I came on the scene in New Moor Hall, Longframlington, Northumberland on the 13th of March,1922. My mother's family named Mathers owned and operated their sawmill sited close by, felling, sawing and stacking timber from nearby Swarland Forest. My sister Joan (Nan) had been born in 1921, also in March after our Mum and Dad had married the previous year. Mum was Joan (pronounced Jo-ann) Mathers, born 1902. Dad was Joseph Clark Caution, born 1898 a.k.a. Joe Clark, the name he had enlisted under when joining the Black Watch at the outbreak of the Great War, giving his age as 18 when in fact he was only 16. After being demobilized in 1919, Dad had started work at the sawmill where he met Mum.
In the late 1980's my wife Anna and I visited New Moor Hall and met the owners still living there, a really grand old couple, from whom I learned that Nan had been born within the sawmill site, probably in one of the log cabins, but because Mum was in difficulty having me, I was born actually inside the big house and we were shown the bedroom where I was born.
I don't know when the sawmill returned to Scotland soon after I was born but later in 1924 I remember cutting badly the base of my left thumb on a bottle which had broken on the boot scraper and had lain unseen under the thick snow just to the left of the railway sleeper doorstep of our log cabin at Braemore, Loch Broom near Ullapool. I can still now, at the age of 80, vividly remember watching the blood pouring out and turning the snow red but I don't recall crying .... probably did though .... the wide scar is still clearly visible. Braemore forest is still shown on motoring road maps of Scotland.
My next recollection at the age of three was living at the Roost, Marykirk, some five miles from Montrose and here I began to realize was the real permanent home of the Mathers family when they weren't sawmilling elsewhere in the country. At the Roost, turning left after entering through the doorway, we had the living room (lit by a large paraffin lamp) with the double bed in which our parents slept, in the recess. In the opposite wall a coal burning fireplace on which all cooking was done and a mantelpiece above it. To the left was a washstand with a large porcelain bowl (basin), in which stood a large water jug. Underneath was a large water bucket (pail) which had to be carried to and filled from a hand operated cast iron pump outside at the other side of the front pathway, plus another 'pail' the (pee-pail), it being filled where it stood! The dry lavatory was fifty yards away at the far end of the garden, near the 'cuddy' shed where recently there had been a donkey. I can't remember seeing the cuddy but a family photo shows it standing in the center of the 'snap' with Nan and me being each on a parents' lap, along with others of the family whom I can't recall seeing or knowing.
Turning right on entering was 'ben the hoose' which was what the double bedroom was called and 'far ben' as the second, also a double bedroom, was called. The Roost proved large enough for Dad, Mum Nan and me as most of the large Mathers family had, on leaving Braemore in the winter of 1924 emigrated to British Columbia to carry on the family business of sawmilling there. Now, about that pee-pail. One of my cousins who went to Canada left me his rocking horse and on one occasion I overdid the rocking and tumbled against and knocked over the pail spilling the contents .... nasty that was, very nasty indeed .... but funny! In 1960 I received a 7 " audio tape from the same cousin in B.C. with messages from uncles, aunts and cousins (at that time it was estimated that I had over one hundred and forty relatives in Canada).
Dad had returned to the family home with Mum, Nan and me when he got a post with the L.M.S. Railway Engineering Department working at Craigo, a couple of miles from Marykirk towards Montrose. I remember when he sometimes came home for lunch bringing sweeties. Dad had learned to play the bagpipes while on war service in the Black Watch during the Great War and he soon joined the Montrose Pipe Band that other of his old comrade pipers had just formed. Life was great for Nan and me with Dad working so close to home and at Easter we were taken by the pipe band charabanc to the sand dunes at Lunan Bay, near Montrose, to roll our hard boiled, red dyed Easter eggs. Our first real adventure.
Then, Dad was promoted and sent to Forfar so we were on the move again. I remember Nan starting school at Forfar so it was around 1926. As Nan had been my minder, I recall afterwards often having to fight with kids there, bullies they'd probably be called now but when I began to get the better of them the fighting stopped. Dad was so proud of me as he had won medals for boxing in the army. One year later Dad was sent back to Craigo in the same promoted status and I started at the school which Nan was attending. The Napier Public School in Marykirk .... some quarter of a mile from the Roost. That was when I realized that I was going to become bi-lingual as I had been told at home "Yer gaein tae the skail noo" but of course at school everyone spoke English from the book.
In the cold winter time, Nan and I sometimes got a lift with the 'shelty'.… a small two wheeled 'trap' drawn by a Shetland pony from Cobbleheugh farm ( just over the very high railway embankment in front of the Roost) which regularly delivered a large churn of milk to a shop in the village. It trotted under the railway bridge between the farm and the Roost on the B974 road which runs between Marykirk, Luthermuir and Fettercairn. The greatest echo I ever heard was under that bridge where the kids would kick up a din just to hear the echo. Talk about cold, it was so, so perishing, especially when old Jean Smith who lived in the cottage by the school gate insisted on taking us indoors and plunging our hands in hot water …. Oh gee whiz, as we used to say, that was punishment not nourishment but old Jean was trying to be kind. Our younger brother Joe born 1928 had not yet started school so he escaped this 'kindness'.
