Tales from the Tent (35 page)

L
ets us go back to Crieff now and see how my family and I wind up our travelling days.

Daddy spent another bronchitis-struck winter, seeing more of his pillow than a mirror. Thankfully, though, there must have been a breakthrough in medicines for chest troubles at that time. His
pockets bulged with inhalers and pills that helped him no end. Mammy had discovered Bingo. Chrissie and her family moved up to a house on a country lane and loved it.

Mary, who’d been going out with a lad, fell pregnant, and much to my parents’ sadness, refused to marry him.

Aunts and uncles grew old and died, and now and again I took myself off to some quiet, secluded place down beside the River Earn to remember them. And it was while I was there day-dreaming upon
a sandbank that Davey found me.

We chatted about the river and the sand-martins who burrowed like rabbits, and all the travelling folks who came and went in and around Crieff. Then, much to my utter shock and horror, he just
stood up and asked me to be his bride! His face beamed bright red, and all I could do was laugh. This was definitely the wrong response, because without a word he scrambled up the embankment to get
away from me, but his feet began to slide which sent him tumbling back toward me. However, as he rolled he gathered up speed and couldn’t stop, catching me on the downhill. Can you imagine
then, reader, a more unusual proposal? Just before we hit the water I called out—‘YES!’

I hadn’t realised it, but my friend and I had fallen in love. It sort of grew on me like ivy round an old fence post. Still, it had to be kept a secret until I found the right time to tell
Daddy. He certainly would not want me coming home with news like that.

Mary meanwhile gave birth to the most beautiful baby girl we’d ever seen, with lots of fluffy hair and the biggest round blue eyes, she was gorgeous and quite a novelty in our home.
Perhaps it was her newness—you know that special smell babies have that made me yearn for one of my own.

Davey was desperate that we marry, and so wanted to ask Daddy for my hand, to do it right and all that. I told Mammy to have a word with him, she did and we set a date. Mammy baked nice cakes,
while I cleaned and spruced the caravan. The rest of the family went out to give us privacy. Although I had a feeling that another reason was that they didn’t want to be there when Daddy hit
the roof. Davey arrived about seven as planned, hair brushed back with a ton of hair cream through it, clean white shirt with tie, shoes polished spit-sparky clean. But no Daddy. Hour followed
hour, until eleven o’clock struck loudly from Crieff’s tower clock, and then he came in from God knows where, ignored Davey and sat down. Still, I have to take off my hat to the lad,
because he went right over to Daddy and said, ‘I want to marry Jessie.’

‘Oh, now, is that a fact, and what do you do?’

He knew very well what he did, I’d told him a thousand times.

‘I’m an apprentice joiner, Mr Riley,’ he answered proudly.

‘Well,’ said my thrawn father, ‘when you’re a time-served one, come back and I’ll think about it.’

The lad had been far too well brought up to answer my Father back, although by the look on his face I’m damn sure he’d have liked to. The poor man ran from the caravan, with me
apologising for my father’s behaviour. I followed him, but Daddy called me back, ‘just a minute, lassie, I want a word with you.’

I was furious with my father, and for the first time in my entire life let him know. ‘Where have you been all night? Don’t you think it the height of ignorance to leave my boyfriend
sitting here? You knew how nervous he must have been.’

‘Jessie, I said you were never to marry, remember? Anyway, lassie, you’re too young to be marrying. Now this conversation is over.’

Mammy smiled and said, ‘why don’t we all go to bed, things will be clearer tomorrow when we can hae a crack about this.’

Next day I ignored my father, we discussed nothing, while he thought it best to take the car keys just in case I eloped with it. Later I met Davey in our usual spot up town. ‘Let’s
get the bus into Perth,’ he said. We did and headed for the first jewellers on our road. It was mid-June and we chose my engagement ring, a twin diamond twist set in a thick gold band. It
cost twenty five pounds—every penny of Davey’s saving since he left school. He wanted a quick wedding, a summer one, but I needed my father’s blessing and persuaded him to
wait.

I never got Daddy’s blessing, and I think I’d still be waiting on it. Meanwhile, a home of our own became paramount. A house either to buy or rent was out of the question, so we went
over to Arbroath Caravan Park and paid a small deposit on a sixteen foot, four-berth caravan. I was still employed at the mink farm, so we managed to afford the payments. Chrissie let us stance it
in her back yard. Mammy helped me to sew curtains and Davey’s mother bought some cushions and carpets to match. There was a cosy wee coal fire, so our first home at least would be warm.

So on the last day of the year 1966 I became Mrs David Smith, and what a Hogmanay that was. If you like, I’ll tell you about it. You would? Oh, I’m so glad.

Mary was my bridesmaid, while Davey’s pal Alan Brock was his best man. Our banns had been posted with Perth Registry Office in Tay Street, for the ceremony to take place at twelve noon.
Mary and I, for the first time in our lives, had a hairdresser pamper and style our heads. Having long hair, Mary opted for a hairdo that resembled a wind tunnel. Thankfully, mine was short and
easy to style.

I asked Daddy for the car three times that morning, before he set the keys on the table and said, ‘help yourself!’ Mammy had been an absolute angel; she’d ordered a one-tier
wedding cake from Campbell’s the Bakers and sent invitations to relatives far and near. She’d also decorated the caravan with balloons and paper flowers, it was so lovely. By the time
we set off it was doubtful if we’d be there on time, I began to panic. Any other day of the working week would have been OK, but on Hogmanay in Scotland—what Registry Officer would keep
an office open when he’d his Ne’er day bottle to purchase?

