Tears for a Tinker (11 page)

I had learned a lesson and been drawn back from the brink in the nick of time. Many young women are not so fortunate. From then on my weight stabilised. If I went over I cut back, and if I went
under I ate more, but never again did I enjoy the taste of a dripping-thick battered polony supper.

Sadly, Doctor Mackenzie was right about aborting. Three months after his visit I miscarried.

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POT HARRY

With Chrissie and her lot now living in Macduff, it felt more like a Riley clan gathering. Smashing ceilidhs were held in our parents’ house, with singing, music and
dancing. Neighbours were always welcome, and filled the house to bursting. Mammy and Daddy only drank a dram at New Year, so it was always soft drinks, and the best kind of entertainment comes this
way.

Remember how in
Jessie’s Journey
I shared my childhood days with you, travelling the shoreline in our old blue Bedford bus, and how my obsession with beachcombing had me with head
hung, searching every inch of the beach for scrap metal washed up by the tide? Let me tell you of a man who shared this pastime with me. Pot Harry was his nickname and I think it was because of his
trade—he was a real tinker.

In his day there wasn’t a mile of Argyllshire he hadn’t tramped. He knew every inch of coastline and everyone who lived on it. He was the last of his line. His father passed both his
skills and tools on to Harry, little knowing that modern materials would replace tin and render his skill obsolete. ‘Folks fair looked tae me coming before they bought aluminium things. With
the old knives, forks, gairden tools, plenty o’ need for Harry—but no noo, they didnae need me noo.’ Those words I heard him mutter to himself one day as I played along a stretch
of coast. I was seven years old, and remember like yesterday the colour of his old face and the sparkle in his blue eye. Bonnet tilted to the side of his head, he sat looking out to the ocean.

‘What are you muttering, auld yin? Is the want on you?’

My honest childlike question was simple enough to understand. All I needed was as simple an answer. ‘Ye wee imp, if ma leg wisnae broke, I’d skin ye fur that lip. There’s
nothing’ wrong with my head. Now be away and leave me by myself.’

I could see my mother waving from the bus, which had been settled in a safe spot above the incoming tide. I ran back to the bus and my mother’s stern instructions: ‘You stop talking
to strangers. Who is he, any road?’

‘He’s a live tinker, Mammy, mends pots like the auld folks done.’

This raised a curiosity in her, so taking my hand she walked to where he sat on a rock seat.

As we reached him recognition spread over Mammy’s face. ‘Hello, Pot Harry,’ she said, greeting him with a hug, ‘what are you daeing in these parts? Last time we met, you
said the tinker days were over.’

However before an answer come forth, the old man let out a groan, touching his plastered leg. ‘Wit have ye done tae yer leg?’ my mother said, sitting beside Harry with a look of
genuine concern on her face.

‘Och Jeannie, ye’d never credit it, but all that ah did wis jump oot o’ the road o’ a train. I wis searching for auld tin cans for ma soldering over by Hoolit’s
Bend, when it jist came oot o’ naewhere, bloody train wis on me before I heard it coming.’

‘My God man, are ye deaf? A corpse in its coffin would hear yon rattling, puffing monster.’ My mother laughed, shaking her head, saying the luck was on him for sure, then she asked
where his camp was. He said it was into the wood, no more than a hundred yards from our bus. Then he began moaning once more. She thought maybe this old fellow was in need of some, as they say
today, TLC.

Obviously he’d been hospitalised, hence the heavy stookied leg, but by the way he was going on you’d have thought he’d had to put the plaster on by himself.

‘I think what you need, Harry my lad, is tae come back with us. I’ll get Charlie to fetch yer bivvy and pitch it next tae the bus. What did the doctor say about the leg?’

‘He telt me no tae dae any moving, in case ah did mair damage. But what bothers me, Jeannie...’ his face turned quite serious: he was concerned about something and Mammy’s
second sight told her exactly what. ‘You’re worried the country hantel canny get their knives sharpened and pots soldered, aye, lad.’

‘Ah’m nae sae bothered aboot the sharpening, they ken whaur ah am, they’ll find me, nae doubting that. But ah’ve no a drop solder left tae sort the pots. Bloody stupid
bugger that I am, for no rolling doon the bank away frae thon train. Trust me tae loup in the air and break the bloody leg.’

My mother shook her head and said, ‘if a woman stood up and had her baby instead o’ lying flat, then there’s no many o’ us would be going about.’ Harry nodded, but
I wondered what in the name o’ Rabbie Burns did she mean? As we helped hoppy Harry back to our fire, I had to ask her. Both of them said in unison, ‘all the bairns would chap their
brains and heeds wid yet be empty!’ None the wiser, I put it down to adult talk, and as every seven-year-old knows, adults are mad!

When Daddy came back from the moling he liked the idea of another male around to be able to talk man to man with, and soon we had Harry’s wee tent plus his tinker tools nearby.

We later discovered travelling folks had taken him to hospital, and then when he had come out, left him where he wanted to be, back on the shore beside his tent. They weren’t abandoning
him, as you might think, reader. Travelling folks were always in and around that area, and those who had come to his rescue knew he’d be helped by them. Everybody knew the tinker would be
thereabouts, and as well as his own kind, others needing his services would most certainly seek him out.