When I arrived home from school one day Dad said we're going hunting tonight. In amazement I asked where we were going and he said to catch coosheedoos (pigeons) under the Marykirk viaduct which carried the L.M.S. and L.N.E.R. railways over the North Esk river. When darkness fell we went up onto the viaduct and after climbing down through a manhole by the side of the track we found ourselves on scaffolding planks under and running parallel with the track above. When Dad lit a large paraffin lantern we saw hundreds of pigeons roosting on the wide metal girders which supported the track. All the hunting we did was to pick the plumpest birds off their roost and place them in a hessian sack which Dad held tight while helping me back up to the railway. Everything went fine until proud me marched into the paraffin lamp lit room and laid the sack on the table .…forgetting that the neck wasn't tied, then oh dear, such a panic as a dozen or so escaped pigeons were flying around the room dangerously near the lamp which was now being protected by Mum's singeing apron. After a few minutes the task of catching and dispatching was complete and we looked forward to plenty pigeon pie for the next few days.
Realising that I did indeed have plenty of spunk in me, Dad and Mum bought me an airgun, (which I really cherished) to shoot rats near the midden (rubbish pit) and in the cuddy shed where now lived our pig. Some thirty yards from the door, on the drying green at the bottom of which was the hen-house, I was trying to shoot at a great cloud of starlings that swooped overhead from time to time …. without success but I had used all the pellets I'd been given so I began wondering what I could use instead .…ah, what about barley? I dashed up to the scullery which I forgot to mention was directly opposite the door (behind which the zinc bath hung) 'found' the barley, quite a large packet from which I took a teacup full.
That was the moment my troubles began .…I discovered that the hens liked to peck the barley so I obliged them by shooting at them causing them to noisily flutter upwards to the roof of the chicken wire in panic then settle down peacefully again and peck at the barley which, of course, was replenished immediately. But the commotion had really alarmed Mum, who loved her hens and she hastily arrived screaming at me "Ye wee devil, you jist wait er yer faither gits hame," construed by me to be a threat of physical punishment .... his trouser belt on my bare bum .…quite effective I now recall .…until the next time.
The next time being due to my admiration of older men smoking pipes and the younger ones smoking fags. As the air-gun was banned I was inside wondering what I could play with when I spotted on the mantelpiece a packet of Woodbine cigarettes. On investigation I discovered that there were four left in the packet so one was removed and placed between my lips .…but again, oh dear, when I tried to scratch the match to light the fag, I burned my fingers, eyebrow and hair, then of course, dropping the flaring match, caught alight the newspaper on top of the coal scuttle. Dashing out, I was confronted by Mum dashing in. "Nae waitin' fir yer faither this time", as after Mum had extinguished the flames I was forcibly sat down on a chair and Mum saying to me, "sae ye wan'tae smoke ma wee lad, I'll mak' shair ye'll nae smoke agane", and lit the fag. When I began coughing, feeling dizzy, looking pale and becoming very very sick indeed, Mum became concerned and worried that she may have overdone the punishment .…so did I!
After Christmas in 1928, I remember vividly, Nan and I being sent to the 'far ben' and told to stay there until we were called. Wondering what was going on we looked out the window to see the doctor carrying his black leather bag and accompanied by a lady dressed like a nurse. We looked at each other wondering if Mum was so ill that the doctor had been called. After hearing the cries of a baby we were delightedly surprised to be called to meet our new baby brother Joe.
Soon afterwards in 1929 an aunt arrived from Fort William to spend her holidays with us and she was given the use of the 'ben' bedroom. One day I was on my way to the 'far ben' and I found a half crown (12.5p.) lying on the floor and thinking in my innocence …. 'finders - keepers', I popped it into my pocket. On my way to school next day I called at Mrs. Mowat's village sweetshop asking for whatever sweets I fancied. She mentioned her surprise that I was allowed half a crown when at that time money was very hard to come by. The village 'jungle' telegraph started buzzing and when I got home from school I was accused of stealing the money from the aunt. When Dad arrived home, off came his belt and down came my trousers.
The only thing on my mind now was revenge and the next day when going home from school for my lunch, I noticed Mrs. Mowat had laid her sheets on the drying green to bleach in the sunshine .…just when I was needing to go to the lavatory to 'keech'.…do a poo! Had Mrs. Mowat been in the shop she wouldn't have seen me as the drying green was down off the opposite side of the road towards a turnip field; alas, she was upstairs in her bedroom above the shop from where she had spotted me .… With my trousers round my ankles and turnip shaws wrapping round my legs as I ran in great haste to escape her wrath, I suddenly became amused at what I had done knowing perfectly well what to expect when Dad got home!
I liked the three R's schooling from elderly Miss Calder who was as tough as they come, handling kids of both sexes from five years old to eight, from whom I learned some extraordinary 'sayings' while at games in the playground, like, 'Ingerty fingerty ingerty fig. Dell dell dome an' egg. Ircky pirky starry rock. Tan tan toosy jock. White puddin' black troot, I choose you oot…..! That was during 1930, when our family were on the move again.
To the 'Rock' this time. A very large L.M.S. Railway house (two cottages back to back) called Craig-nan-cailleach (Rock of the old woman) described as a 'halt' by the powers that be on the single track railway.
That 'halt' was comprised of some thirty used railway sleepers laid side by side to form a platform from which we kids, Nan and I, the Davidson kids from next door, Ann (1920); Alec a.k.a. Eck or Sandy (1922); Madge ( 1923) and Geordie (1924) went in a passenger train to Callander some five miles or so down the line where we attended the Callander Public School, (not to be confused with the McLaren High School which is also in Callander). Brother Joe (1928) still hadn't started school nor had Jack (1927) and Dave (1928) from next door.
