straits if I still lived there today. There were two bedrooms, one quite large with two windows to the front, and a large, shelved cupboard. The smaller back bedroom had one window and a cupboard
for the hot water tank, fitted with slats for airing clothes. Luxury!

The worry now was how to furnish our house. Thank heaven, Jimmy still had most of his demob gratuity left, but I still couldn’t buy what I liked; everything had to be within our finances.
An oak dining room suite (table, four chairs and sideboard) cost £32, a bedroom suite (double bed with spring and flock mattress, double wardrobe, dressing table and chest of drawers) roughly
the same.

For Sheila’s room (Alan’s cot would remain in our room until he needed a proper bed), I bought a set of cheaper whitewood furniture – kidney-shaped dressing table, bureau and
wardrobe – and a single bed. I made a frill for the dressing table to make it look more feminine, and Mum had given me an old cabinet that had originally belonged to my granny, useful for
storing all the odds and ends a twelve-year-old amasses.

My description of this back room will show that it wasn’t so very small, only in comparison with the other, which, as I thought when planning ahead, could easily be divided into two
separate rooms. Jimmy and I could then move into the back room to let Sheila and Alan have a room each. Things did not work out as planned, of course. They seldom do.

I gradually collected some wooden orange boxes to use as bookcases (I’ve always been snowed under with books), painted them then made curtains to hide the contents, which were apt to get
quite untidy, as even proper bookcases do.

That was the furniture sorted out; now for the other necessary items, things I’d never thought about until I needed them, like a sweeping brush, basin, towels, a scrubbing board and brush,
light shades and bulbs, an alarm clock to get us up in the mornings – we had been given a wedding present of a lovely Westminster chiming clock for the mantelpiece. I’d have forgotten
to buy a washing line and pegs if Mum hadn’t reminded me. She also let us have two huge easy chairs that my father had got specially made when they were married, and which he had also had
covered in deep crimson velour at one time. The seats and arms were getting threadbare, but Bill Jamieson, Bertha’s fiancé and an apprentice carpet fitter and upholsterer, recovered
them in brown Rexine. Just like new!

We did manage to purchase a bed-settee a year or so later, giving rise to a phrase that we still laugh about today. I had taken a left-over cutting to a furniture store and ordered a settee with
the same Rexine. The shop wrote in three weeks to say that it was ready and would be delivered two days later. Then came another note saying that something heavy had fallen on our settee and cut
the seat. But not to worry, they would have another one made as soon as possible.

Weeks passed and Auntie Jess had invited herself to stay for a week or two (or three), so Auntie Ina (not the same side of the family) volunteered to speed things up. She had a habit of
inventing words and phrases of her own, and these are her famous words to the manager of the shop. ‘If you don’t replace my niece’s settee double quick, she will take her custom
some other where.’ They did the trick.

The new settee was delivered the day before Auntie Jess was due . . . and even if it wasn’t an exact match, we were obliged to keep it, otherwise where would Jess have slept. Probably in
our bed, while we’d have had to sleep on the living room floor. But ever since then, if something is not delivered when it should be, Jimmy and I say to each other, ‘We should take our
custom some other where.’

I actually had my education finished in Mastrick. The mixture of tenants amazed me, and the way some of them lived was past belief, but on the whole, they were good people. Most
of them were in the same financial straits as I was, but instead of doing without something until they could pay for it, some bought on ‘tick’. I once noticed a van delivering two large
mats to one tenant (I’ll call her Mrs Y.) on a Saturday forenoon, and on the Monday morning, I happened to catch sight of her walking past with the mats slung over her shoulder.

Wondering what she was doing, I was glad when Mrs Sievewright asked me if I’d seen Mrs Y. taking her two new mats to the pawnshop. I had never heard of anybody doing this before, and I
couldn’t understand how it worked. If she had bought her mats on the never-never, as I was sure she had, and was pawning them because she needed money, she would still have to pay the shop
where she bought them in the first place.

