The Post Office - only the names have changed

 

THE POST OFFICE 

It was 8.30 am on a cold Monday morning, and two figures materialised at the door of the Post Office.  No use wondering where they appeared from, it was the same every week, no matter how early I was.  I jiggled with the old keys for the old door and Mary Henderson and Jane Green followed my heels inside.

‘morning Mary, morning Jane,’ I said, ‘come away in out of the cold,’ then noticed, they already had.

‘morning Morag,’  chimed two voices; one a heavy English accent, the other a Highland lilt.

‘’Noo we’re no in ony hurry mind,’ Mary said, ‘you tak yer time lass.’  Mary held herself straight for her eighty years; a big woman, she struck an imposing figure in her brown tweed  coat that was nearly as old as she.  Jane, on the other hand, was thin to the point of scrawny; all points and sharpened edges, like her chin.  Little and Large greeted me the same way every week.

I clunked through the security door to get behind the counter; the security door that I could shimmy under when I locked myself on its wrong side; the security door with the piece of hardboard bolstering the back of it.   I switched on both the computers then chucked my coat on a chair in the back-shop.

While I turned off the alarm and rescued the limpet from the front of the heavy iron safe, I listened to the usual conversation between the optimist and the pessimist.

‘gae cauld the day,’ - Mary

‘but lovely and bright,’  - Jane.

‘aye it caud be whar I suppose,’ Mary’s brown handbag shrugged closer to the impressive bosom, ‘but it’ll rain afore denner time, ye’ll see.’

Monday was officially started as I took my place at my counter, ‘now ladies, what can I do for you?’

Christine Petrie popped her head round the door, resplendent in purple tammy that seemed to get bigger every week.  ‘Is it pay day?’ she asked.

‘Not today Christine,’ I shout to her, ‘this is only Monday, come back tomorrow.’  Christine worked on the principle, that if she came in every day, one day in seven, she would pick the right one to collect her pension.

‘Right you are.’  Christine waved and set off with her tartan shopping trolley.  That trolley followed her everywhere.  I don’t think it ever actually held anything and it was always being found abandoned, but it was part of who Christine was.

My assistant, Clare, arrived as the queue grew, but everyone enjoyed catching up with people they only saw once a week.

David Gourley was telling everyone where to find free food. 'There's a nice crop of wild spinach down at the burn and lovely mushrooms out at the airfield,’ he told all and sundry. He didn't mention the effluence that was the runoff from the pig farm at the burn or the fumes from the go-kart racing out at the airfield that I suspected had a detrimental effect on free food.  It was David’s aim in life never to pay for food if he could avoid it, down to raiding the butcher's bin for the odd pig's head.  Pete, the butcher, had to put a padlock on it or face the wrath of the Health and Safety officers.  

At the ripe old age of seventy-four,  David was waiting to die.
'Three score years and ten,' he told Mrs Birse, who was trying hard to follow his train of thought. 'We are promised three score years and ten and I've had my fill.' He even managed to sound enthusiastic about it. 'I'm ready to go any time,’ he continued.  David was very proper in his speech which always seemed at odds with his frayed shirt sleeves and ragged tank top. 'I'm ready to go at any time, aren't you Mrs Birse?'

'Well,' replied a rather subdued Mrs Birse, leaning heavily on her cane. 'I suppose it might be something of a relief.'

‘Of course, one could always commit suicide,’ he continued, ‘but that would be cheating would it not?’  Into the silence that descended on the Post Office. At the head of the queue, he asked for one first class stamp, presumably not into buying more than one at a time in case he pegged it before he needed them.

Mrs Birse, the wealthiest woman in the village, put 5p into the charity box for the seventeen second-hand books she had picked out on the premise that charity began at home.

'Liz' I said with an inward groan as Liz Cooper approached.  Sure enough, on the busiest morning of the week, she delved into the depths of her poly bag and brought forth ten packets of 20p pieces, each wrapped lovingly and VERY tightly in cling film.

'Morning Morag,' she said cheerfully, 'my phone bill arrived the day.' Sometimes it was the gas bill but I doubt either actually hit the floor as they came through the letterbox. Liz turned to her sister, Grace Patterson, who clacked her loose false teeth at her and continued her interrupted conversation. 'Aye, I heard it from Jenny, they found him lying in a puddle.'

Douglas, the subject of the conversation and our local drunk, entered and cleared the place immediately as everyone remembered they had to pay their papers or buy something from the butcher - urgently.  Douglas, bless his unwashed socks, smelt a bit ripe. While I am still counting the 20p pieces, Clare lit a scented candle.  We kept the candle especially for his  visits, in a vain attempt to clear the air.   Liz Cooper buried her nose in her handkerchief and Grace sidled over to the second-hand paperback books, as far away from the counter as possible and I asked, 'Will someone open that door please.’?