That passenger train was the express from Oban to Glasgow which had to be rescheduled to stop at the Craig-nan-cailleach Halt (The Rock) at 8.35 a.m. each schoolday. Regular paying passengers, especially first class ones were not too happy with the arrangement, moreso when the kids merely giggled when disciplined. But ah, wait…….! The only train due to pass the Rock after, or soon after school time, was a 'goods' or freight train, coal wagons, cattle trucks, etc…. bang, clatter, wallop, .... and a brake van containing an adult guard. Well, well, wonders never cease, that was how we travelled home from school!
When, occasionally, the heavily laden goods train, got stuck while climbing the Pass of Leny, a steep gradient half way towards the Rock, all the kids would nip down from the van and pick some wild flowers while the poor guard out of his wits going ever so crazy. He had of course to stay in the van to manually apply the brakes to prevent the train running backwards down the line.
Spoil sports in the railway hierarchy sent a strong letter to our parents from whom we were severely reprimanded and threatened with all sorts of punishment if we didn't behave ourselves in future .…did we stop, eh? Ah - you guessed! But, unfortunately once when the van lurched very badly, Nan was thrown to the floor suffering a great lump on her head. Soon afterwards, when we went to Montrose to visit an old aunt, Nan became very ill and was rushed into the Montrose Infirmary. She had developed meningitis. Happily, she recovered but our parents were devastated and furious with the railway company.
The railway company had an old fashioned 'twelve or so doors each side' passenger carriage coupled on, just behind the engine, which was also very good news for the McLaren High School scholars who previously had had to wait until 6 p.m. for a passenger train to take them further on to homes in Strathyre - Kingshouse - Balquhidder - Lochearnhead and Killin etc. I became friendly with a tallish John MacGregor who was three years older than me but intrigued by my willingness to have a go if there was any fisticuffs starting and I also met Alastair Gilchrist, my age, whose mum owned the Inn in Strathyre. The one carriage soon became two and some few months later the goods train arrangement was replaced by a small shunting engine a 'pug' and a new school train service was established. I met John again in 1952 when he was 'something in the city' and Colonel of the London Scottish T.A. when I was 'civilian attached' to instruct their pipe band. I read in the newspaper a few years ago that Commodore Alastair Gilchrist had died of a heart attack while visiting Chatham Dockyard.
Because there was no roadway to the Rock, only a cinder pathway beside the rails, (the A84 main road from Callander to Strathyre being at the other side of the loch, Loch Lubnaig) the railway company provided a row-boat in which we could, if need be, cross the loch at any time.
During 1930/31 awful things began to happen to both families. First our Mum became ill with scarlet fever as did 'Eck' and Jack next door and all three were rowed across the loch to the waiting ambulance in which they were taken some thirty miles to the Burghmuir Fever Hospital in Perth. No sooner after they had recovered and returned home, Joe got diphtheria and as the loch was too rough to cross, the ambulance came to the nearest roadway to the Rock, a mere cart track which was at the Stank Farm, two miles down the railway, (farmed by Mr. & Mrs. MacPherson who had a six year old daughter). I was sent cycling down the railway cinder pathway to guide the stretcherbearers back to the Rock. I never let on but I also had a very sore throat that day.
Next day of course it was my turn but the wind had eased and I was rowed across to the ambulance. A couple of days after admission to Burghmuir I was feeling not too well at all and Dad and Mum were sent for .…I had diphtheria, - but I was also suffering from what they termed 'double pneumonia'. It had taken Joe three weeks to recover but it took me eight, if my memory serves me right. I was sent home to be convalescent for a time during which Dad showed me how to finger the practice chanter while encouraging me to learn to play the bagpipes.
When Dad was playing his pipes one Saturday afternoon, we were surprised to hear what we thought was an echo coming from across the loch. "That's nae echo", said Dad, "I wisnae playin' that!" It seemed to be coming from the foresters cottage called Loch View which stood just off the A84 road directly across the loch from the Rock. It transpired later that day that the forester Doug MacArthur, his wife Jean and children Tom aged 5 and Nancy aged 4 were the tenants there and like Dad, Doug had been a piper in the Great War.
One bright summer evening they decided to march along the road both playing their pipes but didn't get very far before tourists 'ambushed' them seeking to take snapshots and put money into their pockets which they found too embarrassing to continue so gave up the idea and returned home!
When not practicing, I was out trying to recover fitness by hunting, fishing and shooting. Out came my air-gun brought from the Roost. Dad and Mum had bought me a fishing rod as a homecoming present, so out it came plus six wire snares which had been found in the shed when we arrived. I liked to go down in the early morning to fish in the loch at a spot which could be seen from outside the bedroom window of the house.
Whether it was beginners luck or not, I don't know but I soon caught a dozen trout of various sizes, when a boat approached coming from the bottom, Stank Farm end of the loch. As the boat came level with me the old gentleman on the back seat of the boat called out to me, ".... any luck sonny?" to which I replied "twelve". "Have you by jove" he said, as he asked the boatman rowing to land the boat near to where I was. "Good lord, so you have!" he said to me, and asked if I would sell him the largest ones, but Dad had noticed the situation and was now on the spot to handle negotiations. The gentleman introduced himself as Colonel Hodge, Scots Guards (Retired) and after a lengthy discussion between them about the Great War, I was instructed by Dad to give the Colonel all my catch. I wasn't too pleased about that but then the Colonel invited me to call at his house by the main road at Kilmahog, four miles towards Callander. It was arranged that Dad take me there soon afterwards.