I didn’t have quite so much to do with Mrs D., my neighbour on the other side, although we shared the same path to our front doors. Her husband was a trawlerman, so we
sometimes got a ‘fry’ of fish from him. He once gave us a large enamel pie dish full to the brim with prawns. It was the first time I had seen these, but he told me they were a
delicacy. Not altogether convinced, Jimmy and I discovered that they were delicious. It wasn’t until I spotted prawns in a high-class fish-shop that I realised how much of a delicacy they
actually were. We must have eaten a few quids’ worth without knowing it.

When we had been in the house for a year, I thought it was safe to decorate. Sheila was in bed with pharyngitis and I decided to do her room first. Perhaps it sounds stupid to
decorate a room where someone is ill – my mother thought I was absolutely mad – but it was company for Sheila and saved me running up and down the stairs so much. I went to a shop in
Rosemount where the man left me to take my time over choosing my wallpaper, and then gave me a demonstration of how to fold it once it was pasted, so that it wouldn’t fall down or trip me up,
or get torn. This was an invaluable lesson, for the only decorating I had done before was painting my mother’s bathroom and scullery walls
eau de nil
. Papering was a different
matter, but I set to with gusto.

I made a presentable enough job of it; there was nothing unusual, just plain, straightforward walls. I left the paintwork as the council painters had done it; it was only a year old and after a
good wash, it looked as good as new.

The next job I set my mind to was the scullery, like my mother’s, just paint. I think I chose Ice Blue, and was amazed at how much paint I needed. I mentioned this to the man in Rosemount
when I went back for another tin, and he asked, ‘A new house? Did you size the walls first?’

‘Size?’ He had lost me.

‘I’ll sell you a packet. You mix it with water, brush it on and let it dry before you actually paint. It seals new walls, you see. If they’re not sealed, they suck in the
paint.’

I thanked him for another invaluable tip, and went home to do what he’d said.

I was very pleased with the result, and when Mrs Y. came to the door to ask me something, I took her inside to see my handiwork.

She was deeply impressed. ‘And you did it yourself? I’d like to paint mine, but I’ve never used a paintbrush in my life.’

I showed her how to go in the same direction always, and then added, ‘But don’t make the same mistake as I did. You need to size the walls first, or they’ll just suck in the
paint.’

‘Size?’ Her brows came down in thought, then her eyes cleared. ‘I’m sure there’s a packet of size in my sideboard drawer. My man took it hame once for something,
but he never used it.’

I was almost certain that her husband had not intended to paint anything – he wasn’t inclined that way – but I could have been wrong. At any rate, she turned up again in about
ten minutes carrying a pail. ‘Does that look like size to you?’ she asked, holding it up for my inspection.

It appeared to be all right, but I stuck a finger in to make sure that it was sticky enough. The packet could have been lying around for years before it ended up in her sideboard drawer. It was
just as well I tested it, for it wasn’t in the least bit sticky. It felt just like water with grains of fine oatmeal in it, so I shook my head. ‘No, that’s not size.’

She gave a sheepish laugh. ‘Well, you see, there was two packets kicking aboot in that drawer for ages. I kent one was goldfish food and one was size but the labels had come aff. This must
be the goldfish food, then.’

Collapse of would-be decorator instructor.

The living room came next, but this time, Jimmy volunteered to give me a hand. Again, I was leaving the original paintwork and had only bought paper. My friendly mentor had
given me another tip, which I imprinted in my memory, because I had a strong feeling that we would need it.

Mum came up on the Sunday morning and took Alan out of our way for the day, and we set to. We started at the left side of the fireside recess where it met the back wall, and intended to go right
round to the front wall that day, including the area above the fireplace. We agreed that I would measure and paste and Jimmy would hang the paper. I’m not going to say that this caused our
first row – we’d had a spat or two before – but this was the biggest so far. I got annoyed because he was so pernickety, taking so long to place each strip that the paste dried in
and I’d to take the brush over the edges again to make them stick down.

