of Sydney and would often mail photographs and letters home to their family. I remember Mum spent ages trying to convince me that the scene I was looking at in one particular black-and-white photo did not portray any snow.
‘No, Alan, it’s white sand, not snow,’ she would say.
When the penny finally dropped, I spent my days dreaming of paddling in the ocean and playing with my pet kangaroo. I couldn’t believe that, in Australia, kids played in shorts, no shirts and bare feet.
~
I’m not sure whose idea it was to move to Australia, Mum’s or Dad’s. I didn’t really care; I was just so excited I would be travelling, firstly by train across the Forth Bridge then down to Southampton, England. On the 15th March 1962 we set sail for Australia. We were off on an epic six-week ocean voyage to start a new life in a new land.
I’ve always admired my parent’s pioneering spirit. To be able to uproot your entire family and leave everything you’ve ever known took some guts. I’m still not sure if things in Scotland were really that terrible or the chance for a new life in Australia seemed too good to resist. Dad was in his thirties and Mum in her late twenties. Dad was leaving behind his mother and nine siblings while Mum was saying goodbye to her mother and little sister, Sheena. Not knowing if you will ever see your family again must have been heart-wrenching, yet, like many of that generation who had lived through the Second World War, toughness and resilience was embedded in their character. I’m not sure I could have done it. Sometimes I think their hardiness made me emotionally weaker. As an adult, I always felt that I fell short of their toughness, resilience and emotional strength. Tagged, ‘The Silent Generation’, their age group suffered through the Great Depression and the Second World War, yet they didn’t complain, they just shut up and got on with the job.
My parents’ relationship always confused me. In some ways they were very similar; both loved a party, travelling, music, were very sociable and both had a very strong work ethic, yet they always seemed to find something to argue about. I always had the feeling that Dad’s moral compass was a little askew and Mum spent half her life trying to correct it.
Dad was very young when he left school and immediately went to work felling trees for a timber company; hard work for someone his age, especially during the wild Scottish winters. Further odd jobs followed until he was old enough to join the British Army. World War II was just winding down and, as an eighteen year old, he was sent to Northern India as part of the British Army’s involvement in the India Independence Act 1947. This ended British control in the region and eventually led to the creation of Pakistan.
Following World War II, Dad left the military, although he remained an active reserve, and found work in a few of the tunnels being constructed for Scotland’s new hydroelectric system. A few years later he was recalled for service, sent to training camps throughout the north of the country before being shipped off to the Korean War.
Although not an educated man, my father was intelligent, well travelled and very likeable. Like his father before him, he was a proud member of the Scottish Regiment, The Black Watch, and travelled throughout the world. It was very difficult to get him to open up about his military adventures but I know that certain events troubled him deeply. My sister and I once came across some old photos he had hidden away. We found several ghastly black-and-white photographs from Northern India of beheadings, mutilations and public hangings. He also had pictures of disfigured street beggars and other horrors. India was taking back control of the country and the Muslim population were breaking away to form what we now know as Pakistan.
One night, after way too many whiskeys, he told me of an incident in India where a young boy was being chased by machete wielding men from a rival group. The poor lad stumbled, then was hacked to death in front of my father, who at the time, was no more than 18 years old. It was a violent era and it’s difficult to comprehend the impact that would have had on a young boy from a small Scottish village.
For the most part my father seemed like a happy, good-natured, fun loving larrikin but, he was easy to anger, especially when drunk. His slightly volatile, mercurial nature was virtually undetectable when sober. I now know the horrors of his military life and possibly his own upbringing would've affected him more than he'd like to admit.
Apart from serving in Peshawar, Karachi and other British bases throughout India and Pakistan, when the Korean War broke out, his regiment spent years fighting throughout the Korean Peninsula. He was equally evasive when asked about his time spent fighting in Korea, although he used to enjoy bragging to me that The Black Watch was the last British regiment to leave Korea.
I’m sure he had many stories tucked away but very few filtered down to me, although, while pretending to be asleep one night, I did overhear him tell one particular tale. All the adults had been drinking and Dad opened up about an unsavoury event he was involved in. My father was always a very mischievous rascal but on one occasion in South Korea, his larrikinism became his undoing.
The story goes that while on leave in Tokyo, he and some army buddies had a few too many drinks and decided to ‘borrow’ a jeep for a little joy ride. They didn’t get too far before they overturned it and ended up sprawled across the road. Luckily no-one was seriously hurt but, as a consequence, Dad was court-martialled and sentenced to one month in a military prison. I overheard him saying, ‘It was the longest month of my life; the bastards wouldn’t give me anything to read.’
As part of his ‘rehabilitation’ he was given a small round tin of boot polish. His job was to sit in his cell, scrape the paint from the tin then polish it so brightly that the inspecting officer could see his face in it. When the chore was completed, he was given another tin and on it went until he was discharged one month later. You have to love British Army discipline.
After Korea, Dad was sent to campaigns in Malaysia, the Suez crisis and other hot spots where the British Government was involved. Although a fun-loving man, my father set very rigid emotional boundaries; it may have had something to do with his military life or perhaps it was just typical of that generation. He avoided emotional closeness with us, his children; he had extreme difficulty sharing his personal feelings with anyone. One day, when we were living at the East Hills Hostel in Australia, I came home from playing in the park to be greeted by my mother, who, for some reason, wouldn’t let me inside.
‘Stay oot for a wee while,’ she said.
I was confused as she was standing across the doorway like a nightclub bouncer.
Apparently my father had just received a letter from Scotland informing him his mother had been killed in a car accident. Dad was inside crying but nobody was allowed to be with him, not even his wife. His mother’s death was rarely spoken about again.
Both my parents were drinkers, as were most working-class Scots at that time. In the early years, only my father would’ve been classified as ‘a big drinker’ and Mum often told the story of Dad still being drunk after we had passed through the Mediterranean on our voyage to Australia. His farewell drink in Letham lasted for days and he kept it going once he boarded our ship.
~
My mother was well educated; she topped most of her classes at school, was dux of her local nursing college and came second in all of Scotland in her final year. She wrote poetry, could play anything on the piano, spoke a little French, loved studying history and would read just about anything she could get her hands on. She was born in the city of Dundee but moved to the countryside once war with Germany broke out. Most families with children were advised by the British Government to vacate the cities and move to rural areas as the larger towns were more vulnerable to bombing raids. Her