The Colonel took us into his study and while Dad enjoyed his whisky I was shown all the fishing tackle hanging round the walls and told to select a greenheart rod and a split cane fly casting rod for trout fishing and to my further surprise and delight a trawling rod for salmon fishing on condition that he, the Colonel be given the middle cut of the first salmon I caught.
The first Saturday afternoon afterwards, although Dad wasn't interested in fishing, he volunteered to row the boat while I got the hang of fishing for salmon and would you believe it, I hooked a salmon right away and as I had been given plenty of line on quite a large reel, I was excited but confident I could get it into the boat eventually, but how? Dad suggested that I should have had a gaff, he had known that much apparently but didn't think of telling me as he hadn't expected me to catch anything. He said that if I got it as close to the boat as I possibly could he'd try to lift it into the boat. So that's what I did but the first attempt failed as the fish was too slippery for Dad to hold on to and he asked me to try again when he would wrap his hand in a large red paisley design handkerchief he carried.
He succeeded in gripping the fish which had bitten only one of the nine hooks on the lure leaving eight swinging around Dad's clothing and sure enough one caught in his trouser leg just above the knee and as the fish wriggled and thrashed about wildly the hook sank into his leg. He kept shouting at me to kill it and I hit it on the head with a block of wood (a railway 'key' used for keeping the rails secure) but although I had killed it, I'd driven the hook further into his leg and I was not at all popular with Dad at that moment. With the fish now motionless he was able to get the hook removed with the aid of his knife, the one he used to cut the thick black tobacco he smoked in his pipe which, by the way, he proceeded to fill and light so that he could smoke it while rowing us home, now, because both hands are required to row the boat, Dad paused occasionally to take the pipe out of his mouth and spit the excess 'juice' overboard. Alas, the wind was blowing the wrong way and the spit finished up around my face - which thankfully started Dad hollering with laughter and saved the day as far as I was concerned!
When Mum heard of our 'adventure', she told Dad he would have to repair the trousers himself, she didn't see why she should have to do it and told him he could 'smile with the other side of his face', a remark which puzzled me. No praise for me catching a salmon!
Word got around the school about me catching a salmon and delivering the middle cut to the Colonel and one teacher, Miss MacDonald told me how much she enjoyed the taste of fresh brown trout. A few mornings later I took a few trout for the teacher, carried with a piece of string through the gills, (I wasn't very popular in the passenger train that morning!). Quite proud of myself, I marched into the classroom and swung the trout onto the table she was sitting at .…marking the register! She never thanked me .…spoilt the morning for me that did, but greatly amused the other kids!
The local Scottish Daily Express Newspaper reporter interviewed me and wrote a feature with a photo of me describing me as 'James Caution - what a great name for an angler! aged nine, ....' etc. but also went on to publicise the many tourist attractions around Callander. An old retired forester John MacNaughton, a fluent gaelic speaker, living by the side of Loch Katrine in the Trossachs having read the article volunteered to accompany me on fishing trips if he could become a lodger at the Rock. I was almost becoming tri-lingual but I learned a great deal about fresh water fishing or angling from him, and he didn't smoke!
One morning we started rowing up the loch about 9 a.m. and by 11 a.m. we had five salmon in the boat and were soon on our way back to the Rock. Old John suggested that as five salmon were too heavy for one person to carry, I should go up to the house for a sack and between the two of us we'd be able to carry them. The only sack I could find was an empty coal sack, even empty it felt a little heavy but off I went with it down to the boat. With the salmon duly 'sacked', up to the house we struggled and as I proudly dragged the sack indoors I stumbled, dropping the open coal sack from which the slippery, black powdered fish slithered over the newly polished linoleum. The remarks were not complimentary and reference made about 'echoes of the Roost pigeons'.
On the way to school next schoolday, I took the fish and some rabbits I had snared down to the Fruit, Vegetable and Game shop in Callander Main Street where I sold the lot for nine shillings (45p), …. I'D BECOME RICH !
When the grouse shooting season started on the twelfth of August all available young men and tallish boys were employed, at eight shillings per day to 'drive' the birds along the hillside towards the guns by 'beating', making as much noise as possible. The guns were in 'butts' occupied by the 'Toffs', (Members of the aristocracy and high society) who rented for the season, Ardchullarie More, the Shooting Lodge at Loch Lubnaig side between Loch View cottage and Strathyre village …. I WAS NOW RICHER !
Some time later on a very stormy Saturday afternoon, I was walking on the cinder path back to the Rock after having collected rabbits from my snares on the embankment when I heard the sound of a 'down going' engine whistle, I turned to find out why and saw the driver indicate that he wanted me to throw him up a pair of rabbits, which I did. Next day, a message was dropped onto the halt platform stating that the driver would stop his 'up going' train tomorrow and take me on the footplate where he and the fireman operate the engine, take me to Crianlarich where they swop to the 'down going' train and home again. I was delighted with this kind gesture and enjoyed the once in a lifetime experience. On that journey the engine driver told me that when the railway was being built, an engine, for some unknown reason became derailed and had fallen into the loch at the bottom of the precipice where the railway was screened by high wires, which when broken by boulder falling from the rock face would set signals each end at danger and start a loud warning bell in the house.
I recently heard from a diver who in 1972 had gone down into the loch at that point to find the engine but he was shocked to see dozens of wrecked caravans, cars, vans and trucks which had been dumped there when the railway was closed. He was, regrettably, only able to safely go down forty feet.
