Scotland, in one of her sombre moods, determined not to put on a show for us but I loved her just the same

The pilot’s voice over the tannoy sounded relieved. “Well, folks, we’ve made it,” he said. An enormous red sun had just floated on to the sky as we banked down in the great silver bird towards the Scottish shore. A wrinkled sea lapped the cloudgrey land – home again at last. Ronald and I woke our sleeping children and saw that their seat belts were fastened. The baby, Grant, was still sound asleep in his sky cot. As far as I was concerned it had been a somewhat tense journey.

In Vancouver there had been a delay. “Not quite sure what’s wrong with the plane,” the pilot had told us, “but we’ll see if we can fix it.” An hour later, “Well it sure seems okay now.”

But there was a smidgen of doubt in his voice that left me wondering and we were all in row 13, too. Not that I was really superstitious but how I would have welcomed at that point a British pilot with his certain assurance and not this laid-back Canadian.

It was 1961. “A miracle,” people were telling us. “Just 14 hours from Vancouver to Prestwick over the North Pole.” But I was apprehensive. All that was most dear to me, my husband and our five children, here in this plane.

Fearful

We descended at Montreal to refuel and all went smoothly. After a while, once we were cruising through the dark night sky again, seven miles up and heading north over an Arctic tundra, the pilot told us that we would have to make an unscheduled landing at Goose Bay to refuel again.

“Where is Goose Bay?” I asked.

“In the middle of Labrador, I think,” Ronald replied. “Nothing much there but a landing strip cleared of snow.”

Half exhilarated, half fearful, I waited. It came soon enough with the children still asleep. We thundered down through the freezing air and taxied in. All that was visible through the darkness was flat snowcovered ground, a sparse row of lights, two lonely figures waving paddles and the dim outline of a few tin sheds.

Seven years old, Richard, the oldest of the children, woke up when the plane’s wheels bumped on the hard ground.

“Are we home? Is this Scotland?” he said.

“No, Richard, it’s Goose Bay in Labrador. We have to come down to take on more fuel.”

“But I thought we did that in Montreal,” he pointed out.

“We did but it’s a long way to Scotland. We need a lot.” I tried not to let any apprehension creep into my voice.

Richard seemed satisfied with this and interested, he peered out of the window.

“Nothing much here,” he said, “but snow and more snow.”

Once up in the air again he went back to sleep. Everything seemed to be all right but I couldn’t sleep. Here we were, flying over ice and snow, mile upon mile of it. I could just see it gleaming in the moonlight below me.

Soon we would be home after three long and traumatic years in Canada, first on a prairie farm and then in the prairie town of Edmonton where it was nine months winter but had the advantage of sunlight almost every day.

Cheerful

And now Prestwick. The plane taxied to a halt. How small and inconsequential the Nissen buildings of this Scottish air terminal looked after those of Vancouver.

It was a grey day with a slight drizzle but, late in October, it still wasn’t cold. From somewhere I heard a man whistle, a soft, cheerful, kindly whistle. When I heard that, I knew I was home.

Ronald’s father had sent a car to take us back to the farm on the carse land beside the wide River Tay. Dave Scott, farm grieve, was driving as Ronald’s father’s heart condition rendered him no longer able for such a long journey.

It was good to see a kind face. We plied him with questions as he drove through the dreich weather. Scotland, in one of her sombre moods, determined not to put on a show for us but I loved her just the same. It was good to be home.

They were all there to meet us; Ronald’s father who had come all the way to Canada in the summer to ask us to come back as he could no longer manage the farm; and my mother and father and younger sister, Jean, now training for nursing.

Mrs Stockall, my father-in-law’s plump and cheerful housekeeper, had made a huge meal for us, enough to feed an army. A decent soul needing to be praised over and over again for her efforts, I was too overwhelmed by everything to do it properly. My mother, more than anyone perhaps, was ecstatic. Richard had grown so much and Michael, the grandson who had missed her the most, was six years old now. Where had his brown curls gone to?

Wee Ronnie was chattering away to her. He had had no recognisable words when he had left for Canada at 18 months old. And the two she had never seen; Mahri Louise, the one girl in the family, born three months after arriving in Canada, now three years old with fine, fair hair and blue eyes, and Grant, the baby, nine months old, a big strong boy who looked as if he would take life very much as it came, making no unnecessary fuss.

Mother didn’t know who to take first on to her knee, although the bigger boys, being boys, weren’t so keen to be cuddled.

Rambling

Soon it was evening and time for my folks to go over the Tay to their home in Newport before the sailing of the last ferry. Ronald’s father had rented a smaller house about half a mile away across the railway and facing the fields of the farm. He and Mrs Stockall departed leaving us all in the large rambling farm house that had once been Ronald’s home.

By the time everyone had departed, the children were all exhausted but that didn’t stop them from exploring the house. How many rooms it had compared with the one we had left in Edmonton. Richard counted 25 in all, if you included the large dairy, washhouse, boot cupboard, coalhouse and pantry. Up a separate stair, leading from the back door, was a large ‘maid’s’ bedroom with a splendid view over miles of fertile fields towards the everspreading city of Dundee.

At the top of the house, under the steep roof, were spacious attics smelling faintly of apples. This old farmhouse even boasted a small chapel – the newest part of the building. It had been built on to the east wing in 1876 by the local landlord, Lord Kinnaird, when, for a few years, the Bishop of Brechin had inhabited the house in the last century. On the third landing there was another steep-roofed storey comprising spacious attics.

“Can I have a bedroom of my own?” asked Richard. “Can I? Can I?” said Michael and Ronnie in unison.

More tomorrow