An Oral History of Glasgow:
An Oral History Interview with Margaret McLaughlin
Interview with John McLaughlin

MA: Och, drink yer coffee! [Laughter]

JOHN: Forgot about that. What’s your full name, Ma?

MA: Margaret Bryson McCracken — McLaughlin, not McCracken!

JOHN: OK—Margaret Bryson McCracken McLaughlin – where’s the Bryson from?

MA: Canada.

JOHN: How’s that?

MA: An aunt in Canada.

JOHN: Whose sister was she?

MA: Eh – My father’s sister.

JOHN: How big a family was your father in?

MA: Six. Five brothers and sisters.

JOHN: Do you know their names?

MA: H’m. Jeannette Gibson. It would be Jeanette McCracken. She married a Gibson. And his brother’s name was Bill. And John. And I forget the rest right now.

JOHN: As far as your sister named Jeannette – who was Margaret Bryson?

MA: She was actually a stepsister in Canada.

JOHN: Was his mother married twice, or his father married twice?

MA: Oh no. One wife. She’d married my father, a McCracken, and there was nine in the family. My father’s family, the McCrackens. They went from, eh, Uncle Hughie…Well, from Hughie downwards. There was nine of them.

JOHN: Hughie McCracken was the oldest?

MA: Oh aye. He died when he was ninety. His wife’s still alive. And she was over in Canada last year. She jets over there like a ferry. She has a daughter in Walnut Creek, and a son-in-law who’s a Mountie-- Mounted Police.

JOHN: Up in Canada, not Walnut Creek, California, in the USA?

MA: No, Canada. It’s not far from where Bobby stays. In that area.

JOHN: So after Hughie…?

MA: There was Jimmy, Bobby, uh, Mary. Mm. Davey. Nelly. Martha, Jenny, and myself.

JOHN: Five boys and four girls?

MA: And I’m the last.

JOHN: Where were you born, then?

MA: I was born at the corner of Cumberland Street and Rose Street. South Side. I was born there.

JOHN: Where did you go to school?

MA: Adelphi Street.

JOHN: How old were you when you left school?

MA: Fourteen. Fourteen when I left school.

JOHN: Did you go to two schools, or one school?

MA: Only the one school.

JOHN: So everything was in the one school?

MA: Aye And the year after I left they started putting it in that you went to school till you were sixteen, and you had to go to Secondary School.

JOHN: But you didn’t, you left at fourteen.

MA: Aye. That’s right. And then I had a papers route, from half past seven in the morning.

JOHN: When were you born?

MA: I was born in Cumberland Street –

JOHN: -- No, when were you born?

MA: Nineteen twelve. Twenty-fourth of July, nineteen twelve.

JOHN: So that makes you….

MA: Seventy-four this year.

JOHN: Seventy-four this July. A few days from now.

MA: Same [birthday] as yer son. [Unintelligible here. Laughter]

JOHN: Let me ask you something, Ma, what games did you play when you were kids?

MA: Mmmm. Mainly, myself, climbing dykes….[Note: Stone walls between tenement backyards.] Football. But my sisters, they played with dolls, and prams. I played at peerie, spin the peerie, you know? [Spinning tops, if you’re not fae Glesga] Wheesh….! And I played at peerie, and played at football and played at dykes with my brothers. Davey.

JOHN: Did you play at kick the can?

MA: Kick the can. Hide and seek.

JOHN: Ah-leevie-o.

MA: Re-leavie-o. Run through one close, jump over steps, doon the dunnie, up in the next close. Through the buildings. Through a dunnie, as we called it. Basically a building. Through that, and out in the next street. You could go in Culloden Street and come out in Crown Street. Or out in Cally Road.

JOHN: As long as they didn’t catch ye.

MA: Well…they never caught us. Not till I was aboot seventeen and they said I should have more sense! We werena playing kick the can then. We were standing at the corner and they used to come and tell us to move along. We had no right to be standing at the corner in a group. So we used to go up and around the corner, thro the close and come back out again. We made the best of it.

JOHN: Were the Glasgow cops – a lot of the Glasgow cops –Highlanders at the time?
Chuchters?

MA: Right enough, I think.

JOHN: Not too many Glasgow men were cops?

MA: I don’t know. Not too many. I mean, we never thought – we never thought what people were. I mean tae us, it was a wee bobby – he was a wee bobby, and that was a’ he was.

JOHN: Or a big bobby.

MA: Aye. Oh, there were very few wee bobbies. They were six feet and over and that.

JOHN: How many Glesga men could you count who were over six feet tall?

MA: Oh, very few! [laughter]

JOHN: Did you get along OK with the cops?

MA: Oh aye. Well, when I was fourteen I really had tae get along wi’ them. I had the keys to the shop, and we opened at half past five in the morning. I went down the stairs to meet the beat bobby, who came off work at six, and he walked me to about halfway, to the end of his beat, and across the road we picked up the other bobby, at the end of his beat. I mean you couldna get a tramcar at that time in the morning, sometimes, and anyway there was no heat in the tramcars anyway, and I had tae walk it.

JOHN: So you walked it.

MA: Well, I liked walking, which was a good job. I know, it sounds stupit saying I didna have a ha’penny for ma bus fare, but it was true. Comes to Thursday, and ye didnae have a ha’penny for your bus fare. Well, if you had a penny, which meant you had two journeys, but if you had four journeys in the one day you had to walk it twice. Well, comes the weekend and you wanted to buy something extra, another bar of chocolate, you bought it and you walked it instead. See? [laughter]

JOHN: Do what you have to.

MA: Exactly!

JOHN: Have to learn to like what you have to do.

MA: Oh aye. But, eh, well, it was quite good growing up there. This was a rerr family – sisters and that. My brother and I –we werena bad, we were just a wee bit wild.

JOHN: Which brother was that?

MA: Davey. Judy Quack’s Dad.