'Morning, Mistress,' said Douglas, one hand to his forehead.  Poor Douglas, his teeth were completely yellow, his grey hair dank and greasy under a woollen hat that used to be a tea-cosy.  The lining of his jacket hung at odd angles, his trousers rode at half-mast and were fastened round his waist with string. At one time an intelligent man, he lived in a council flat without electricity because he never paid the bill. The local fire brigade were regular visitors whenever he sets something on fire and the local bobby kept an eye on him to make sure he didn’t die in the middle of the night with no-one to miss him.

Actually, someone would miss him: if he didn’t turn up for his pension on a Monday, if he didn’t visit the hotel at lunchtime or collect his fish and chips from the chippy, the phone line would be red hot to the bobby. There were more wooden boards on his door now than original door, thanks to the frequent official break-ins to check up on him when he was too drunk to answer the door. Why he didn’t just issue them with a key, I didn’t know.

I would have kept one; I already held an odd assortment of keys behind the counter.  Miss Mackie, for example, left one with me – and one at the doctor’s surgery, the paper shop, the butcher’s, the fruit shop and the local fish man’s van.  Miss Mackie, (I was in the war you know,) is very deaf and had a morbid fear of collapsing in the night.  As usual I saw her outside the window.  I waved to acknowledge she had indeed survived another night, and she toddled off.

In the meantime Grace MacIntosh brought yet another card up to the counter and asked how much it would cost to send it to a) America (and oh is Canada the same?) and b) to Australia, Asia and South America.  She never bought any, or posted them as far as I was aware. Perhaps it was the romance of far off places that gave her such simple pleasure in expanding her horizons from the village where she was born, raised, married and widowed.

Lizzie Taylor entered with Jeannie Craven; the latter almost bent double, but still muttering gamely at the old woman in front of her.  Little Lizzie Taylor was permanently cheerful; five foot nothing in her rundown wellie boots, her knitted bonnet nodded every time she spoke.  Lizzie was queen of our village roads.  Fortunately, her firm belief in her divine right to ride her bike in the perfect centre, and to turn whenever and wherever the notion took her, was respected by the locals.  We just prayed visitors were equally vigilant.

Jeannie Craven, in contrast, must have been five foot ten in the days when she could stand tall.  She had worked the land all her life; up with the dawn, to bed with the dark.  She played the bagpipes enthusiastically in the days when it was more than unusual for women to be seen playing them at all. She sorely missed the pipes now she hadn’t the breath to play them.   Still, she often sat with her pal, old Davey Cook who practiced the pipes in his garden.  Davey said bagpipes were never meant to be played indoors and enriched our lives when his playing wafted over the village in the evening air.  He was even known to take requests, if you caught him in the right mood.

‘Do you have any spare £1 coins Morag?’ Michael, the new pharmacist asked from the doorway.  I knew he would have left a note on the door of the pharmacy:  ‘back in a minute’. I also knew he would return to find someone standing there when he got back, not actually wanting anything, but ‘jist winted tae see how lang yer minute wis’.

As usual, I watched in fascination as the assorted ladies of the village pressed back against the card racks to let him pass.  Michael grinned at them as they preened. Younger than most of the community by at least 30 years, Michael and his young family were a fine addition to the community, not least because Michael was an outrageous flirt.

I let my simper die when I caught Clare’s eye and handed over several packets of £1 coins without demur – I’d find some way to explain to the Post Office why I was asking for extra change later in the week – well, I was menopausal, not dead.

In came Joe Petrie, looking for all the world like Santa Claus with his white hair and white beard.  Joe was the ‘younger’ man of sixty-five who escorted ageing ladies to the Post Office on a Monday morning to collect pensions and then carry their shopping home. On his arm, old Mrs Ewart tottered over to the counter and handed me her pension book, together with the list I would dutifully return ready for next week – 1 TV stamp, 2 gas stamps, 1 BT stamp and 2 second class stamps.

Outside, I saw the red postie’s van draw up and groaned when I saw Jim unwind his long length.  Jim and I were old antagonists: he swore at me, I shouted at him. I did try to be nice, though.  I let the spring on the parcel shelf window release as he approached the counter, ‘Morning Jim.’

‘Don’t know what’s good about it,’ he grumbled, throwing the clipboard in my general direction.  Clare the peacemaker stepped in quickly and took over, smoothly pushing me back to my own counter position where I would be more productive.

