Around the Rowan Tree, Day21

Comradeship was immortal. Any wrongdoing had been buried with the men, left in the desert, buried in the unconscious, forgotten

It would not be easy. In order to go to a better school she was prepared to bike 15 miles a day. But she probably got a place in the university largely because so many of the boys had gone off to the Great War. She got an MA and then a teaching certificate. Jobs were not easily come by for women even after the Great War with so many men killed but barely had she time to get one before she fell for and married a much older man than herself – the factor of the estate where her people had farmed for three hundred years. He died of a heart attack several years after they were married.

Mother took over his job as factor, perhaps one of the first lady factors in Scotland. She loved her work, found it varied and interesting but after a while realised that what she wanted more than anything else was a child. In 1928 she met and married my father. I was their first, very much wanted child. After my sister was born the depression was in full swing. Dad had to take on a lesser job and salary but at least he had a job and they managed. When the next war came, in order to protect us, mother took us up to the Ochil Hills where she rented a smallholding.

My father, a townsman at heart said of the location: “It’s the sort of place you would go to if you’d committed a murder,” but agreed to go for our safety. Here mother cultivated the few acres. This was her war work, providing food for others. It wasn’t completely convenient for Dad’s job and often he just got home at the weekends. Towards the end of the war, when teachers became scarce, mother got a job in Dundee. She also only got home at the weekends. At 15, I was considered quite capable of looking after the small holding and my younger sister still at school. It was a lonely life but suited me well enough. Vivacious And now she was no longer in this world. My father was a very different person to my mother. Where she was vivacious and outgoing, he was reserved and quiet. Where she was erratic and a dreamer he was steady as a rock and content with little as long as he could spend some time playing golf. When mother died it left a huge gap in my father’s life which he hoped, to a certain extent, I would fill. Here lay difficulty. I had so many other commitments. Ronald’s health was giving cause for concern. He needed me more and more to do the driving and though growing older, the children all needed me. Fortunately, in his comfortable cottage Dad lived next door to one of the ploughmen and his wife. She was very kind to him, plied him with baking, jam and home-made soup. He started going out to golf more often, taking the back roads to Dundee and crossing the river to Tayport to his favourite course, but he needed something more to interest him. He had been talking a lot about the First World War that he had been through in his youth.

“Right through it, I was. Joined up as soon as I could. I was in Spillers’ London office at the time and my mate and me went down to recruiting barracks and joined up with the London Scottish. They were desperate for young men like us and we were keen to go, couldn’t wait to serve king and country, see a bit of the world.”

So Dad had once seen the world as exciting. Perhaps he’d got it all knocked out of him in that dreadful war, and was glad of a quiet life. He never talked much about the war to us as children. He never mentioned the horrors, nor the medals he had won. Occasionally he showed us the bullet wounds in his chest.

“Carried, half dead across the desert in a stretcher,” he said, “never thought I would see home again.” If he did tell us about it, it was to praise the stoicism of men and the humour of his Cockney compatriots who often were responsible for keeping up the morale of their fellows. Salonica Dad sang, from time to time, the old war songs, a war which we as children thought must really have been in the dark ages. Otherwise he never talked about it, wanting, I believe, to leave all the horrors of it behind. But now after mother’s death he began to talk of it more and more, not so much the horrors but about the great comradeship, nothing like it nowadays and especially the time he had served in Salonica.

“What a place that was, a desolate country and we didn’t ever quite know who we were supposed to be fighting. How I would like to meet up with some of these old comrades again!”

“Well why not, Dad,” I said, “I’m sure there’s still some of them about. Why not put an ad in The Courier and arrange a meeting, a meal or something.”

Dad was surprised at the number of replies he got to his advert. He arranged a meal in a hotel in Perth. They all attended. It was a great success and it became an annual event. After three years or so the Provost of Perth, a kindly man, got word of it and gave them a civic reception. The old boys were overwhelmed.

“The forgotten army, that’s what we were, the forgotten army.” Forgotten no longer, the Provost saw to it that each year after that their annual outing was funded.

Dad used to insist that I went with him. At first I tried to wriggle out of it. “But Dad, I’ve so much to do.” However, I went somewhat reluctantly. It would be boring, all these old boys going on about their experiences. But I was wrong. I didn’t find it boring in the slightest. It was fascinating. So many characters and so much to say. I learned things I had never dreamed of from them. Some seemed to have instant recall and a vivid way of telling their story; the trenches, the mud, the snakes, the snow, not knowing who the enemy was and the difference in the place today. Some had been back on organised trips. Now it was a green and fertile land. So inspired was I by their experiences that it gave me food for a series of poems. Comradeship I often wished Dad would go, while he was still able, on one of these excursions back to Salonica. But he was content with his meetings and with the new interest, friends and comrades he had made.

Not long before he died, an archivist came from Manchester to question Dad on his war experiences. Inadvertently I happened to visit Dad while he was there questioning him. The man was introduced to me. “I’m just about finished,” he said. “Just a few more questions.” “And in the trenches,” he continued, holding the microphone towards my dad. “This comradeship you mention so often was it ever violated? Did any of the soldiers ever let you down?” “No, never,” said my father without any hesitation. “We’ll not pursue that line,” said the questioner kindly. I heard the disbelief in his voice but perhaps he had come up against this before. Comradeship was immortal. Any wrongdoing had been buried with the men, left in the desert, buried in the unconscious, forgotten. More tomorrow