JOHN. Judy Quack Quack? Aye. [Laughter] That name stuck. I wonder why.

MA: Oh, she wore mini-skirts before mini-skirts were invented. The boys all used to say, “Look at her, showing her pants. The durrty thing.”

JOHN [Trying to change the subject, get back on the rails, whatever]: Did you like school?

MA: I did not. I hated school. Because I was the end of nine, and all my brothers and sisters they were held up for me, as they were experts. Great at this, and great at that. The only thing, I was quite good at ice-skating. Nobody could take that away from me. I was quite good at that. But it was, “You’re like your brother, you can’t write. Like a hen walking across the page, and you’re the same!”

JOHN: Experts or fools? You couldn’t match, or you could match too easily?

MA: Aye. They could say, I mean, Nellie was a beautiful sewer, and Jennie was a beautiful writer, and Martha was just, she was just an all-round nice person!

JOHN: Sweet.

MA: Oh aye. I mean, I liked gyms, I liked that. I hated sewing. I will admit it, I did hate sewing. I used to say, your Aunt Nellie was a dressmaker, and I used to say to her, “Sew this button on for me and I’ll wash the stairs for you.”

JOHN: So she liked that.

MA: Oh, she was a dressmaker, and she did not mind that at all. But my mother said, “Make her do her own sewing!” We did get dressmaking at school, but I didn’t go to it. You know, if you didn’t like a thing, you just didn’t do it right.

JOHN. Aye. Where did your father come from?

MA: As far as I can gather, he came from Ballykelly.

JOHN: In Ireland?

MA: No, he didn’t come from there, but his folks came from there.

JOHN: Where was your father born?

MA: In Cumberland Street.

JOHN: In the South Side. And you think his folks came from Ballykelly, but you’re not sure.

MA: No. I only remember, though, Granny, his mother, was an old Irish lady, and I just remember her, visiting her in the hospital. The first one took to the hospital. At that time there was no Social – the family had to take care of the old people.

JOHN: Ah. No social workers.

MA: No. There was no Social, as it is just now. I mean, now, they’re taken into care, into homes and that, but at that time there wasn’t. See, Uncle Bill had to take her for six weeks, Uncle John had to take her for six weeks. My father had to take her. She had to pay –she had to go six weeks, and the one that had her had to collect two shillings a week off the rest of his brothers and sisters. To take care of his mother. There was no government payment, as there is now.

JOHN: So when you say “Social,” what do you mean, ”Social”?

MA:I mean there was no government help then. And whoever kept the old lady had to pay two shillings, and all the brothers and sisters had to pay that particular one. When it was my father’s turn, he had to collect the money from them.

JOHN: So she was an old Irish woman.

MA: Uh huh. And then when she got infirm, that she couldn’t get out of bed, they took her into, we called in Mary Flats, and it’s now the Southern General hospital. It was called Mary Flats, and she was taken into there, the Geriatric.

JOHN: How old was she when she was taken in there?

MA: Eh… About ninety-two.

JOHN: Long-lived family. How old was your father when he died?

MA: Ninety two. No, my father was ninety-four. And my mother’d be ninety. She died the same month after.

JOHN: How old was Martha?

MA: Martha’d be seventy…two. She was two year older than me, she was seventy-two when she died, and Nell was eighty. She died last year.

JOHN: Any reason why the McCrackens lived so long?

MA: Oh, hard work! Just hard work. I mean, they did not abuse themselves. I mean,
My dad liked to drink, and when my mother’s brothers were in the Navy, when they came to visit them, you know what sailors are like, they always went for a few drinks. But they never got drunk. They liked a drink.

JOHN: Where did your mother come from?

MA: She was born in Cranstonhill. That’s the West End of Glasgow.

JOHN: Was that from the Irish, or Scottish?

MA: No, I think they were Scots originally, I think, but I don’t know just where they came from.
JOHN: Any idea where her mother came from?

MA: No. My Granny’s name was Mary Park. Another middle name. Your Aunt Mary
Park, that was your Uncle George’s sister, but two different families, it just happened.
JOHN: H’m. You belonged to a cycling club?

MA: We did. We belonged to the Nightingales. That was the name of the club.

JOHN: How big a club was that?

MA: I think there were about forty of us.

JOHN: A big club. Where did you go?

MA: Down to Redhills, way out, down to the Forth Lighthouse, We’d go down and do the Largs tour, back up again. I didn’t get out as much with them, because the Church was a bit sticky about these things.

Camping in later years		With Bill and George and motorbike

JOHN: The Wee Free Church? [The United Free Church of Scotland].
MA: Oh aye, we were in theWee Free.

JOHN: That made a big difference.

MA: Oh, a big difference! Because you had to go to Church in the mornings,

You went to Church at dinner time, you went to church at tea-time. And I never got out much with the…. Unless…. I’d a good chum, y’know, and I used to meet her, and I’d say, “I’m going out with the boys the night.” “Where are ye going?” We’re going out to Spring Lane Mission.” “Right” “A’ right.”

JOHN: So, in case anybody asked?

MA: “So I’ll tell Auntie Janet when I meet her tomorrow that I was at the Spring Lane Mission. Tell my mother, so she’ll tell my mother and father – you know?” But I mean, once you got married, it was different. Once you were married, we had a tandem. [A two-seat bicycle] But there wasn’t that much in difference in the boys’ ages, but there was a crowd, there was at that time maybe nine or ten of us left, and four or five of them were married, and then they used to collect in our house. We were the only married couple at that time, to begin with.

JOHN: You met through the Nightingales?

MA: No, we split up, and the boys just sort of joined themselves.

JOHN: How did you meet Stirling?

MA: Well, he ran about with your Uncle Davey. He ran about on the bike, and your Dad run about with him. He stayed in Caledonia Road at the time, which was the next corner to where we stayed. So we met, and he asked me for a walk, and somebody said, “Don’t walk wi’ her, Stirling, or you’ll be sorry!” So we started out, and he was six feet, by the time we finished walking with me he was five feet! [Laughter]

JOHN: You wore him down, eh? [See Mike Waterson on this in Martin Carthy interview elsewhere on this website….]