It's now late 1932 and we were on a visit over the loch to the MacArthurs. I was hearing a lot of discussion about them going to have a wireless installed and the aerial to be fitted between two very high pine poles from the forest. Next evening Dad was talking to a poacher on our remote side of the loch and voiced our envy of the MacArthurs when the poacher said "Och, I mak' wirelesses, I'll bring ye ain" I heard the price being discussed and looked forward to listening to our very own wireless. Alas the following Friday evening, the friendly poacher arrived with a crystal set but with the remoteness of the Rock, no signal could be detected. Then we were offered a more expensive new kind of wireless with valves in it but it would need a very high aerial to get the signal so an aerial was fixed to the topmost point of one chimney with the other end to the top of a nearby tall tree.
The next Friday when the new 'set' arrived, after much whistling, squeaking and other rude noises we heard the sound of music being played. How could this be without wires. We had a railway telephone in the house which was only to be used in an emergency but it was obvious how it worked, through two wires, one for the bell and one for the speech and it had been used during the illnesses when the signalman at Callander took messages to Dr. Harvey (who didn't like coming to the Rock, over the loch or trecking two miles to and from the Stank on the cinder path.)
On the Saturday afternoon Dad said he was going climbing to the top of the Rock (400ft.) to pick blaeberries and asked me if I wanted to go. A shepherd at the Laggan Farm (the nearest road to the Rock, upwards), had said the top of the mountain looked purple with them. Off up the mountain we went, but near the summit Dad jumped over the banks of a burn (brook) and I followed too quickly for him to turn, grip my arm and help me. I'm told that I fell head first into the burn before tumbling over the edge of the rock. When I next woke back home in bed, Dr. Harvey was cradling my head on his chest while Dad very carefully helped him cut the hair around a gash on top of my skull. I could hear Mum and Nan sobbing and Mrs. Davidson was there saying something too. Dr. Harvey reckoned that the wound should be stitched but when he got the call out he suspected it would be for a fever or diphtheria case and hadn't brought stitching equipment. That was when I heard him say how much he hated coming to the Rock. My head was bandaged tightly…very tightly, I was given a tablet to help me sleep.
Dr. Harvey returned next day, exhausted and still complaining about the journeys. He'd travelled via the Stank Farm on both occasions …. terrified of crossing the loch in the rowing boat. He thought that as I was very fit, young and strong, the family shouldn't worry, I'd be alright and Mum was told how the bandages were to be changed. I was ordered to take plenty of rest and stay out of mischief. This suited me fine as I was becoming very interested in reading bagpipe music and playing the practice chanter.
When I returned to school after such a long absence due to sickness and injury. The male teacher Mr. Kennedy was very considerate and practically tutored me on a one-to-one basis. The only thing I didn't like was his breathe …. phew !! He insisted that I must make up for lost time and start preparing for the eleven plus exam equivalent as it was then. I was taking home heaps of homework after each schoolday.
About the same time, Nan, being a year older than me had been awarded the prize of a book for MERIT. This somehow seemed to turn me into the black sheep of the family especially by Nan, I couldn't do anything right and became the butt of criticism from the whole family so much so that I unwittingly did something to anger Mum so much that she threw a firemans large shovel (used for stoking the fire with coal from the scuttle) at me and as I didn't duck fast enough sustained another gash on my head.
I was kept off school while the wound healed and luckily, I was available to cross the loch to collect two plumbers who had been contracted by the railway company to install indoor running water, toilets and sinks, in each cottage, replacing the outside dry lavatory and water taps. After their days work, when I rowed them back across the loch they undressed half way across, dived into the loch and swam round the boat whooping and saying how cold the water was. When they returned to the boat on the second day, they asked me if I could swim and I said that I couldn't, they both got hold of me and threw me overboard and shouted to me to swim like a puddock (frog). I was surprised that when I did as they said I was able to stay afloat and that was when I started to swim.
On a fine Saturday afternoon, there was great commotion at the Ardchullarie More Shooting Lodge with people coming and going in great haste. It transpired that Jim MacDonald the gamekeeper, while deerstalking on top of the mountain behind Loch View, had died of a heart attack. Through a pair of Dads ex-army spy-glasses (binoculars), we each in turn witnessed the body, slung over the back of a pannier pony, like that of a culled stag, being brought down from the mountain. That was a very long sad day which sadly affected everyone around as Jim had been a highly respected young man.
Mrs. Davidson was becoming ill with anxiety due to loneliness when all the children started school and Mum had started helping at Laggan Farm when harvesting and sheepshearing began but on the first Saturday when all but Mr. Davidson were at home, ( he had gone to Laggan Farm for milk) the most violent thunder storm began and Mrs. Davidson became so hysterical with all her children screaming that Dad went round and shephered them back indoors to our side, drenched. Dad started playing his bagpipes in an effort to dampen the noise of the storm and calmly reassure everybody who were having their clothes dried. When the local edition of the 'People's Journal' weekly newspaper was next published, a story written by one of their reporters told of his need to stop and shelter by Loch Lubnaig side because of the storm when he faintly heard the sound of a 'phantom piper' coming from the middle of the loch!
Mr. Davidson, a quiet, modest man, nearing retirement age, applied for a transfer to a post at Blair Atholl which had become vacant. He got the transfer and the whole family left the Rock during the summer of 1934. Their replacement next door was a middle aged couple and their 7 year old daughter and from the time of their arrival, unlike the Davidson family, they took exception to me using the boat for fishing, didn't like the bagpipes and they soon became disliked at the Stank Farm, Laggan Farm and across at Loch View.
