The Serial: A Rowan Tree In My Garden Day 31

After the questions were over, he said to me: “Well, Margaret! May I call you that? Miss Pollock seems so formal. You don’t seem to know a great deal about the present-day world, but I’ll tell you what to do.

“Go back home and read the Sunday Post every week, and the Courier, our sister paper, every day for a year, and then come back to me and we’ll see. By the way, you could also hone up on your spelling.”

The interview was over. I was disappointed not to have got the job, because I did want to start to be independent, but pleased to have something to work towards that I thought I could easily manage. I would do as he advised and learn as much as I could about everyday happenings.

I was dying to start living as a grown up and to see more of the world as well as learning about it, but how?

Holidays in our family, and in many other families, were not much thought about. Before the war, apart from a few days at the seaside perhaps, people didn’t go on holiday because there was no spare money around and during the war there was rarely any opportunity for such frivolities.

Perfectly happy

Now the country was in a state of convalescence. Our father seemed perfectly happy if he got free time on the golf course, and Mother if she could make unexpected flurries up to the farm in Aberdeenshire for a few days.

I wanted to see places I hadn’t seen before. I found out about the Youth Hostel Association, still in its infancy, which I joined. I knew that it didn’t cost much to stay at Youth Hostels, and I had my old but sturdy bike that would take me to them.

Mother, however, would not let me go on my own. She said it was not safe.

“Mum,” I said one day, not long after my interview. “I’m going to put an advert in the Courier for a girl, about my own age, to come on a hostelling holiday with me.”

Mother wasn’t too keen on the idea, but didn’t try to stop me. The upshot was two girls applied from different parts of Perthshire. They were about my own age and had just left school.

We all met up in Dundee to arrange the holiday. We decided to go to the Trossachs as we had heard it was a beautiful part of Scotland. We were not disappointed.

We were fortunate to have good weather for most of the way there, as we cycled from hostel to hostel on roads that had little in the way of traffic, and skirted mountain, moor and river. It was early summer and the light green leaves on trees and bushes had not yet grown dark and coarse. Wild birds were everywhere, hatching and feeding their young.

I was in my element and the girls were good company. We travelled light and bought food from small village shops as we needed it. The most magical time of all occurred, for me, while we were staying in a hostel near Loch Ard.

On the night we were there the moon was full. My companions were tired after a strenuous day and had turned in to the female dormitory early, but I went for a walk, and on reaching the loch was overwhelmed by the beauty of it.

Inspired

The water was pale silver. Not far off a few tall pines, almost black, were perfectly mirrored in the loch. Beyond, across the motionless water, the moon threw a milk white satin band of light. All was silent, still, and yet it seemed charged with life. It was one of these rare moments when feelings, as Wordsworth says, are “too deep for words”.

Next day the weather changed. Rain lashed down in waves. At times, thunder roared and lightning lit up black clouds. We made for Killin. There, the Falls of Dochart gave an inspired orchestral performance.

From a small butcher’s shop in the village we treated ourselves to three rather dubious looking steaks and made for the hostel and its cooking facilities. It was early in the evening and much to our surprise it was absolutely packed with soaking bodies like our own.

Trying to get anywhere near the stove to cook our steaks was a major manoeuvre. The other hostels we had visited had been half empty but this one certainly was not.

Eventually we managed to edge our way to the stove but while tending to the steaks we kept getting jostled by other hungry hostellers wanting their turn.

Browning both sides of the steak was as much as we could manage. They were tough and half raw but we ate them anyway. We were hungry.

Next day we started on the journey home. When I did eventually arrive home Mother was relieved to see me back, all in one piece and looking bronzed, healthy and happy.

The rest of the summer passed pleasantly enough. On my trusty bike I explored the countryside nearer home. Accustomed to my own company I was quite happy. Sister Jean and I were beginning to grow apart.

My interests were not her interests. Besides, she spent quite a bit of the summer studying Latin for the following year’s exams. She was determined to get to university, much to Mother’s pleasure. Also, happygo-lucky Jean had made plenty friends at school.

I loved these breenges into the neighbouring countryside. To the south there were a lot of narrow, elbowing roads that passed a green and fertile farming area of low hills, pleasing to the eye, where I could be with the growing crops as I had been at Dollar.

Wilderness

To the east, six miles or so distant, at the Firth of the magnificent river Tay stood Tayport. It was very different from both Wormit and its neighbouring village, Newport, which were really rather grand dormitories for Dundee.

Tayport had a different atmosphere altogether. It was a workaday place with an interesting small harbour. I much preferred that.

South from Tayport, at the sea’s edge, ran Tentsmuir, a wonderful wilderness of sand and sea and forest. Sometimes my trusty bike and I would head west along the river. I especially loved visiting the ancient and tiny village of Balmerino.

It lies hidden down by the riverside and I remember it as a higgledy-piggledy of picturesque houses with gardens bright with flowers.

It boasted the ancient ruins of a Cistercian abbey, which I thought must be one of the most peaceful places on earth. Little disturbed life in this tiny place, although earlier in the century a ferry had often taken people over from Dundee to picnic there.

(More tomorrow.)