MA: Oh aye. So this friend of ours used to come up to the house on Sunday morning, and she’d take the two – there was Stirling and Davey at the time –and she’d take the two kids down to Largs, she’d take them down on the bus, and we’d go down, like on the tandem, we got down there and we’d swap clothes, and I’d come back on the bus, and she’d come back on the tandem.

JOHN: That was after you were married though?

MA: Oh, aye –that would never have happened on Cumberland Street!

JOHN: Where were his parents from?

MA: Your Grandpa Stirling – he and his parents were Irish. He was born in Ballykelly.

JOHN: Stirling’s father?

MA: Aye.

JOHN: So where were your parents born?

MA: Ballymane.

JOHN: OK. So both sets of parents were Irish.

MA: Right. Stirling – your Grandpa Stirling – he was born there. And then when he was six years old he was brought over to Britain. To Glasgow. He went to school until he was about five or six years old, then he went to work. He went to work in the pits, then he went in the Navy. Your Dad was born in Glasgow, but they went down to Portsmouth during the First World War, and came from there back up to Glasgow. They stayed in Parkhead, and went to Quarrybrae Street School – just at the foot of the road there – and then moved over to the Caledonia Road, and we went to Adelphi Street School, but when your Dad went to Adelphi Street, I had just left, there was six months between us in age, so I never met him until I was sixteen. Two year, and then we got married.

JOHN: Nineteen-thirty?

MA: Thirty one.

JOHN: He was working at the time as a mechanic?

MA: No, he was working as a van boy. He got his first driving license at sixteen, the second man, what they called the second man, the van boy, the helper – he loaded the van. Lemonades, delivering them to shops.

JOHN: Never served an apprenticeship as a mechanic?

MA: No, he never served an apprenticeship, he just –the lad he worked with taught him the mechanics, he just picked it up. He never had papers. Till he went in the Army. And in the Army he was of course a mechanic, So that’s how he did it, in the Middle East.

JOHN: So you got married in nineteen thirty-one. Where did you live at that time?

MA: Eh…Collier Street, in Govanhill. Ah. There from Cumberland Street. And went from there to College Street, where we were during the War. And then from there out to Barrowfield.

JOHN: During the 1930’s, the Depression, did he work all the time?

MA: No. He didn’t work from… He was working when we got married then he got paid off, when Stirling was born. He didn’t work from then until Davey was born. That was two years. He just did casual, you know. What he could get, picking up a job here and there. And then he went to work with a baker, over in Baillieston, he cycled from College Street to Baillieston, five o’clock in the morning, selling rolls. Then he got a job in Cromarty Road, around the corner from us, and he was there five years. And he got a job down there, going around, selling rolls on the street. A baker’s man, on the street. Then he went up to Govan Street and got the job with the Daily Express.

JOHN: What year was that?

MA: That’d be…1934.

JOHN: Delivering papers for the Daily Express. But even more, there was the Melody Van thing?

MA: That’s right. He drove all over the countryside, playing records, going to fairs, country fairs. The farmers would have a fair, a cattle show and that, and he’d take the reporters and the photographers, and they covered it and he played the records in the van. He was there till39 – he was there till about the end of 39. And he went into the Army in Feb ’40. And he went overseas.

JOHN: When did Stirling die?

MA: 1940. June, 1940.

JOHN: So he was given leave to come back for that?

MA: That’s right, then they shipped him overseas. He was supposed to be going overseas, but he got compassionate leave for the funeral. Then overseas still 1944.

JOHN: What was it like for you, you had six boys to look after?

MA: I had six boys. Aye. Well, other women, they got a neighbor to look after them, and they worked in the munitions factories, and anything they could get, well. But it was my responsibility, so I stayed with the five boys, Well, at the beginning of the war Stirling died, and I felt, well, it was my place. So I just stayed with ye.


JOHN: Except for the early mornings. [When she went out to scrub office floors]

MA: Right, well, about half-past five till half-past seven. Back in time to get yeez up out of bed in time to go to school.

JOHN: Tell me about World War Two.

MA: World War Two, well, that was World War Two we were talking about.

JOHN: So what was it like?

MA: Ohh, there was a lot of really like restrictions. Blackouts, and restrictions of foods, very much rationed. We used to, there was two of us liked butter, and we were only allowed about like two ounce of butter a week. But you were allowed a quarter [pound] of margarine. And the two of us liked butter. But I couldn’t afford it. I mean, off your Army pay you couldn’t afford this. I had to divide my butter between the two families, and the margarine. The same as eggs. When I got eggs, I divided them. Oranges. Depending how many kids you had, you got a ration for fruit and that. Whether yeez liked fruit or no’, ye didnae get it, because we couldnae afford to buy it! I mean, I got it, and gave it to them, and they gave me money for it.

JOHN: Aye. Must have been tough sometimes.

MA: Well, aye. It was tough. But everybody was in the same boat, so ye didnae think it was tough.

JOHN: Did you ever think, at any time, that Hitler was going to win the war?

MA: No, we just thought he was a whole wee… pest! The blackout, and we couldnae buy this, and ye couldnae buy… stockings – you had to run aboot in your stockings until ye ran aboot in…nothing! Which ye couldnae… Ye might have… You got your gas meter [for rationed cooking gas] emptied, and you might get two shillings – it was a penny meter – so you could get two shillings [discount] back, and that could buy two or three pair of sand-shoes [sneakers]. But then… ye didnae have coupons for them, but you could get to some of these ex-Army stores, sort of under the counter, sort of?

JOHN: Army surplus?

MA: Oh, aye, Army surplus. But then the bigger boys got them, but the wee boys couldnae, but then you could keep the coupons for the wee boys. Buy trousers for one, then cut a hole in them, and – that’s the suit for the next one! [laughing]

JOHN: Do you remember the air raids?