‘The Major’ entered and Jim immediately drew himself up,  ‘Good morning Major,’ he said in an alert kind of voice and I clenched my teeth to prevent myself telling him the only thing ‘The Major’ was ever in charge of was a quartermaster’s warehouse.

‘Good morning all,’ Major William said and, if you listened carefully, you could hear the word ‘troops’ replacing the ‘all’.  I cheerfully issued him with his free car-tax disc for his Land Rover, so old it classed as historic.  That old Land Rover regularly disappeared from in front of his house when someone needed a ride home; the Land Rover had no locks and a manual starter, so was easy prey for everyone who knew about it.

Jim left and I unclenched my teeth enough to smile again.  Old Miss Rennie, everyone's first primary school teacher, reached my counter and I tried to serve her quickly before the ever-present drip at the end of her nose finally dropped.   Charlie MacIntosh, last of the old guard fishermen asked about my roses, his friend George, about my cats.  Before he retired, George would leave a bag full of fish-heads hanging on my door.  I never had the courage to tell him even Domino, she of the iron stomach, wouldn’t eat them. 

The day disappeared in a flurry of pensions, stamps and bills.  We helped fill out endless forms, listened to tales of aches and pains, gripes about family and neighbours and caught up with births and celebrations.

A final visit from Miss Caird for an envelope to send her used stamps off for the ‘deaf dogs’, aka the charity, Dogs for Deaf People, and it was time to lock up, go home, put my feet up and count my blessings.  Maybe that would be the one evening when no-one knocked on the door because they had dropped their keys in the post-box, or they because they had forgotten to buy a birthday card – maybe it wouldn’t, but what the hell, that was what I loved about it.

 

 

 

   

Vegetarian Clootie Dumpling: My take on a traditional Scottish Dessert Recipe

How to Make a Vegetarian Clootie Dumpling

A silver threepence piece via Wiki commons

Here's my recipe for a vegetarian clootie dumpling. This was one of my familiy's favourite pudding served up on special occasions. In case you don't know, clootie dumpling is a traditional Scottish steamed fruit pudding and named for the cloth or cloot it was steamed in. Lucky coins, (usually silver three-penny-pieces my father saved and duly exchanged for a half-crown), were wrapped in grease-proof paper and included in the pudding before cooking: giving the pudding a stir was thought to guarantee every child a lucky coin.

It is traditionally cooked with beef suet but thankfully you can now get vegetarian suet - failing that use butter instead, this will make a lighter pudding.

It is best served hot with double cream but you can also use custard or ice-cream. It can be eaten cold, much like a rich fruit cake. The most famous clootie dumplings were made my Ma Broon, of the cartoon Broons family, who liked it fried with bacon!

Today you can buy them on line if you don't make them yourself and they interesting and unique gifts. If you make your own, wrap the dumpling in a pretty clean dry cloth or muslin and tie with a tartan bow.

Carrou Mor Vignettes: Of School Days

Of School Days in Kirriemuir

Bellies Brae Kirriemuir by Gwen and James Andersonunder Wiki commons 

There were two primary schools in Kirrie, ours, the Southmuir Primary School part of Webster’s Seminary and the Reform Street Primary up the town which might as well have been another country for all the contact we had with it we definitely felt superior since ours was attached to the high school, proudly the only non-Catholic Seminary in Scotland at that time.

The Southmuir primary was a pretty red stone building that stood at the top of Bellies Brae and had served countless generations before becoming too small to service the growing population. From our side it was on the level but anyone coming from the town had a long climb from the Gairie Burn and Bellies Brae up to it. Those old steps were uneven rough stone of undetermined age.  Everyone and their granny used those steps and the playground as a short cut from one side of the town to the other, much to the annoyance of Mr McIntosh the school janitor.

 When I was little I thought McIntosh owned the school, living as he did in a small house in the grounds; it took a while before it clicked that he was the caretaker and groundsman.  A great brute of a man, he looked like a giant to our five year old eyes, much like Hagrid before Rowling created him.  Not as soft as that giant though.  McIntosh – I never knew his first name - took everything personally within his well kept grounds.  Gruff and dour, he glowered at everyone from under heavy black eyebrows skimmed by his old army bunnet. 

Young and old alike ran the gauntlet of his wrath in taking the short cut.  Many arguments would drift in through the windows while little ears flapped listening to McIntosh tearing strips off some old lady who had just panted her way up one hundred steps.   In response, people either ignored him, or gave back as good as they got,

‘If ye think...’ pant, ‘I’m gawing back doon they steps McIntosh...’ pant, ‘ye can think agin.  I pay my taxes like abody else.’

