Jasper and I returned home to Glasgow on Monday forenoon from our charming rural bolt hole in the Southwest, where I epitomise gracious living with a rustic twist.
The theme for my doctrine of rural gracious living is simplicity, comfort, and warmth. Think simple chairs, printed linen curtains, patchwork quilts and one pot suppers all served with my incomparable flair. Jasper et moi are very much pillars of the community. As such we are very well aware of the need to preserve a way of life that is vanishing but equally understanding of the need to embrace progress for the good of the rustics. Not that they always appreciate my suggestions. I am, for example, still trying to persuade the local grocer that there is more to window dressing than a tower of cling peaches or a pyramid of evaporated milk. “It’s for your own good” is countered with “I ken Mrs Wylie, but it’s aye bin cling peaches.” Aye bin is a way of clinging to the past (and the peaches), thinking it must have been better, when it was not always, without admitting one has a fear of the future which is unknown but might just be an improvement. There is a glint of progress as he has promised to be creative with pickled red cabbage and says he is considering Jasper’s suggestion that a display of dairying bygones might just boost the sales of Young Auld Jock’s range of local cheeses. As they are fond of saying in the glens “it’s a sair feight.”
January in the country can be very difficult. While shepherds watch their flocks as they approach lambing under leaden skies, villagers are huddled in front of fires many still nursing the effects of the festival that is New Year. Pickles and preserves are consumed and in the village hall the health-conscious dance themselves thin with gigs, reels and strathspeys. A few are learning conversational French in the primary school on Tuesday evenings. This is to be applauded if somewhat odd for a community which regards Paddington with suspicion, let alone Paris. Some of course have “the television set”, bought ten years ago for the Coronation in a rash of fervour and a strain on the wallet. Still the new police series Z Cars is proving popular. In general though, many are as sleepy as the mice who can occasionally be heard in the lath and plaster walls of cottages, or the cat who surely will cook if she gets any closer to the fire.
Burns Night will, however, wake everyone from their slumber and already there are mutterings about who will address the haggis and who will reply on behalf of the lassies. As soon as I heard the call was out speakers I knew it was time to let Darwinism take its course, turn off the water, load up the old, but reliable, Super Snipe and head for the pass and Glasgow. Not just any part of Glasgow naturellement, but it’s sedate and cultured and much sought after West End.”
I needed to get back to the city as I like to keep an eye on my ward Gayle at school where she is undoubtedly already a leading light in most areas of the curriculum. Her performance in the nativity play was so affecting that I wrote to R.A.D.A. suggesting they hold a place for her in the mid-1970s, although I was careful to point out that they would be competing with Oxbridge and St Andrews. I have not had a reply so I really must get on to them.
While our loyal staff at branches of “Chez Nous” are more than capable of handling the sales, I always feel that I must keep a watchful eye on sales of leatherette sofas for the overspill houses and Danish canapé dishes (teak, but with removable glass containers) for those in bought houses. Most importantly on Monday our new daily woman what does, Mrs Sloan, started with us. You will recall my domestic support has been in chaos since I was deserted by Mrs Travers last autumn. She has thrown in her lot with adult education at a residential college. I am sure it is staffed by Marxists or at least those of a left wing persuasion and poor dress sense.
It was arranged that Mrs Sloan would have an induction afternoon on our return from the country. To my great delight I arrived home to find that she had arrived at the crack of dawn before the household was up and cleaned the fires out, put the top loader on, ticked the milkman off for an incorrect account, prepared a breakfast for everyone, sent Sharon out for the day, and got Gayle ready for school. This of course is normally a role fulfilled by Hairy Mary, the Nursery Nurse from Inveraray. She, however, has a special event on for The Glasgow Highlander’s Society at the Gaelic Church, and was delighted to be able to get away early. She and some of the other ladies were to demonstrate some of their waulking songs, which are performed in the open with sheep’s wool and some rather lovely singing. I called in later and was quite moved by the spectacle.
In the spirit of a progressive employer, I entertained Mrs Sloan to a cup of tea with me in the drawing room, so that we might get to know one another a little better. I have provided her with a Mackintosh Square already for such ceremonious occasions. This, I might add, was after she had changed the beds in Gayle and Hairy Mary’s rooms, wearing white gloves as was the custom at her last place of work, Cliveden House.