MA: Oh aye, I remember them. Quite well. We were, quite a few times we got…. Well, when you went to bed at night, everything…. That was the throwback to everything had to be tidy, everybody had to be tidy, because if an air-raid came, thro the night, your clothes werena handy, there was always a chance your building got it, so at night, you went to bed, and your clothes were taken off, and your jumper, your shirt, your pants, your trousers – you slept in your underwear – you didnae keep taking pajamas on – and your shoes and your socks beside them. The minute the air raid went off, the first one up, which usually it was Davey, he dressed his self and he came. And I dressed you, and he helped to dress Bobby, Andy helped to dress – Tommy helped to dress Andy. Very often I didn’t go down [to the air-raid shelter down the street, the cellar of the fruit market in he next block], because, well, I went down once or twice, but, well, you were just about a year old about the time, and it was a bother putting you in a pram, and Bobby in a pram, and then having to take the other boys by the hand, and run from the building we stayed on, to the foot of the street, to Albion Street, to go down into the shelter [the basement of a fruit warehouse]. But then they’d got so many people, and you had to take a blanket and pillows with you., of course. And they’d got so many people that if you were taking prams, they’d turn you away with it. So I just got I said, well, that’s it. And I stayed in the house. And one night one of the buzz-bombs fell, and we came down to see it, and the incendiary bombs were falling, and landing on it, and we came down to see it, and you’d see them coming down and then you’d see them “Crunch!” and then you’d know. And then of course when they got halfway down the stair - the boys ran along the verandah, and I opened the door and put out the light – ye darenae open the door with a light on – and I finished up with four of the neighbors in my house, and one of them said to me, “It’s gonna be a long night,” and I says, “And a heavy night,” and he says, “Let’s go down to the shelter,” and just as he said that there was a terrific bang, and I just jumped over somebody, I don’t remember who it was, I jumped over their feet and went into the [other] room, and said, “If the building goes doon, ye’ll get me in the bedroom with the boys.” And I stayed there. The rest went down to the shelter. The nice old man with the one leg, he said, “Come on, I’ll get you,” and I sez, “No, I’ll just stay here.”

After the war (1956) with some of her boys.
From left: Bobby, Bill, John, George (front), Andy, Davy.

JOHN: Mr Rachel. The one-leggety man. Aye.

MA: Aye. Well, a couple of times he helped me down the stairs when I couldnae get the pram doon.

JOHN: I remember the kids making fun of him. Because he only had the one leg.

MA: Aye, that’s right. But when we were going down to the shelter, when they’d stopped letting us in with the pram, he would tell one of the boys to hold on to his stick, you know? And he would take one in his arm, and hold on to one, and I had one in my arm, and haud on to the second, you know? And I said, “Nah, this is too much bother!”\

JOHN: Was it a buzz bomb that got the tenement next door to us?

MA: No, it was an incendiary, that started fires? The bomb got College Street Goods Station, in the High Street [originally the site of Glasgow University, before it moved to the West End], and that’s how, your Granny McCracken and your Grandpa McLaughlin, they came up, in the morning, they saw it, and they came running up to see if we were all right. And I was just getting up, getting the kids, putting your clothes on. You couldnae go to school. If the siren went during the day, the teachers just couldnae, they had no place to put yeez. And they couldnae send kids home once the siren went. So it just got, there was no schooling.

JOHN: How long was that?

MA: For three solid years.

JOHN: That long huh?

MA: Well, you know….

JOHN: How did the metal girders in the close come aboot?

MA: Well, if a bomb fell, it all wouldnae shatter. The baffle wall at the front of the close was all interlaced with metal. And if a bomb hit that, the wall didnae collapse. It just would maybe knock a brick out of it. You could put your fingers thro that, it wouldnae collapse, you’d just make a hole in it. That was what they were there for.

JOHN: Aye, but what aboot the close itself – you said the baffle, but what about the close itself? The steel girders --the same reason?

MA: Aye.

JOHN: But we didn’t have them in the house?

MA: No. We didn’t have them inside the house. You just took your chance. We had an iron railing outside. But inside the house, you just took your chance. We didna have them in the windows either. You just take your chance with the windows. Well, when the siren went off, you just stayed back from the windows. But that one in College Street was quite a near thing. My Father came up, he was quite glad we were all right. Gran said, “I could kill ye!” She says, “You here, and me worrying myself sick aboot ye!” I sez, “Well, if we’d been in the shelter, I’d just have been coming up.” And she says, “Well, why didn’t ye go to the shelter?” And I says, “I didnae want to go to the shelter.” But she was a real… aboot it.

JOHN: How hard was it to get Glasgow children away from this?

MA: Well, it was good to begin with, then it got strict. Aye, it was good to begin with. . A lot of the women were in munitions, as I told you, and they got their children away first. But see, I wisnae working [full-time or officially?], and then Mrs Reeves, she wisnae working, then Mrs Robertson. We didnae work, so we didnae get the option. You had to be bad cases. Because we weren’t working. The mothers who were doing war-time work, I mean. They were making the bombs. But I got ye to your Sunday school. You got to your Church, just the same.

JOHN: The Band of Hope…

MA: Right. But it wasn’t so bad during the day. Just after dark you got keyed up.

JOHN: Did they bomb other places than Glasgow?

MA: Well, they flattened Clydebank. It was the railways they were after. Well, they did get the railways in College Street. It was a goods station. But actually, Clydebank got it five solid nights.

JOHN: Of course, that goods station was maybe a hundred yards away.

MA: That’s right.

JOHN: So how far would you say they missed?

MA: Well, being on the side street, the windows shook but they never shattered. But the windows at the corner, they all went. So you didnae bother looking for a glazier. Ye wouldnae get one anyway! You just stuck a piece of wood on it, and laughed – it was dark anyway!

