Time for a Cuppa!

The Magazine

For all the Family

November 30, 1999

"GEORGE"
By
James W.B. Laing

George Faversham-Barrington McLean was born somewhere near the city of Stirling in the middle of the Great Depression. According to his mother, her family had been titled and very wealthy until the depression when all was lost. When he was quite young, he asked his father what that was all about, his father said, "Humph.... I do not wish to hear about that nonsense ever again," and dismissed the subject. His mother constantly reminded him that he was "connected" and must conduct himself accordingly. George always wondered why she never did say what he was connected to. Whenever she repeated her reminder, George always looked to see where the connection was. She didn't appreciate his humour and said that one day he'd find out, and be sorry for his lack of appreciation of this status. For a long time, he never knew what she meant. She always had such grandiose ideas. It left him wondering for many years. His father refused talked about it...a very difficult man to get to know, his father, always very reserved and aloof to the point of coldness with him.

His father had held a prestigious position with a chain of high-class gentlemen's outfitters in the city of Glasgow until that fateful event which did not discriminate on whose life it ruined. He now had the difficult task of finding suitable employment to support his wife and two children. As for his mother...no way...she'd never washed a dish, made a bed, boiled water or lifted a dust cloth in her life and had no intention of starting then, however, that soon changed! His poor father had such great difficulty finding gainful employment, as did so many others at that time, that he had to go from the southwest to the northeast. Eventually, he found work in the City Assessor's office and remained with them for the next thirty-one years, not including the war years when he served with the RAF. George was later led to believe that his family's travelling to the northeast had something to do with his mother's family. His father retired with the proverbial gold watch and a significant pension.

At the age of about three and a half to almost four, George could remember living in Aberdeen in, a very difficult to obtain, downstairs apartment, a true downstairs apartment...it was below street level. He was confined to playing in a walled in pen outside a full size French window, the top of the window well wall was (try saying that quickly after a few wee drams) level with the street...totally safe and secure...so they thought. A 'bobby' eventually found him three hours later marching along Union Street, the busy main street of the city, with his "pop-gun" rifle on his shoulder. To his delight, the policeman arrested him on the spot, bought him an ice-cream cone and placed him in the custody of his parents with a warning. His poor parents were at their wits' end with his "prison breaks." No matter what they did...tying a rope around his waist and attaching the other end to the iron railing was one of their lesser successful methods of keeping him at home. He always succeeded in escaping from his confining jail, only to be apprehended by the law several hours later...sometimes at a nearby school playground or at a park which had a slide and swings. His name and photograph was posted permanently in the city police headquarters. His father told him it was also posted in Scotland Yard, which, at that age, meant absolutely nothing to him. They didn't stay very long in Aberdeen.

They eventually moved to a small sleepy village in the country, where George could perform his usual Houdini stunts without the possibility of being kidnapped or run over by errant automobiles which were a luxury at that time; very few cars in the village due to the depression! Since everyone in the village knew everyone else, and where they were at any given time, it wouldn't be too difficult to find him in event of his wanderings. His father became the local Assessor, his office being close enough to where he could walk. In the beginning, he had no drivers license and no experience of operating a vehicle, such a thing, he thought, should only be handled by chauffeurs, taxi and bus drivers; spoken like a true city dweller! However, his duties demanded that he have a car, so he succumbed to their demand and became one of the few locals who had their own vehicle.

At first, they moved into a 'room and board' located near the golf course until their ultimate residence was ready for them to move into. It was during this period, he displayed the first signs of an alarming propensity for getting into trouble unassisted. George was walking along the edge of the golf course with his brother William, when he decided to jump across a drainage ditch. At the age of four, this was no small feat. Being so small of structure, he misjudged the distance and fell to the bottom, successfully breaking his left arm. Upon his arrival at the house, carefully supporting his wounded wing, he announced to his parents that he'd fallen into a dry ditch...as compared to a wet ditch, maybe. He recalled going with his father by bus to the hospital in Aberdeen, there being no x-ray facilities in the village, a journey of thirty-one miles which took exactly one and a half hours of sheer enjoyment. During the ride, every passenger who just had to be told his tale of woe spoilt him rotten. Coming home that same day with a wonderful, pure white cast on his arm, was the ultimate highlight of his day. He was pampered by all in the village who met him with his arm in its cast. He was somewhat saddened the day it was removed about six weeks later...like losing a good childhood companion.

