Around the Rowan Tree, Day 53

The greatest bus journey of my life,” Kathleen told me after she got home. “The views were breathtaking”

Some time later Kathleen changed her job. She took up work in one of Aberdeen’s night shelters. I was pleased that she was doing such necessary work but apprehensive too. “Who comes into these places? What sort of people?” I asked her. “People who are down on their luck and without homes,” she replied. “Unlucky people.” “Are some of them not dangerous?” “Not really,” said Kathleen. “The shelter is their last place of refuge. They’re unlikely to attack us.” She admitted that her job could be stressful at times.

It helped that, at a dance, she had met a boy, redhaired like herself and about her own age. They got on well together and fell in love. His name was Rab.

Rab was a great climber in the Scottish mountains. There was nothing he enjoyed more. “What are you going to do for a living?” Kathleen had asked him.

“Oh, something will turn up,” he said and it did. Some of his friends had formed a company to work on the oil rigs. They were abseilers, they could abseil up and down anything, a very useful skill to have as far as the oil companies were concerned. Advantage They were employed more and more to paint, do minor repairs or weld in inaccessible places. Rab went to work with them.

After a while Rab and Kathleen decided to take advantage of a cheap round-the-world trip for the exploring young. The plan was to spend a year away and explore the places they arrived in.

India was their first destination. Kathleen wanted to show Rab the country she had fallen in love with – “nowhere more alive,” she told him.

On arrival they headed for Nepal, travelling by bus. Buses in India were always filled to capacity. “If you can hang on, you can get on” was the ruling.

Inside the bus, with so many other people they felt like sardines in a tin. At every stop they noticed someone get out to climb on the roof. Soon they did likewise and found it a much better way to travel. The roofrack was palatial compared to inside the bus.

“The greatest bus journey of my life,” Kathleen told me after she got home. “The views were breathtaking, the snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas cutting into the deep blue sky. Even more breathtaking, the sheer cliff drops on the sharp corners seen from the roof-rack.”

Later they were told they were in the best place if the bus tipped over a precipice (and it did happen from time to time) – you could always jump off!

Rab and Kathleen stayed in Nepal for a month exploring the mountain paths and hill towns along the way. That is where Kathleen thought she caught the illness that was to plague her off and on for some time to come.

After Nepal they journeyed south to Varanasi in India. It was election time there and fighting had flared up between Hindus and Muslims. Wanting to protect the tourists, the Indians shepherded them to safe accommodation.

Fortunately, the troubles were nearly over by the time they got to Varanasi. “Oddly, Mum,” Kathleen told me at a later date, “Amidst all the chaos I found more peace there than anywhere else in India.

“The holy Ganges runs close to Varanasi. As you know I’m not of a religious nature but the Ganges held a spirit of some kind. There was a feeling of peace there as soon as you approached the river.

“When we sat on its banks a low fog hovered over the river muffling sound. Men in long boats appeared and slowly disappeared into the distance. Two fresh water porpoises skimmed the surface of the water, bringing life into a river used for death.” Landscape At Varanasi, Kathleen became ill but didn’t like the sound of the doctors she heard about so Rab and she travelled by train to the bigger city of Delhi.

Kathleen was so ill and weak by the end of the journey that Rab had to carry her to the toilet and back. The doctor in Delhi diagnosed dysentery and prescribed antibiotics.

Kathleen recovered quickly and Rab and she took a trip riding on camels through what seemed like an endless and barren desert to a sandstone castle and a town where stalls were laid out with brightly-coloured turbans and lengths of cloth reflecting the rich colours of the landscape.

Kathleen began to feel ill again. They returned to Delhi by train and decided to leave India because of Kathleen’s health problems.

They flew to Thailand and a doctor in Bangkok diagnosed Giardia – “a disease,” he told them, “that is hard to detect because of the way it comes and goes”.

Again she was put on medication and recovered, although by this time she was scarecrow thin. She kept reasonably well for a while and after exploring Thailand they travelled on to Malaysia. In Singapore Kathleen took ill again and landed in a hospital bed.

“Perhaps you have bowel cancer,” the doctors suggested. “We’ll have to operate to find out.” Rab refused to allow this. Again, medication was administered and she began to recover.

It was in this hospital bed in Singapore that Rab proposed to Kathleen. “Let’s get out of here first,” was Kathleen’s reply.

They travelled to Australia and saw a doctor there. They told him what the Singapore opinion had been. “The only thing these doctors thought you had was a good health insurance policy,” he replied.

Gradually Kathleen began to feel stronger and the bouts of Giardia waned. But her troubles weren’t over yet. On a far flung beach bordering the coral reefs she stepped on the tail spike of a dangerous stingray.

Quickly her whole leg blew up to an enormous size. The doctor shook his head. “Not good,” he said and stuck in an enormous needle.

Gradually the swelling went down. At this point they nearly came home. We got a phone call from Australia telling us nothing of their troubles, only that they had become engaged. Improved Things improved after that. They got work in Australia for a while, Kathleen endlessly licking stamps, before flying to New Zealand. Postcards arrived from that country saying they were on a tour with other young people and what fun it was, and what a beautiful country.

A year later they were home and married. They had managed to buy an attractive old house, a keeper’s lodge, near a lonely village in Aberdeenshire where they lived for several years.

But after the arrival of their daughter, Jasmin, things became too difficult with the remoteness of the place and Rab being away so often on the rigs. Due to the nature of Rab’s work, it didn’t really matter where he lived.

“How about moving to the Carse of Gowrie?” Kathleen suggested.

After selling up they lived with us in the farm house for six months while looking for a house in the Carse. The houses they looked at were all very expensive and nothing suitable turned up.

Eventually they applied for, and got, permission to build a house at East Inchmichael. Now, apart from Mahri, who lived in Perth but came down on weekdays to be with us, every one was home again. More tomorrow.