JOHN: So it wouldn’t make any difference anyway?

MA: There was so many of ye in the same boat that ye just accepted it.

More about Glasgow in WWII

JOHN: So what was it like after the war – I mean, there was still rationing after the war.

MA: Oh aye.

JOHN: And you didn’t have the same sense you were all in the same boat?

MA: No. I mean, when men came back, there were men who had been working, and you just had the sense that they were a wee bit better, you know. They were able to get things, and buy things. But it didnae upset you, just because you saw that Billy So-and-So had a new pair of shoes. Or somebody else had a new pair of trousers. You just thought, when your turn came, you got. Once your coupons – I mean, once the rationing stopped, [1949-50] it was a lot better, because by that time you could say, “I’ve got enough, I could buy trousers.” Before, you could have had enough, but you had nae coupons. Well, that was the big thing during the war. You’d come out of the post office, and somebody would say, “I’ll give ye three pound for yer coupon book.” Well, sometimes, three pound. Well, the likes of – I had six ration books. Three pounds for one ration-book – well, you could see how you could make them do. I never sold them – I gave them to the Grannies or to like Nellie. Because Nellie was pretty good, with her being like a dressmaker, and her pal was a trouser-maker, and they were pretty good at making like shirts and things if you’d give them coupons so they could buy material.

JOHN: Something I wanted to ask you. Was Davey ever a Teddy Boy?

MA: No… He wore the crepe shoes, but he didnae wear the drapes. He wore shirts you could hear coming along the street, and socks and crepe shoes. He was loud. But that only lasted till he started winchin’. [dating] Then he got the hems on him. She didnae like the loud clothes! [Laughing]

JOHN: Before rock and roll came along.

MA: Aye, Just before rock and roll came along. I mean, the teddy boys took over in the rock and roll.

JOHN: That was me, the rock and roll.

MA: But no’ the teddy boys. I mean, we couldnae afford – and our crowd, they would have laughed at ye – it was a’ right, teddy boys, they hung aboot the corner, but yer own circle, they’d have said, “What a stupit lookin’ thing!” [Laughing] “Here’s yer heid,” or something, y’know? [Laughing]

JOHN: Going back to the nineteen-thirties, did you ever go with Pop on the visits around the mountains?

MA: Oh, aye, I learnt quite a lot, went quite a lot, just in odd places and then, when the war finished, when we started, the first thing we bought was an old shooting brake [estate wagon], a big Husky [?], and we bought two tents, a big bell tent and another one, and everybody went on holiday, we went to Lochearnehead, Nan McVey and John, they took one tent, we took the other.

JOHN: What was it like getting out of Glasgow?

MA: Well, there were all the photographs, and it was “That’s the Falls of Lady, “That’s the Falls of Dochart!” We were very fond of them. I mean, take last week, now, Bill was up visiting, and I had collected some old post-cards, and they were lying there and I said, “Here, what do you think of them?” and I handed them to him, and he said, “Oh, haven’t been there in a long time!” So on the Sunday he took me over, took me up to see Arthur, and says to Arthur, “Guess where I was on Sunday?” And he says, “Where were you?” And he says, “Falls of Dochart,” and I says, “What do you mean you were up at the Falls of Dochart?” And he says, “Well, you showed me the pictures!” And he’ll get out, and he says he was at Dunoon, and he looked around and he came back up, and he went up around Crianlarach. I mean, we talk about them, and Andy talks about them. Well, Andy used to do a lot of cycling too. But he disnae have enough puff any mair – he smokes too much! [Laughs]

JOHN: You really think Scotland’s civilized, then you get away from Glasgow and Edinburgh. It’s pretty barren. Well, that’s what it looks like.

MA: Oh, aye, but it’s farm land. It‘s really farmland. But we never kept to the bus routes. It’s just like going from your place to someplace else – well we seldom went that way. We’d go thro a town, we knew all the side roads and that.

JOHN: Was there much Gaelic spoken back then?

MA: Up north. If you’re in you’re in, with the Gaelic. If the Highlander likes you, you’re in. If the Highlander takes a notion to you, no way. I mean, one Sunday one time, we were up North, could not buy a loaf till Monday morning.

JOHN: And that was….

MA: Well, it was Sunday night, we’d been drinking with the village bobby.

JOHN: OK, that was alright.

MA: And we met him, and said, “We’re away, we’re going to the ceili the night.”
And he said, “Well, there’s another night.” I mean, it went on for two or three nights, you know? He said, “You’re going hame the night?” And I said, “Well, we might pass on, we might need some stores.” He was out there, and I said, “They’re not serving.” So he says, “Is your bread in yet?” And she said, “Well, the bread’s in. How?” And I says, “I’m wanting a loaf,” and she says, “If it’s for the campers you are not getting it.” He came out and said, “Did you speak out of turn there?” [End of Side A of tape]
[Changed subject. Beginning of Side B of Tape]

JOHN: There’s some more tape, if you want to do the other side as well? OK. I know there’s some feeling about the Pakhistanis in Glasgow, there’s something called “Pakhi-bashing” going on in Glasgow.

MA: We don’t see it. I mean, every other shop in Parkhead is Pakhi. And they all pay. And the old Woolworth’s? And one of the fabric stores is an old Pakhi store. Well, we don’t have a Woolworth’s now.

JOHN: I don’t recall it growing up.

MA: No.

JOHN: Of course, there were no Pakhis back then.

MA: No. There were coloured boys. But you just didnae give it a thought. Because there was a coloured family, you probably remember them, in College Street, he played in a band, wee Freddy?

JOHN: From Hawaii.

MA. Aye. He was Hawaiian. And he was coloured. And his wife was half and half. One of his daughters was coloured, and the other was white.

JOHN: I remember when I got in a fight, and Freddy insisted I had to look out for myself.