They eventually moved into a century old house on the outskirts of the village on the south side of the river that divided the village. The house had no central heating and was heated by fireplaces in each of the many rooms; fortunately, they moved into the house in the summer of nineteen thirty-eight. The number of rooms that would have to have to be spruced up once a week disturbed his mother. She soon got over it...with outside assistance. Little George was ecstatic about it; he could roam around each of the rooms pulling on the service cords, annoying everyone.

In the house next door, lived a couple with one daughter. On the other side, lived a family of nine, a finer family you couldn't find, but all their children were grown up. Elizabeth, the second eldest daughter, was about the same age as his mother and became her closest friend, until his mother and father moved back to the city of Aberdeen many years later.

For some unknown reason he had no desire to wander more than a hundred yards from his new home until he reached the adventurous age of about five. Perhaps it was the vast garden with its many hiding places for adventures that kept him at home. Five was a magical number for him. He vividly remembers the birthday cards, especially the one with the large, gold speckled number five on the front, which came from his grandmother in the city of Glasgow, not to mention the enclosed ten shilling note that filled him with awe. With that much money he could travel the world and have all kinds of adventures! Grandmother Barrington, who was his mother's mother and whose maiden name was Faversham, which his mother made sure he wouldn't forget by constantly reminded him, was the only grandmother he knew...grandfather Barrington had passed away some time prior to George's birth.

He wasn't too sure what grandfather Barrington did for a living, if anything. Whenever he asked anyone, the answer was always evasive...he may have been hung for sheep stealing for all George knew. His grandmother had a very large oil portrait of him above the fireplace in the very Victorian sitting room that was seldom used. Thinking back, George thought he looked to be about forty at the time of his portrait session and was unsmiling, with a fairly large moustache. Maybe he was smiling and it just couldn't be seen under the thick bush adorning his upper lip that was the style in his day. George was vaguely led to believe, by his grandmother, that he had something to do with ships, as was his father before him. Large models of three mast sailing ships, which grandmother Barrington intimated were replicas of ships owned by the family in days gone by, plus many other artefacts from strange and foreign lands, were scattered around several rooms.

When George was about seven, while visiting with her with his mother, he could recall her briefly showing him an old yellow roll of parchment tied with a faded ribbon. When opened, it appeared to be a family tree, which she claimed, was theirs, but that subject was never further discussed until much later in his life when he stopped off to see her prior to his departure for the United States of America. Strange to say, his older brother had no recollection of ever seeing such a document and doubted its existence, perhaps because he may not have been privy to it, George truly didn't know. He knew he saw it.

For the rest of his life, George had no idea why his family had no conversations about, or communications with, his father's parents. As a child it was, "out of sight, out of mind."

When he thought about it later, he could not remember any time when his mother's relatives were with them while his father was there. After the war, he and his father went to Glasgow for the funeral of one of his father's brothers. George was, very briefly, introduced to grandfather McLean and was then quickly dispatched to see a "summertime in the village" girl friend in the city. George wasn't allowed to attend the funeral or meet any other members of his father's family. Afterwards, they both visited his Uncle George who was delighted to see them both. That was the only time he ever saw his father with any member of his mother's family. Uncle George, after whom George was named, was the only member of the Barrington family his father ever talked about (another "wild one".)

When George was five, he attended school for the first time. It was raining cats and dogs and was wearing his first pair of brand new rubber boots. He remembered sitting at the front of the class with another new potential scholar, whose name was Parker, and was henceforth, called Nosy Parker. He advised George that he had to fold down the tops of his rubber boots. If he didn't...everyone would laugh at him. He certainly did not want everyone laughing at him so he proceeded to turn down the tops. When he arrived home from school, his mother made him turn them up again which was quite uncomfortable since his legs were wet and the boots rubbed on them causing a rash. The next day when he left for school, he'd turn down the tops again. No one was going to laugh at him. All he could remember of those first six months at school was cutting out stars and flowers from coloured paper and pasting them in a notebook and drawing things on a wood framed slate. They were all sprung from such confinement at noon and led home by big brothers, sisters or mothers.