I asked her if she would like to know a little about the previous post-holder, to which she replied, and this was most impressive, “Thank you Mrs Wylie, I prefer to look forward rather than back.” However, she had found a pair of support stockings in the soup pot which she presumed were the property of her predecessor. I confirmed and suggested I would send them to Mrs Travers. She said that they were already in the post as Hairy Mary had her address and was going past the post box. Mrs Sloan then handed me some neatly typed sheets of quarto, outlining some changes she would like to make in the kitchen as she liked to work to the right and noticed that the previous post-holder worked to the left. I said this was only recently the case since her essay on Prison Diets won the R.H. Tawney Prize.
I did tell her that while it was not in her role of official duties, it had become custom and practise to take Jasper his ten o’clock’s, and indeed his elevenses, down the garden path to his Museum in a Shed. Mrs Sloan said she was happy to do this but wondered if so many bakery products were good for a man of Jasper’s age and disinclination to hectic exercise. She then removed to the kitchen to prepare a French almond soup of the kind served at Cliveden House to important politicians such as the Minister for War. She thought it would be nice for my soup and sandwich lunch tomorrow with the committee for The Home for Fallen Women. We are to discuss, “The Pill and its implications for the Home – is it the beginning of the end?” My grandfather and father would be so sad to hear of this as they, as former chairs of the charity, were responsible for so many fallen women in Glasgow.
While Mrs Sloan was throwing herself into French almond soup, Lottie Macaulay, my neighbour, called in a bit of a tizz to say that the house across the road had been up for sale. I said that despite being in the country for a couple of weeks, I knew this to be the case as I kept an eye on The Herald property pages while away and that we should without haste establish a vetting committee. “Too late” said Lottie, (whose husband the bungalow builder is in concrete) “the house has already sold and the MacGregor-Pattersons have moved to the Southside – may the Lord have mercy upon their souls.” I tried to suggest that as it says in the scriptures “All shall be well” and I was quite sure the new people would be respectable people from the Glasgow Business Community, who would enhance this little corner of Kelvinside.
Apparently, the new people moved in on Friday. I suggested we should immediately go across and welcome them and that some of Mrs Sloan’s French almond soup might be a nice welcome gift. “I doubt it” said Lottie, “you see they’re Football Pools’ winners.” “That does not make them bad people Lottie”, I replied, “after all you and that husband of yours were hardly born to the purple. I can remember a time when you used fish knives and forks instead of two forks. I will soon help these new people to understand our ways.” “ Muriel, that is hardly fair as one lives and learns. Anyway just because they are not bad people does not make them ‘our sort’ of people.” I decided we should call at once to reassure her.
While Lottie had a restorative amontillado, I changed into a welcoming ensemble and from the bureau collected my set of printed welcome notes, listing the doctor’s telephone number and spaces on the church flower rota. Then we casually walked across the road, (which I noticed was upswept – I will telephone the Provost this afternoon) and rang the doorbell, which seemed to have been changed from a Westminster chime to Colonel Bogy. A large lady, in hair curlers and covered in a nylon head square, with a man in a vest and braces a carrying a cage of homing pigeons accompanied by an Alsatian, answered the door. A number of children swarmed around their ankles and from a radio with the volume turned up came the sound of what I was later informed was Brian Pool and The Tremeloes.
“Good day, my name is Mrs Wylie, I live across the road, and this is my friend Mrs Macaulay. We represent the Welcome Committee.”
“Och that’s awfee kind o’ yoose. Will yoose weans get oot ma way an’ get oot intae the garden. Sorry aboot they grand weans. They’re a bit excited on account o’ the indoor lavvy. Let me introduce masel’. I’m Sadie an’ this is ma auld man Jimbo, but maist folk just call us Big Nana an’ Pops.”
“Are you all right Muriel? I did try to tell you.”
“I will be shortly, Lottie. If you would just refill my amontillado and fetch my Mappin and Webb bag please? I think I have a spare Askit Pooder in there. My head is thumping. Did that really happen or am I dreaming? Well, they do say all great civilisations come to an end. Let Glasgow Flourish! Hmm, I think it’s finished.”
à bientôt
Muriel Wylie
January 1962
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