MA: That’s right. But you never thought about that. When somebody came around who was black, you said, “He never washed his face.” Just the same, when we went up to College Street, we weren’t that long there when a man came to the door, and he’d heard I’d moved in with a family of small boys, and he thought he would welcome me to the parish, and he said, “Which one did you come from?” “My husband’s working – we’re not on the parish” [on welfare]. Well, he thought that was funny. Well, to me, that was only for people who were not working, I did not know that Catholics – well, we came from the Wee Free Church, and you just talked about your Church, you didnae talk about -- you went to church in Cumberland Street, you went to the one over in Cally Road, but they called it the parish, the church.

JOHN: What was the difference between the Presbyterians and the Wee Free when you were growing up?

MA: Well, the Wee Free was much more stricter. You couldn’t sing songs, you couldn’t… weren’t allowed to hold dances. Or sailor works. It was a very conservative –

JOHN: “Sailor works”?

MA: Well, a church sale of works for anything,

JOHN: OK.

MA: You weren’t allowed these things. And at home you couldn’t break sticks, you couldn’t cook a meal on a Sunday. You didn’t wash a dish on a Sunday.

JOHN: You know something it reminds me of? The Orthodox Jew.

MA: Oh aye. Because the Orthodox Jew, we had them, and they used to come, and they’d ask somebody to come down and light their fire for them.

JOHN: On their Sabbath?

MA: Aye.

JOHN: And would they come down and do it for you on your Sabbath?

MA: They were never asked. I suppose they would have. But you were never allowed these things. I remember my mother would cook a meal on a Sunday night – I mean a Saturday night – ands on a Sunday, unless my Father already had sticks and a pail of coal already there, you couldn’t break sticks.

JOHN: They had to be broken on a Saturday?

MA: That’s right.

JOHN: If the fire was laid, you could put a match to it, but that’s it?

MA: That’s right. Very strict. And then they amalgamated with the United Free, and you lost a lot of it. I mean, when we were growing up, well, you’d come about fifteen, and your pals were going to social nights, and going to wee dances, things like that, you had Boys’ Brigade then, and the Boys’ Brigade would play the band and that. And Bible Class was a mixed class, but we couldn’t have a social evening. The girls could have a social evening, and the boys could have a social evening, but you couldn’t have a social evening together.

JOHN: What was the difference between the Girls’ Guides and the Girls’ Guildry?

MA: Well, the Guides – the Guildry usually belonged to a Free Church, and the Guides was a Presbyterian.

JOHN: Were the Guides freer – looser – than the Guildry?

MA: Uh-huh – the Guildry was more of a religious group. The Guides were like the Scouts, they were more outdoors.

JOHN: More… physical? Gym and that?

MA: We did that, but it could only be done in the halls.

JOHN: So the Guildry had no boys around?
No. There were five of us in the one company.

JOHN: Did you feel you were held down a lot?

MA: I don’t really realize – I didn‘t think that. Till I got that bit older. Sixteen or seven teen, and they could all run about, dancing, go here… I mean, in a sense. You couldnae sing a song on a Sunday. When you came from the church on a Sunday, you went up to the house, and you all stood around the piano, singing hymns.

JOHN: And that was OK.

MA: Oh, you could sing all the hymns you liked! But you darenae sing a song on a Sunday.

JOHN: Oh. Were you the black sheep of the family?

MA: No – nobody knew I was the black sheep!

JOHN: [Laughing] Kept it quiet, eh?

MA: I wisnae bad – I just… kicked, ye know? I did – the same as your Father said. He said, when he got married, he would do what he wanted to. I thought, when I get married, I’ll go the same wey.

JOHN: Sounds good to me.

MA: Well, to me, at the time, your Dad came to Rose Street Church for a while. An old Free Church. And he came there for a while, but, ey, some of them were sticky, and we had no right to be going together, no right to be walking out at that age, all this kind of talk, you know? And then when we got married, the Church Sister and the Minister came up to see us, and they came in, and it was only a single apartment we had, so you came in, and – you know how the single apartment was, you came in to a side doorway, and you were in the kitchen, and I was having a wash-down at the time, and your Dad opened the door, and he said, “Well, you can’t come in,” and he said, “I’m coming in,” and he says, “No, ye’re no’ coming in.” And he says, “I’m coming in.” He said, “Do you know who I am?” He said, “I’m Mister Bryan, the Reverend Mister Bryan. I’m coming in to see your wife.” And your Dad says, “You’re no’ coming in, and that’s a’ aboot it.” He says, “I’ll have to come in.” Well, he says, “You know what you can do, you can get oot there and no’ come back.” He says, “Well, you won’t be allowed into the Church again.” He says, “You can lift your lines out of the Church.” Meaning membership. And Stirling says, “Well, don’t worry, “ he says. “I’m never coming back.” And I never went to a Mothering Sunday after that for a long time.

JOHN: A lot of people had power back then, and liked using it. They liked being in charge.

MA: It wisnae – don’t misunderstand me. My sisters weren’t bad to me. They were just sad because I didn’t conform. And that was all it was – I just didn’t conform. So when we got married, and we went up there, and the minister insisted on coming in, and your Dad said, “Well, she’s in the middle of getting washed, you know, and we’ve only got the one room, and she’s in the middle of getting dressed, and you’re not coming in,” and I told Nellie, and she says, “Well, you could have told him to wait.” But I said, “He wanted to, he insisted on coming in.” I mean, it really was sad – it wasn’t that I was better because I left the Church, it was more sad because I didn’t conform. And I stayed away from the Church for a long, long time.

JOHN: It sounds to me as if you’re saying it was the ministers and the people in the Church who’d like to run things, who wanted to be the boss.

MA: Oh, aye. It was very much like the priests at that time. The priest was the man. If you didn’t go to Church on Sunday, and the priest got you, through the week, you got something you didnae forget in a hurry.

JOHN: And you were married and thought you had the right to do what you wanted to do – and you enjoyed it too.