At last, after he took about ten minutes to make up his mind how to do the paper behind the water pipe and wouldn’t listen to my advice, we both lost our tempers. So we stopped –
having taken a whole day to not-quite-finish one small recess.

On Monday morning, Jimmy off to work, Sheila off to school and the baby having his forenoon nap, I started the job by myself. I measured the first strip, cut, pasted and folded, praying that
what I was about to do would actually be successful, and worked from the ceiling down to the obstruction. Now, I ripped the paper roughly so that it would go behind the water pipe. As the man in
the shop had told me, the torn edges fitted together so that the join wasn’t noticeable, and thus I continued until that bit of wall was done. Then I did the fireplace breast and the other
recess. When Jimmy came home that night, he had to admit that I’d been right . . . or at least, the man in the shop had known what he was talking about. Naturally, I was quite pleased to do
the rest of the walls by myself.

Having papered our room and painted the tiny bathroom, I was faced with the final, mammoth task of decorating the staircase. We got a long ladder from the window-cleaner who lived up the road, a
short pair of steps from my mother and Jimmy borrowed what looked like a railway sleeper from Tawse’s yard to lay between them. At one point, there was a tremendously long strip needed, so I
suggested that we should both start from the middle, he would work up to the ceiling and I’d work down. That way, as far as I could envisage, there would be less likelihood of wrinkles than
if he started at the top and I started at the bottom. It didn’t work out how I had hoped, though, and let me just say that I finished this myself . . . after another flare-up. My temper
matched the colour of my hair . . . as Jimmy can vouch. Poor soul, he has been at the receiving end for fifty years.

Mrs D. surprised me occasionally with some of the things she said, and I’d better tell you this little gem from the beginning. Our fourteen houses were built diagonally
across from what had once been the estate of the derelict Springhill House. The area was a natural playground for the kids in our community, the young ones staying within sight of their homes, but
the older few venturing that bit farther in.

One afternoon, when nine-year-old Margaret D. came home from an hour or so of an exciting game in the dense undergrowth with several others, she said that a man had been displaying himself to
them. I don’t suppose this was the actual phrase she used, but afraid of what could happen unless he was stopped, her mother went to the nearest police office to report it.

I knew nothing about the incident until Mrs D. came to tell me that Margaret had been examined by the police surgeon in case the worst had already happened. Then she went on, anxiously,
‘They said she was still a virgin, but how auld have you to be afore you’re a virgin? Do you ken, Mrs Davidson?’

I managed to keep a straight face. ‘It’s how old a girl is before she’s
not
a virgin – that’s what mothers have to worry about.’ The poor woman
clearly had no idea of what the word meant and I had to explain the ins and outs of it (an unfortunate phrase) as basically as I could.

Even after digesting the biological information for some time, however, she still hadn’t understood, because she suddenly burst out, ‘So, if my man was to die, how long would it be
afore I was a virgin again?’

Her husband did die just a few years later, but having had five children to him, I doubt if she ever became a virgin again. By the way, I did get her permission to recount this tale. She
hadn’t remembered the incident, but considers it hilarious.

Mrs S. also dropped the occasional clanger – life was never dull. At one point, her mother and sister departed these shores and went to live in America – I
don’t know why – or if I
had
been told at the time, I’ve forgotten. At any rate, she used to give me titbits of news when she got a letter.

‘It’s been snowing in Illinoise, Chickargo’ was one of her comments. Another was (and this is not a word of a lie), ‘They have the same problems ower there as we have
here wi’ the Catholics and the Prostitutes.’

I have heard that same sentiment expressed as a joke many times since by comedians on the wireless and television, but that was my introduction to it, the difference being that she was deadly
serious. It didn’t put her off going to join them some years later, and as far as I know she and her family are still there.