Dad was becoming concerned about the morale situation and I began thinking that, although I enjoyed a wonderful hunting, shooting and fishing boyhood at the Rock, while learning to play the pipes, the females in both families must have become very bored and disillusioned with the remoteness of the place and all the misfortunes that had befallen us and now all the dust and rubble caused by the plumbing .…and to cap it all Mum became ill with rheumatic fever and spent weeks in bed. Dad applied to the railway company bosses for a transfer to a less remote area and was promised that his application would get favourable consideration when a vacancy arose.
Nan began a Saturday job as a counterhand in the Callander branch of the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society, to and from which she cycled down the cinder path as far as the Stank Farm where she manhandled the bicycle off the embankment onto the unsurfaced narrow roadway to continue her journey past St. Brides signal box (which controlled a single track loop where trains could overtake or pass each other in either direction), onward past Coireachrombie cottages (where two of the men who worked with Dad, lived) and the nearby Stewarts' family farm till she reached and crossed the River Leny bridge onto the main road to Callander. A five mile journey each way. She liked the job so much that when she was offered full time employment. She accepted the post to begin when she was due to leave school at fourteen.
I returned to school just in time to sit my exams. And feeling very apprehensive I got down to the task of really trying to do my best as a compliment to Mr. Kennedy. Some time later, it was he who approached me during an eleven o'clock milk break (we each got a quarter pint size bottle of milk every schoolday) and told me that I had passed the exams alright and had in fact won a bursary which would pay for my high school education. The prize day came and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I'd come top in each subject and was awarded six book prizes. On arriving home, I got a bitter disappointment when Mum raged at me for not telling her that it was to be prize day. She said she'd never been so affronted and ashamed in all her life saying "Jist look at yersel, yer pullovers got a hole in the erm and yer hairs nae combed", and proceeded to burst out crying. I began attending the McLaren High School at the beginning of the next term. My subjects being French, Mathematics, Science and P.T. which included gymnastics, rugby and cricket. This was just great.
In the following Spring, Dad was offered a transfer to Perth but with no railway company accommodation like we then had and the post would in fact mean demotion, a downgrading. Dad accepted on the assumption that he would be in line for promotion in due course. We arrived in Perth during the School Summer holidays and found lodgings with one of the local councils' dustmen Mr. Gibson, in Glover Street and Nan began work at 'Liptons' large grocery shop in Methven street. Next morning Mum went out to buy vegetables from a vender on a horse drawn cart. When she came indoors she said to me "Jim, as we're sae awfu' hard up, I've got ye a job as a message laddie wi' Dawson, the tattie man". (the potato vender) I worked with Dawson, (a big powerful man who lost his right arm during the Great War), until Mum and Dad received a letter from a school inspector asking why I hadn't resumed my education following the summer recess. I was sent to school forthwith, at the Balhousie Boys' School for one week until my fourteenth birthday, after which with Dad's influence, I started as a trainee telegraph operator in the Telegraph Office in Perth Railway Station.
With my career, sending and reading morse signals now settled, I was able to concentrate on improving my sight reading and playing The Great Highland Bagpipe music as it had come to be known. During 1938 I heard of a new pipe band being formed in the 51st. Highland Division R.A.S.C. (T.A.) and being eager to join, I claimed to be 18 years old, giving my d.o.b. as 1920. and each weekend onwards, the pipe band was kept very busy attending recruiting campaigns in towns and villages thoughout Perthshire.
On the 3rd of September, 1939 when war was declared, the 525 Dundee Company T.A. marched the 21 miles to join the 527 Perth Company and arrangements were being made for all the troops to be addressed by Brigadier George. On the following Tuesday, the large number of troops paraded in two fields near the 'Pullars of Perth' warehouse to await the arrival of the Brigadier. Meantime to keep the troops alert, the drill sergeants gave the order to 'slope arms' and on doing so I struck the safety catch with the point of my right thumb causing the whole of my right arm to instantly become numb as if paralysed and preventing me from completing the movement. While every man stood at attention with his rifle 'sloped' on his left shoulder, I stood with my left arm clinging to and pressing my rifle hard against my right shoulder to prevent it falling. Very soon, an angry sergeant appeared in front of me demanding to know "what's the matter, lad"? On hearing that I couldn't feel my right arm, he took my rifle and instructed me to march quickly off parade.
I was rushed, half a mile, in one of the small R.A.M.C. vehicles to the Medical Officer of the Black Watch at Queen's Barracks. Immediately the M.O. saw my thumb he told me that I had an exposed nerve at the point of my thumb just under the nail, adding that if I didn't get it removed now, the same thing could happen again. An orderly arrived almost immediately pushing a trolley with all sorts of equipment on it. The M.O. said that he would inject a local anaesthetic into and around the point of my thumb, leaving it for a few minutes before removing the point of my thumb with the exposed nerve. The next thing I knew was looking at the light in the ceiling with both M.O. and his Orderly slapping my cheeks and anxiously enquiring how I felt. Obviously, when they left me sitting there, I'd fainted. On reassuring them that I was OK the M.O. proceeded to chop the end of my thumb, bandage it and sign me off for a week's sick leave. When I returned to the Company in the warehouse. I learned that after I was excused the parade and left, the Brigadier arrived, complained of feeling unwell and he too left for medical attention and was found dead in bed in his hotel room the following morning. "He wisnae sae lucky as you", I was told.