At last the four of us were heading out of Crieff. Butterflies were thronging inside my belly and, like most brides, I was wondering if I was doing the right thing.

‘Hang on, you three,’ I warned, ‘because it’s twenty minutes to twelve, I’m going to put the foot down all the way, so hold onto your seats!’ Now, three miles
outside Crieff, at Gilmerton, there’s a bend in the road, which if you’re not careful throws you over the road. No, I wasn’t careful and over I went. Flash Fordy spun round
several times, before crashing through a wooden gate and bogging down in a field. Thanks be, the night before there had been a hard frost that hardened the ground to the extent that Mary, Davey and
Alan were able to get behind the car and push. It took ten precious minutes to get us back on the road again. The lads’ nice blue-grey suits were splashed by the gutters that hadn’t
frosted and Mary’s wind-tunnel resembled the leaning Tower of Pisa. We arrived in Tay Street at twelve thirty—half an hour late. Would the Registrar be there? Someone who was, however,
was a nasty, limping parking attendant, who with several waves of his arms instructed me to get my stationary car out of the way. Drastic measures were called for, so grabbing my hat, bag and
flowers I got out of the car and handed the wee attendant the keys. ‘Come on you lot,’ I shouted at my husband-to-be, his pal and sister Mary, ‘if Limpy here can’t find a
spot then I sure as hell won’t.’ The poor man looked at the car keys, then at me, and didn’t have a word to say, which was probably the first time this had happened since he got
the job. Now, folks, I swear to you but that Registrar was still there waiting on us. Oh aye, he had the face of anger on him right enough, but there he was, God love him, standing on the steps
watching for us, his bunch of office keys jangling from his fingers.

‘David, do you take Jessie to be your wife?’

‘Yup.’

‘Jessie, do you take David to be your husband?’

‘I do.’

‘I now pronounce you man and wife,’ said the old Registrar with a smile, and added, ‘you can now congratulate each other.’ I kissed Davey, he shook my hand, big nervous
oaf!

Well, there I was, reader, a married woman. My in-laws had paid for our wedding dinner, which we had in the York Hotel in Perth, and it cost a full ten pounds. We then set off for a walk round
the town, where I bought a chicken for our New Year’s Day dinner and my new man purchased his bottle of whisky.

Back in Tay Street we went looking for my father’s pride and joy with a wee bit apprehension. Did the flustered attendant have it pounded or tipped into the silvery Tay? No worries,
because wee Limpy had positioned Flash Fordy in a safe spot opposite the Police Station. A note under the wiper read, ‘Congratulations, but next time don’t be so cheeky!’ (Next
time, aye, that’ll be right.)

A super surprise was waiting back at Arnbro for us; many friends and relatives had arrived in answer to their invitations, which made me feel just that wee bit special. So, after a hearty feed,
a lump of wedding cake and a dram we sang, danced and cracked. It mattered not a jot that Jack Frost was attacking every finger and nose, the party went on all night. Davey and I left our guests
around three in the morning and headed the two miles home to our wee trailer. He held me tight, because not only was I freezing to death, but I was nearly four months pregnant. Thought I’d
keep that little detail out of my wedding day photographs, folks.

From all of my memories of that day this was to me the most special—when we arrived at our tiny caravan, much to our surprise, someone had been in and lit the fire and pulled down our bed.
It was such a warm and cosy welcome, to this day I can still feel it.

When I popped into bed there was a present propped beside my pillow, whoever had lit our fire left it. It was a radio loosely wrapped with brown paper and twine. I read the small
card—‘From Daddy’. I cried myself to sleep, because at long last he’d accepted my decision to marry.

Because the family I grew up in consists of eight girls I thought I’d pop this next wee story in for you.

38

BRIDGET AND THE SEVEN FAIRIES

H
ere is an oldie now for you. One that I always remember because I have seven sisters. I recently read a version of it in a book by my old friend
Bob Dawson. He heard it from a travelling man, while they sat sharing a cup of tea round a campfire in Arran in the sixties.

Once there lived an old tinker man who had six beautiful daughters and one not so pretty. They lived in a tent and were always poor and hungry. ‘I am sick of this poverty,’ said the
eldest lassie, ‘I think it time for me to go and seek my fortune.’

Saying her farewells to the family she set off, however she had not been long on the road when she came upon a fairy caught in a gin trap. ‘My, fairy, you’re the most horrible
creature I’ve ever seen,’ she told it.

‘Dear tinker girl, let me out I beg you,’ pleaded the fairy.

She looked at the fairy and said, ‘Ugh, you are too ugly to be rescued,’ so she picked up a stone and threw it at the trapped fairy.

‘For that evil act you shall lose your beauty and become ugly, I’ll send you home with a donkey’s tail.’ No sooner said than done, she grew an ass’s tail. Terrified
to be seen, she turned and ran home. When her father asked how such a thing had happened she told him about the ugly fairy.

Soon the second daughter went out to seek a new life, and she too came upon the ugly fairy trapped in the gin trap. The same thing happened—when the poor creature asked for help it was
refused, and this sister ran home to hide with a pair of large donkey ears sticking prominently from her head.

The third sister went, and so did the fourth, the fifth and the sixth. All refused to help the fairy and came home with ass’s hoofs and hindquarters and hair all over the body. Into the
tent they went and hid beside the others.

Now it was the turn of Bridget, the seventh daughter, who wasn’t pretty, in fact she was a dowdy girl.