MA: Oh aye. [Laughing] Oh, Davey -- we weren’t that old when we moved up to College Street, and after that minister came, Davey says to me, he says, “See that wan at the end of the street?” I says, “Sam’s mother?” He says, “Aye.” I says, “Mrs O’Rourke?” He says, “She must never wash her face – she’s got a big black mark on it.” He got to the door, and says, “Your face is durty.” And she started to say, “Well, but it’s Ash Wednesday, and you must – “ But he says, “Well, my mother’s face is no’ dirty.”
So why should her face be dirty, just because it was Ash Wednesday…. And I started to tell him about the sack-cloth and ashes, because it was Ash Wednesday, that particular day, you, but Davey just thought, why should anybody keep their faces dirty one day of the year? [Laughs]

JOHN: Do you remember any of the songs from back then? Scottish songs, or Irish songs?

MA: Irish songs, “The Garden Where the Pretties Grow”? Scottish songs, the first song I was ever taught was, “After the Ball was Over.” We got older and we sang, “Why Did You Leave Me, Dear?”

JOHN: Some music hall songs, right?

MA: Music hall songs? No, these were just songs that you learned right at your mother’s knee, as it were. Just songs you learned – I mean, you didn’t go to music halls. David would be about six years old, and I think – yeah, it was during the War, I took them to see a pantomime. I think I took three of them to a pantomime. And that’s the first time they’d been in a pantomime. I’d only been in a pantomime twice in my life. Music hall.

JOHN: So the songs that you picked up when you were young – came from the family?

MA: Well, my father could sing at the drop of a hat. They said that even up until recently – the drop of a hat and he’d sing. And we used to kid on, you know, if you were in a sing-song, “Oh no, it’s too early, I haven’t had enough to drink.” And they used to say, “Oh, Peggy and Stirling, they don’t need a drop to sing.” So we used to lead them, you know? Your Dad would do his MC, you know….

JOHN: Where did that come from?

MA: Eh… You were born in College Street.

JOHN: No. Why do you think you and Dad were so into singing so much?

MA: Oh, just because we were happy. It was sing or greet [cry], and he wisnae there, so I had tae sing! If I didnae sing, I would greet…. I could go aboot the hoose singing. Unconsciously. In fact, I used to go up and down the road whistling. And somebody said to me, “Hey, mate.” In Howard Street one day last week this man passed me, and he said, “Hey, haud on, wee Mac!” I says, “ Oh, hullo.” He says, “See yersel’ whistlin’?” “Oh.” And he says, “This is my brother fae Australia,” he says. “This is the wee buddy that used tae go down the street wi’ her pram, whistlin’.” He says, “I used to meet her, opening the shop.” He says, “Do you like to whistle?” I says, “I was whistlin’ because I was frightened!” [Laughing]

JOHN: Do you know any members of the family who was a musician – for money?

MA: No, never for money. Your Dad played the drums, and he taught the drums. Mae plays an accordion. Mae does it for money. Your Dad’s sister – Aunt Mae? She teaches music, tho she’s badly crippled right now with arthritis. She’s so tight she can hardly breathe. Some nights she’ll come to the phone and I’ll have to say, “Hang up and I’ll phone you back, Mae.” She can touch – she plays the accordion, the piano. Arthur played the banjo, of course. The mandolin. The guitar, and the fiddle. The bass. He played with the Caledonia Strathspey, you know that.

Family and Friends

JOHN: The Hundred Fiddlers, at the Mod. Arthur Barlow. Where did Arthur come from?

MA: Well, I don’t actually know where they came from. I mean, he was born in Denniston, but I don’t know where his folk came from.

JOHN: Or if any of his family were musicians.

MA: No, I don’t know.

JOHN: There’s something about the McLaughlins, there’s always music around.

MA: Old Grampa McLaughlin, the auld fella, he used to play the mooth-harp – the juice-harp. And the mooth-piece [harmonica]. But there was always pianos around Cumberland Street – you know, like, our side of the family.

JOHN: For that singing hymns around the piano?

MA: Aye.

JOHN: But still there was singing.

MA: Oh, aye, there was singing. I remember once Arthur said to me, “That’s the wrong key.” It wasn’t back then, this was maybe ten or twelve years ago, and he said to me, “That’s the wrong key.” And I says, “Arthur, I sing because I like to sing. I sing for fun.” He was a trained singer, you know. Arthur.

JOHN: I didn’t know that.

MA: Oh, Arthur sang in the church, he sang in different orchestras. I said, “Arthur, I sing for fun – I sing to enjoy myself. And if you don’t like it, and it’s the wrong key, don’t listen to it.” [Laughs] I can just hear him noo….

JOHN: Tell me about Nellie. And Ellen.

MA: They were all singers in the church. Primary Sunday School teachers. So was Jenny. You knew Jim? Well, Jim and Davey are great friends. Because he’s a gymnast and an insurance agent, and he works in Carlisle. Graham works in Carlisle. So he sees
him quite often.

JOHN: Uh. Who was Bob English married to?

MA: They were just chums. They were out of the cycling club. Elsie. Aye. And they two boys.

JOHN: Same thing with the McVeys?

MA: Nan and I went to church together. She was three and I was five. I was set to keep an eye on her.


JOHN: I had the hunch she was fun too when she was young.

MA: Oh, Nan? Och aye. And so was John. Her man.

JOHN: He was a bricklayer, wasn’t he?

MA: Oh, he was a brickie. [Laughing] Oh, see, John, during the war, he didnae go into the army. He used to say to your dad, “You come with me and I’ll get you a good job, and you won’t have to go in the army.” And your dad said, “If I can’t get a job without shaking hands. I don’t want a job.” He meant that, they were Masons, that crowd. And during the war, if you could shake hands, you were in, you were in a job, you couldn’t get called up. And your dad said, “If I can’t get a job without it – “

JOHN: I remember Andy had the same reaction. When Andy was talking about New Zealand?