We liked Pot Harry, and next day after the breakfast dishes were washed, my family busied themselves in making him comfortable. One of my older sisters found a discarded armchair lying in the
bushes. Daddy re-strapped it with slats of wood. After it had been cleaned up Mammy covered it with an old blanket, and with my three-legged stool for the elevation of his leg, Harry couldn’t
have been more comfortable. He was especially relieved by the knowledge that Daddy had promised to take him back to have his plaster removed in a fortnight, but still he was anxious, because his
handicap prevented him from going out to search for solder.

Poor soul, this insurmountable problem weighed heavy on him. We told stories to entertain him, and sister Shirley formed from some tree branches a pair of crutches so that he could make his
visits to wee behind trees, but I leave that picture to your imagination. Still, try as we might to help, our patient’s worries grew deeper. Only one incident changed his mood for the better,
when Mammy found a bag of minced beef he had long forgotten among his belongings. ‘How long have ye had this, man?’ she asked, holding it at arm’s length. ‘It’s
humming tae the high heavens.’

For the first time since we had set eyes on Harry, he opened his mouth and laughed from his belly. ‘Ye ken this, Jeannie, that mince was rotten when I got it. I manged [asked] it frae a
butcher, it’s for my fishing, ye ragie mort ye!’ (Cant for ‘you silly woman you’.)

‘Well, I’ll put it down here beside this stone, and oor Jessie will rake out a can to keep them in.’

I was curious to see what contents the bag held—yuk, big yellow maggots, that’s what!

‘Go find a rusty can to keep them in, Jessie, and then me and you can go to the water’s edge and fish.’

‘You can pit them on the hooks, because I’ll no hurt anything,’ I told him defiantly.

In no time the battered can I’d found along the beach was crammed with yellow crawlies awaiting a watery death. Poor wee things, what harm did a maggot ever cause us?

Here’s a riddle for you:

A wee maggot, of course.

Anyway, the sea kept her bounty of fish away from the hooked maggots that morning, and as the tide receded, back came Pot Harry’s black mood. As young as I was, I could still feel his
sadness, so asked if there might be something I could do to help.

‘You’re a great bairn, Jessie, but I need solder, and my leg hinders the finding of it. Now help me back intae that braw chair, ma leg’s nipping right sore.’

‘Great’ I don’t think I was, but I certainly was persistent. ‘Tell me where tae get this solder, and I’ll fetch some for you.’ I told him I’d go
everywhere except Hoolit’s Bend.

He stared at the stones around his good foot. I’d given him brain food, he was thinking hard. He then bent over and gathered some of the stones. With a powerful throw, he made each one
skim the water. It was like all his problems went skiff, skiffing with those stones. Somehow it seemed to me I’d either offered a helping hand or given him a difficulty. So, giving the dirty
plaster on his leg a stroke, I told him of the time when, after sitting one day during a film matinee, I thought I could fly, like the screen hero, Batman. ‘Broke ma leg intae bits, Harry.
What a pain, and boy did it nip. Oh aye, thon’s a horrible pain.’

When I’d finished, his smile returned and with it his spine straightened. ‘That’s an awfy stupid thing tae dae. God gave wings tae birds and no you or thon actor gadgie,
Batman. I’ve seen him in heaps o’ films, and he’s as stiff as the plaster on ma leg. Now, kin ye rake the beach and ditches fer syrup and treacle tins?’

‘Nae bother, Harry, I’m champion at raking. I’ll even midden-rake, tae.’

‘Oh lassie, that’s music tae ma ears. Half a mile along the auld road is a braw midden. I never fail tae find dozens o’ tins there. Better ask Mammy’s permission afore ye
go, though.’

I made off breathless with a big jute sack in my hand. Only a ‘cheerio’ did Mammy get, as my mission to find the precious solder galvanised my young legs!

It took me only ten minutes or so to come across a braw heaped midden which lay behind an unlocked metal gate. Before me and my bag could scour its contents, I waited as the ‘churl,
churl’ growl of an old Brownie tractor-engine drifted off down the road leading away from the rubbish tip. The Brownie had just deposited a bogey full of rubbish. ‘Great,’ I
smiled, in my element at being the first to get stuck into this new mountain of trash. I knew that nearby travelling bairns would not be long in joining me, so without inspecting the tins closely,
I shovelled what I could into the jute sack. By the number of treacle and syrup cans I found, it was obvious the village folk in those parts had a liking for scones and sweeties. To make carrying
simpler, I flattened them with a heavy stone. Soon, with a full bag, I made homewards to see Pot Harry. I can still to this day picture that wonderful smile spreading across his grey face when I
appeared, filthy and bedraggled, dragging a jute sack full of rattling, clanking, solder-pocked cans.

Daddy set up a brazier made from an oil-drum cut in half and filled with coals, and set it by Harry. It was as if the broken leg had been forgotten as he carefully melted the solder, and saved
it like gold into a metal cup, to be used to fix handles back onto pots and pans, mend pitchforks etc. While I had been collecting from the midden, Mammy had taken herself off round farms and
houses, telling folks that Harry was able to do his work, hence the pile of jobs awaiting his expert attention. Pot Harry—a real ‘trade tinkler’.

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