During the week I was away, each young lad who had joined the territorial army within the last year was required to take his birth certificate to the Company Office for inspection as a result of which I was described as an 'immature' (under-age) and was posted to 'home service' with 910 Company R.A.S.C. of the 53rd. Anti Aircraft Brigade in Liverpool. Time being at a premium to prepare the troops for war, I had little or no opportunity to play bagpipes but I did get the choice of learning to drive or entering the supply depot office as a supply clerk. I chose the driving course. When the 'blitz' started in 1940, I was driving supplies of food, ammunition and equipment to gunsites in and around Liverpool, a most hazardous job, so much so that we, the drivers were granted a weeks leave to rest and recuperate.
Sitting at home in Perth during that 'leave', I was polishing my army boots by the famous old spit and polish method, when I was overcome by the most awful pain below my left ribs and Mum becoming very alarmed, sent for the Doctor on whose 'panel' our family had been put when we arrived in Perth. The Doctor, on learning that I was now a soldier told Mum that she must inform the Medical Officer at the Queen's Barracks, which she did and I was whisked off to the 'sick bay' at the Black Watch Barracks where my condition was diagnosed as 'duodenitis' and I was sent in a small R.A.M.C. van to the Gleneagles Hotel which was being used as a Military Hospital for the duration of the war. Next day I was very thoroughly examined, x-rayed and put on a diet of eggs, fish and milk.
The senior medical officer visited me in my bedroom the following day and told me that the M.O.'s diagnosis had been confirmed but no ulcer had been found but I was also suffering from what he described as 'Effort Syndrome'. He added that I could be discharged from the army on medical grounds or opt to stay in a lower 'C' medical category. After considering how much my discharge would affect the arrangements at home where my bedroom was now occupied by two 'Pay Corps' soldiers who had been compulsorily billeted with the family and food rationing was affecting everybody outside the forces, I opted to soldier on.
After a months convalescence at the Dunblane Hydro also designated as 'military' during hostilities, I was posted to a holding battalion at Woking in Surrey to await orders. That was a fearfully long slow train journey to London and then by foot from Euston Station to Waterloo Station with bombs falling all around, especially when alone, I crossed Waterloo bridge getting soaked by the spray from bombs falling nearby in the River Thames. At Woking, my orders duly received, were to rejoin my company in Liverpool the following day.
I was there when an Army Council Instruction was issued throughout the army stating that anyone who could read and send morse code will transfer to the Royal Corps of Signals immediately. The Commanding Officer sent for me and asked if my civilian occupation of telegraphist meant that I could read and send morse code, I answered "yes sir". He then told the R.Q.M.S. (Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant) to issue me with a rail warrant and ordered me to report to the 2nd O.T.B. (Operators' Training Battalion), 2nd S.T.C. (Signal Training Centre) at Prestatyn, North Wales.
On arrival at Prestatyn, I was delighted to find that the S.T.C. was a commandeered holiday camp, lush accommodation, restaurants, dance halls …. the lot! I was interviewed next morning and detailed to sit a trade test in the afternoon. I passed the test with flying colours when I read the morse sent by the fastest operator in the Centre. I was then posted to a holding battalion at nearby Colwyn Bay to await instructions. To my surprise, those instructions were that I report to War Office Signals in Whitehall, London. Things were happening so fast that when I wrote home informing Mum and Dad they mistakenly thought that the lettering O.T.B. stood for Officers Training Branch, or similar. I was mystified when I received a letter congratulating me on becoming an officer etc. I sent a telegram immediately to point out the misunderstanding - but they were still happy for me being posted to the War Office Signals!
Again I arrived at London's Euston railway station in the midst of a severe air raid and had to walk through the streets while the bombs fell all around in order to get to Eaton Square in Knightsbridge where I was to be billeted. Before taking up my duties at the War Office, I had to take an oath that anything I learned during my war service, would never be divulged and would go with me to my grave.
When I went home to Perth on Christmas leave, 1941, My sister introduced me to her friend Anna Cheek who she had invited to tea. When I heard Anna talk I recognized the London accent and then began the amusing topic of me being in London while she was in Perth. She explained how, working since prior to the outbreak of WW2, in the Royal Naval Stores Depot at Deptford, on the south bank of the River Thames, all the staff including Anna's Dad had to be evacuated due to the widespread bomb damage everywhere around, initially to be sent to Coventry where the same thing happened and hence to Perth where the RNSD had taken over the local ice rink, where Nan was now working. This was the beginning of a romance which is still flourishing today after 60 years!
I went home on leave again during March, 1942 when we became engaged and arranged to marry during my next leave in June. I met Anna's brother Phil, an officer in Royal Corps of Signals who too had been at Prestatyn. I vaguely remembered him but he couldn't place me. We were married in St. John's Kirk, Perth on the 20th June, 1942 and afterwards enjoyed a wonderful reception in York House, despite rationing etc. Anna, now getting used to being called Mrs. Caution, and I spent a great honeymoon with Dad's cousin Elsie (nee Clark) who had married John Lovie (who farmed the Bogton Farm at Delavaird, near Stonehaven) just before the outbreak of WW2. Initial difficulties of understanding the local dialects and becoming accustomed to farmyard life, were soon dispelled and Anna and I settled down to the enjoyment of getting to really know each other.
We went out into the nearby woodland hoping to shoot some of the great many rabbits running around, but Anna wasn't too happy about that idea after witnessing the first rabbit being shot. I suggested that she should shoot the next one but she declined…but she did blow a few hundred holes in an old rusted petrol drum which was lying nearby. The borrowed double barrelled 12 bore shotgun was duly handed back to me, 'honours even'! Aunt Elsie, as we called her, told me about John's brother and his wife who lived in London with daughter Snoddy (Snowdrop) and son David who was a fighter pilot in the RAF.