Christmas in the big house was a time of great excitement for him, and his big brother. His father, or mother, would have an old box taken from a storage room to the living room. The box contained the decorations for the festive season. Standing on kitchen chairs, they would deck the walls of the living room in thick, fancy and intricately designed paper chains. Then, they would string similar chains from the corners of the room to the centre of the ceiling where they would complete the project by hanging a large, red, folding paper bell. Then came the Christmas tree. Where it came from, he couldn't remember, but everybody had one. George thought that people just went to the hills, select their tree, cut it down and haul it home, regardless of whose property it grew on. Decorating the tree was an exciting time, more exciting than hanging the decorations. They'd drape the tree with all kinds of thin, colourful glass ornament of every shape, birds, balls and angels etc. Sometimes they'd accidentally drop one resulting in fine thin shards of poisonous glass scattered on the floor. No one could move until father or mother collected all the shards, and drop them in a wastebasket. They'd also drape the tree with fine silver metallic stringers that were supposed to give the appearance of icicles that usually had to remain entangled in the branches of the tree that was disposed of religiously on January the second.

Big brother William and he always put their gifts to their parents under the tree as soon as it was dressed in all its finery. Their presents from Santa Claus, and their Barrington relatives, would not appear until Christmas Day when they would rush downstairs to the tree and see what Santa had brought. Christmas Day for George usually started around four o'clock in the morning, much to his parents' chagrin. Who could sleep on Christmas Eve while he was waiting for Santa Claus to arrive and while he could hear Christmas music coming from the radio down stairs in the living room where his parents would listen and relax just before they retired to their bedroom? Christmas Day was the happiest day of the year. It could be sensed, felt it in the air, and he could even smell it. Christmas was that intangible feeling that suddenly grabbed you on the first day of December and penetrated your entire body and soul, leaving you weak and pleasantly exhausted for several weeks after it was gone for another year. After the usual Christmas dinner, which always included the proverbial plumb pudding with it's little surprises wrapped in grease proof paper, George would take his favourite gift and retire to his bedroom for a nap to catch up with his missed Christmas Eve sleep. Of course, Santa Claus had eaten the biscuits and drank the milk they'd left on the table for him, they knew he'd taken them...weren't there only crumbs and an empty glass on the table? Who else would take Santa's treat?

1939 was the year the war started. George would always remember it as if it was yesterday. It was late in the afternoon and was in the middle of an unusually heavy rain, thunder and lightning storm. They were in the living room listening to the radio between rolls of thunder and flashes of lightning. George was at the window looking out at the rapidly flooding stream that flowed at the bottom of the main front garden and watching God's fireworks. To George, it all seemed so ominous. The radio program was interrupted to announce that Great Britain was now at war with Germany. To George, it meant nothing...all he wanted to do was get outside to the flooding stream and sail stick boats. His mother displayed no emotion as usual. His big brother, William, apparently knew more than George did, as he heard him cry...the very first, but not the last, time he saw and heard him do that. The second, and last time, was an episode at the village school when George was ten and several young teenagers were holding his brother down and tossing his bicycle around. George saw what they were doing to his brother and with tears of compassion and rage, charged into them with fists and feet flying. They scattered at the onslaught of this wild young man. Big brother William didn't even thank him. The next day after the Declaration of War, the local war readiness committee went into action.

Inside shutters, blinds and drapes had to completely eliminate all light escaping from all windows and doors. The streetlights, such few there were, went out. Shops had to follow the same rules. Absolutely no visible light allowed. The trusty Air Raid Wardens made sure of that on their patrols. It wasn't uncommon to hear a tapping on the windows and a loud voice directing those inside that light was sneaking out. Total darkness was the order of the night and as children, George and his friends in the village were overjoyed. It was during this "blackout" period that they learned to find their way in the pitch dark of night, without the aid of a flashlight. They could sneak around anywhere in the village undiscovered...they became masters of the dark and many pranks were carried out on the older populace of the village without discovery. Only the younger children were gifted with this night-vision or sense. Later, they surmised it was due to the fact that they hadn't become used to streetlights and such. Their bicycles had to have a headlight and taillight, if they took them out at night. Why, was always a puzzle to them. The headlight glass had to be painted black except for a narrow strip which never gave enough light to even avoid running over wayward cats, dogs and old ladies. The following spring, George's father joined the RAF.

End of part 1 of a possible series

If you'd like to read more of Jim Laing's wonderful work,

then you can contact him at:

JimLaing@aol.com

Here's some great new writers

The Indian Tracker By J.W.B. Laing

The Iron Ring by J.W.B. Laing

George, by J.W.B. Laing

Argolyn's Bell, by J.W.B. Laing

The Nick Hardy Story (Don't miss it!)

Bobby R Woodall Author of "Mercer's Manor"

Read more of Bobby R Woodall's work