Some people even he wouldn’t challenge; specifically, Mrs Elder.  The sight of her tartan headscarf coming into view above the parapet of stone wall would see McIntosh disappearing in the opposite direction.  Sometimes he didn’t quite make it round the corner of a building before she topped the steps and Mrs Elder would catch a glimpse of him,

‘Aye, ye scurry awa ye wee rodent ye,’ would drift through the windows and she would mutter her way down passed primary’s four, five and seven.  Mrs Elder stood five foot nothing in her stocking soles to McIntosh’s six foot four, proving size didn’t matter when it came to dealing with bullies.

Inside, we didn’t actually see any of this; the windows, great arched things with impressive stone lintels, were high off the ground, presumably to prevent distraction from our chanted times tables. The general layout was simple; classrooms on each side and a square in the middle lined with gym benches, for PE, assembly, choir practice and the odd play.   

You started with entry through the left-hand side door progressing annually from primary one to two to three down the left of the building, let’s skip over the boy and girls toilets that formed the top of the square, then on the other side, down to four and five - one big room divided in two by a glass and wood screen.  There was a brief side step into primary six at the front beside the office, then back to primary seven, the last class room before you exited the right hand side door and up to the BIG school. 

When we were five, Gracie Bruce and I went eagerly to this familiar building.  We had been inseparable since we were two years old, and together, we could do anything.  There is a photograph somewhere of that first day, of the pair of us in cotton dresses, school bags on backs and grinning manically into the camera at the door of Grace’s house, our introduction to the world delayed by the necessity of recording it. 

Besides having each other, it also helped that the school was at the end of our road, familiar territory and well within our comfort zone.   Not so for Lesley Cameron, this was her first extended absence from her mum and she spent the whole day hanging onto the door knob, howling.  I can remember being puzzled that anyone would be so reluctant to leave home.  Maybe she had the right of it after all, to clinging as long as possible to childhood.  Miss Petrie, by that time Primary One teacher for three decades, let her stay by the door, obviously watching to see she didn’t harm herself, and simply raising her voice above the noise.   Next day Lesley came and sat behind Gracie and I, and that was that.       

Behind me also, and for the next seven years, sat the Thomson twins, Peter and Andrew, the same pair who shared my baptism day.  For some reason, I have carried that tenuous connection to the twins with me throughout my life.  Everything twin-like got my complete attention, and I thought nothing would have pleased me more than to be the mother of twins.  Not to be, but later as a midwife I did delivery a couple of pairs of twins to my great delight, and that must serve.  But I digress.

Memories of primary school days are scanty.  I remember the old oak tree that dominated the playground at the top of the steps.  That tree was used for everything; it formed shelter from rain and sun, around its raised roots we created our own games, swarmed in its branches, and, later on, it became a trysting place for our first romantic encounters.  That tree was solid.   I always imagined the roots grew down inside the whole of that hill, a huge anchor that kept us earthed to Scottish soil.

For those years, the school was the centre of our universe, the spot from which we surveyed the rest of town life.  From its grounds on one side and down the brae was the Commonty, the jute factories and the old gas tanks, empty but still stinking.   

Waterfall at the top of the Gairie Burn, Kirriemuir

Wiki Commons

The Commonty was common land, a swathe of green, a path along the top, another down the far side going toward the factory.  At the bottom, another path and then the burn.  It’s important to remember that the burn was at the other side of the path in winter.  When the snow came, at every playtime and lunchtime there was a scramble to find a cardboard box to slide down the Commonty.  If you timed it wrong, you hit the bottom of the slope, flew over the path and into the burn.  Shrieking kids, who normally hated being wet, were willing to forego comfort and were content to spend afternoon classes steaming gently in classrooms whose perfume then became wet wool and leather.   

Funny -  the scents and smells that take you back.

Memories of Mum

Margaret Mackie Buick Reid

Memories of Mum on Mother's Day

As we reach Mother's day it is natural my mind turns to memories of my mum. Margaret Mackie Buick Reid.

Kellie Castle Fife Scotland

Photos and Info on Kellie Castle Pittenweem Fife Scotland

Kellie Castle Fife Scotland

As part of the St Andrews Poetry Festival this year I was lucky enough to spend a day at Kellie Castle in a workshop led by Sandy - I thought you might enjoy seeing some of my photographs in and around the castle.

There has been a dwelling on this site for something like 600 years though not in its present form. The first would have been a typical Scottish tower house, a simple tower with thick walls, narrow windows, winding stone stairs and tiny rooms. There was probably a 'great hall' the largest room with two fireplaces to heat. Everyone from Laird down would dine there before the top table retired to the 'withdrawing room'. The tiny rooms remain as do the uneven stone stairs.