When I returned to Eaton Square, leaving Anna back in Perth living with her parents, I visited 'The Windsor Dive' a very large public house just outside Victoria Railway Station where I met Mr. Lovie, an elderly gentleman of great height and breadth actually talking to one of his lady staff behind the very long counter. When I introduced myself , he very kindly invited me to go upstairs with one of his senior staff to meet 'Mother'. A dear lovely old lady who greeted me with the advice that I should excuse Snoddy's unusual sensitivities ….'eccentricities'…. which she had acquired at university due to deep and prolonged studying. Presently Mr. Lovie joined us for tea when the obvious topic of discussion was war. Then he said "When I took 100 mounted and many more footmen to Wales to quell the miners riots during the 20's…." being completely ignorant of Welsh history, I really put my foot in it when I said "You were in the Cavalry, then?" "Cavalry?" he questioned, "I thought John would have told you, I was Chief of the Metropolitan Police". At that moment, I wished I'd left the army when I could have done! Nevertheless, I was invited to return at any time I pleased.
The Wireless Room to which I had been posted was below Whitehall, underneath many feet of thick concrete with some form of mechanical ventilation (air conditioning) which sometimes stopped functioning during air raids. Those were anxious and unpleasant times. For anyone to enter The Wireless Room, they'd have to know pass words at every one of four levels before they'd be escorted downstairs to report to whoever they had asked to see, but once when reading some important message, I was tapped on the shoulder by the Signal Station Officer who pointed to an R.A.M.C. Sergeant (Ron Croll, a cousin of mine, from Montrose, standing grinning at me), and ordered me to escort the Sergeant to the most senior security staff at street level and get rid of him. Flabbergasted, I asked Ron however had he managed to get in and he said that his Mother had told him to meet me when he was in London and that is what he had said to the military and civil police sentries at the entrance! The mystery was never solved. In later years when we met, he always maintained that he had hoodwinked War Office security at the highest level and had a chat with me in the wireless room. An exaggeration, of course, but he had breached it.
Soon afterwards, a few of the operators, myself included were sent to Scotland on intercept duties in support of the War Office detachment there. About 8 a.m. one morning as we were in our 'Signals' vehicle, passing through Perth, a colleague said to me, "You live here, don't you Jock?"(I being the only Scot in the party), the officer in charge suggested that we give my missus a pleasant surprise, and taking our rations with us, have breakfast with the family. Imagine everyones surprise, pleasant or not, when the six of us entered. Not too quietly either. Unfortunately, we could not give any reason for being there other than that we were on a Survival Training Scheme. After breakfast, (which consisted of their week's ration of eggs,) when we left the family in puzzled bewilderment, I wondered if we'd been really fair?
After a week of working three 8 hr. shifts, we returned to London and were pleased to learn that a woman in Dundee had been arrested for spying. Not long afterwards, the operators involved were actually posted to the War Office detachment there to continue the duty. I was on intercept duty near Edinburgh one day (Dec.11.1943) when I was called to the cipher office and handed a signal pad on which were the words 'parcel arrived, tassel attached'. This was Anna's Dad's way of announcing the arrival of Edward, our first born. The officer in charge congratulated me and signed a warrant for me to go on compassionate leave. I was up in the clouds feeling 10ft. tall when I arrived home and met my baby son but I was appalled to learn what a very long painful 3 days labour Anna had had to endure.
On arriving back on duty, I was informed by the officer in charge that I had been selected to attend a wireless security course on the Isle of Man. Once there, I discovered that rationing was much more relaxed than on the mainland and added to my enjoyment during my stay on the Island. I returned to the War Office detachment now stationed near Ayr where I was told to hand my paybook into the Company Office to have the record and result of the course entered. When I returned to collect my paybook, the R.Q.M.S. informed me that he'd never seen such a result and admitted that he hadn't even known it was attainable. Eagerly, I opened my paybook and read the word 'Excellent'. Next day I read in Part 2 Orders (The official 'Order of the Day' Bulletin) that I had been promoted to full paid N.C.O. from the previously held 'Acting' rank.
Unfortunately, the exceptionally stressful type of intensive concentration needed to perform the tasks we had to undertake, I began to lose weight and unable to sleep when off duty, and because a few operators (including one of our own shift) had committed suicide, the Medical Officer at Ayr referred me to a Medical Board at Edinburgh Castle where I was interviewed in length and depth before being medically discharged from the army due to psycho neurosis and unfit for any form of military service. I wouldn't be considered for a disability pension as I had apparently, on hindsight, foregone that offer at Gleneagles. I can never recall having been made aware of this at either Gleneagles or Dunblane.
Back home with my dear loving Anna and our precious baby son, I came under the care of our GP who had, incidentally, been a guest at our wedding. He went to great pains to get me back to health and strength which I have always acknowledged and appreciated. WW2 was fast coming to and end and no sooner had I been pronounced fit and started work, initially as a stocktaker in the R.N.S.D. and later as payclerk at Perth Gasworks, I received the offer of a post in London as a Wireless Operator with the G.C.W.S. (Government Communications Wireless Service). Following a lengthy discussion with our GP who considered that as this type of 'civilian' occupation would be far removed from that which I had experienced in 'military' service, I should accept it.
At the interview in London, I was told that I was overqualified for the post but could be appointed to the Frequency