Around the Rowan Tree, Day 30

Margaret Gillies Brown

He could be stubborn and it was difficult to get information out of him, difficult to know what he was thinking

Linda remained for more than a few days. At New Year they announced their engagement. I had guessed that’s how things were going. Ronald and I were delighted.

The day after the announcement I wrote to her parents in Australia. They will be worrying, I thought, about what’s happening to their daughter up here in dark Scotland.

The wedding was arranged for June. Linda had decided she would like to have it in Scotland. “Nothing but the best,” said Ronald. “The George Hotel in Perth. Seeing her folks have all the expense of coming here, I’ll help pay for it.”

Linda’s parents came over to stay with us for six weeks before the wedding in order to get to know us better and help wherever they could. They had never been in Britain before.

Those were a busy happy six weeks. Linda, who had a diploma in fashion and design, made her own wedding dress – a simple cream creation with an embroidered bodice worked by herself.

Her parents brought all sorts of Australian touches to the wedding and made the cake. The day shone brightly on the sun-sparked river which ran in front of the hotel. It was a happy occasion.

Released

With Richard taking on responsibilities back on the farm, Grant was now released and was off to Aberdeen. The leaving process of our fourth son, though, came as rather a bombshell.

Not long before Richard decided to come back and work on the farm Grant had left school, determined to do so. He left with three or four O-grades and one or two unexceptional Highers, much the same results as the others had achieved and certainly not enough to go on to university.

At one stage he had shown a special aptitude for physics which he could understand, but like the rest, he had not studied hard enough. Not going on to higher education was no hardship for Grant. Home lessons had not been encouraged by his dad.

“Home lessons! You shouldn’t have to have home lessons, a school day is long enough. If they can’t teach you between these hours – well! ”

It was the wrong attitude for a father to have if he wanted his sons to go to university but I’d learned to say nothing. They had a happy life at home on the farm, with always something to do, always some new excitement.

“What do you want to do, then?” I asked Grant one day not long before he left school. I got the usual answer. “Dunno, I’ll see.”

Grant was a youth of few words with a detached air, although that may have been deceptive. He had always seemed laid-back and happy enough, an easy lad to bring up. He had always got on well with his father as he wasn’t given to arguing.

“Honest John,” Ronald used to call this handsome son of his with the broad shoulders, deep brow and the calm eyes. He could be stubborn and it was difficult to get information out of him, difficult to know what he was thinking.

He helped on the farm for a short while before his brother came home but underneath he wanted to get away. Like the other Gillies boys, he wanted adventure.

Shock

“I think I’ll go up to Aberdeen. See if I can find work,” he announced one day and was gone. Aberdeen had become a sort of second home to the family with Richard having his flat there. A lot of their friends congregated there too.

Grant got a job through Giant, a labour hire firm used by oil companies. He saved every penny he could. He was a good saver.

After about nine months he came home for a weekend. “I’m off to Canada,” he said, “next week.”

Both Ronald and I got a shock, especially as there had been no mention of it until that point. “You’re only just 18 years old,” I said.

He explained that he was heading for the town of his birth, Edmonton. How long did he mean to be away for, we asked. What was he going to do there?

“Dunno,” was the laconic answer, “but there’s this Canadian girl, Teresa that I met in Aberdeen. She’s from Edmonton. She said she could get me a job okay.

“She lives just outside Edmonton on a quarter section of land with five other girls. I only met her recently but she seems genuine enough and helpful. We got talking one evening.

“When I heard she came from Edmonton I mentioned that was where I was born. ‘Have you ever been back?’ she said.

“‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Haven’t had the opportunity,’ I replied. Then she said: ‘What would you like to do?’ I couldn’t think of anything special to say so I said I wanted to travel.

“‘Where to?’” she persisted. “Why not Canada?” We discussed it a bit. “Are you still a Canadian citizen?” she asked and I said that, as far as I knew, I was. ‘You’ll be able to get a dual passport if you hurry,’ she said. ‘There’s talk of doing away with them but it means you will always be able to work in Canada if you have one’.

“It seemed like a good idea to me. I want to go somewhere different and none of the boys have been in Canada and you’ve always talked of it; the wide open prairie, the sunshine, the extreme cold, the wildness of it all, the sort of place I might like.”

In no time at all, he was gone. I worried, remembering how difficult things could be in Canada.

“Now remember, always keep enough money to phone home if you get into any sort of difficulty.” I had said this to them all but no one ever had.

Frontier lands

It was a while before I heard from Grant and I had no address to write to him. I didn’t worry about this unduly.

I had got accustomed over the years to the boys being out of contact for long stretches of time, and I had so much at home to occupy my mind.

When he went, I asked myself why did Grant, of all the sons, choose to go back to Canada. Although he was unaware of it, perhaps the idea was there from the beginning.

From the earliest of days he had heard tales of his birth in the northern city of Edmonton and of his journey to Scotland at nine months in a jet following the polar route.

Perhaps when he played games with his brothers and sisters on the world map hanging on the kitchen wall, he noticed with more interest than the others, the frontier lands of northern Alberta that he had often heard us talking about.

And he had learned from us, his parents, that Scotsmen had always gone seeking their fortunes in other lands, as if wanderlust was in their blood.

His brothers had gone. He must do likewise.