MA: Oh, aye.

John: Somebody wanted him to join the Masons?

MA: That’s right.

JOHN: I think Andy put it, that wisnae the Christian thing to do.

MA: He was right.

JOHN: It wasna fair.

MA: That’s right. Why should you, because you join that thing, and you can shake hands with the next yin or that yin, why should you go up and get a job? Andy was the same as your Dad – if you can get the job on your own ability, you don’t get because you happen to be in this particular band. Just like, some of the shops, -- well, of course, the name of the shop will tell ye, the McGuire’s, they wouldnae employ you unless you were a Catholic.

JOHN: I thought it was true back then, there were some of the trades were Irish and some were Protestant

MA: Uh-huh.

JOHN: Was it printing was Protestant?

MA: Aye. And the brickies were mainly – you should call them Irish, because when the Irish came over here, they would take anything, they were digging ditches, I mean, anything, like that, that’s where they get the name, the Irish navvy.

JOHN: And the segregation, I think you’d call it, was that the Protestant and Catholic schools…?

MA: Well, you still have that, right enough. More so, then. You couldnae have played with – I mean, it was the people you played with. But kids don’t bother.

JOHN: Well, back when I was growing up, back then, they said if you met a girl you liked at a dance, just about the first question you’d ask was what school she
went to.

MA: Oh aye.

JOHN: And the name of the school would tell you if she was the same religion as you were. And if she wisnae the same religion, just forget about it.

MA: You know the biggest shock I got, and I did not know, till the day I landed, in Canada, I read the invitation, but it didnae, it didnae sink in? – but Jean says, “Ma, did you know it’s a Catholic wedding”? Because, St Thomas’s, I never thought. But we were really surprised at Michael, well, it’s his choice, aye? Aye. But we were really surprised, but I thought it was a nice thing, that their minister got up and spoke with theirs as well.

JOHN: Well, you either outgrow that or you don’t. If you’re brought up that way, you’ve got something to get over.

MA: I’ll tell you something, I told you at Rob’s wedding we were home at nine o’clock. And we left Rob with his pastor a little bit longer. Do you know there were quite a lot of people went away to start on their suppers? And I was surprised at Bobby and Anna, because they really let their hair down – they really enjoyed themselves at Michael’s!

JOHN: Bobby and Anna – do you remember Bobby and Anna, having a really good time at the church dancing? So they were going back to when it really was fun. And their kids are really nice kids. Steven is a really funny kid. I had a really good time at that wedding. I was glad to get back together again.

MA: I was out, last time I was here, time before that, I was out for the christening,
They wanted Anna’s aunt to come, to the wedding, just to visit with her, and she was a really old lady, so I traveled with her, just to keep her company, and Billy got a note, because Nell and I liked to go and have a smoke, and Amy didn’t, so it was “I’ll go and get you an ashtray, but I can’t put one in your bedroom,” and I said, “I don’t smoke in my own bedroom, I won’t smoke in yours.” [Laughter] But he came to look after Nellie and I, and I’m not being funny about it, he really came to look after us, I mean he really attended to us. Just like just now, he came out to see if you’re all right, the first night, to see if we knew the town, and I’ve been here so many times that I knew the town, and he’d come up and he’d tell us – really nice, you know? And I’d say, “Ah, ye’re looking out for yer old Gran!” And he was on the phone, and Kirsten was on the phone, and he said, “I think when your Gramma comes up, I think we should keep her for a year!” I said, “Oh Stephen, don’t say that – she goes into hysterics! Last time I came here, she cried herself from Prestwick to home!” So they don’t tell her when I’m coming over, because every day she marks the calendar, and you see the last time the plane was late? And she said, “I thought Gran was coming the day”? And he said, “No, the flight’s no’ in, you heard your Dad phoning.” And she near laughed till she cried when I opened the door to her. That’s the only two I’m seeing growing up. I mean, all the rest were started, and Bobby’s are here, and Andy’s were in England. Somebody said something about the colour bar, and I said, “Colour bar? Look at the nuisance I’ve got – I’ve got Jewish grandchildren - Jewish daughter in laws - English ones – Irish ones -- haud on, I don’t have an Irish one yet! [Laughs]

JOHN: Jamie’s folks are Irish and German background.

MA: Aye, I heard you say that.

JOHN: OK. You enjoyed yourself?

MA: I enjoyed myself very much, yes.

JOHN: Let me ask you something. If you had to change any of it, looking back, what would you change?

MA: What do you mean, my life?

JOHN: Yeah.

MA: Oh, no, I don’t know. I don’t think so. As long as I got the same partner. Now I know – don’t think I’m getting mushy – cause I’d hate folks to think that –

JOHN: What a helluvah thing to accuse you of!

MA: I know! [Laughter] But no. I’d do the same again, if I got the same partner. Only, I’d like my partner to stay a while longer. I know, forty-nine year. But I’d like the two of us to go as we came together.

Stirling with grandchildren, Susan and David

JOHN: Do you think we appreciated you enough?

MA: No. During the war, you thought I was terrible bad tae ye. And at the finish of the war, you wouldn’t have anything to do with Paw. No – you just said he had no right to –

JOHN: He didn’t have a mustache. My Daddy had a mustache.

MA: Aye. And Bobby said, “Ma Daddy wisnae a wee man!” And the very fact that he was sleeping in my bed. And nobody slept with me unless they were ill. And he wisnae sick. So – “Get out of it!” [Laughter] No, that was all. Once he was home, two or three weeks, life just…took off where we left.

JOHN: The older boys must have found you awfully tough sometimes.

MA: Oh, I know. Andy will say that – “Many the time I got battered for - what?” But
I know during the war I was hard on you, because I felt that if anything happened, it was my responsibility, and it would be my blame if you got into trouble. And as far as I could, I kept yeez out of trouble.

JOHN: I can’t remember that. I was too young.

MA: No, you couldn’t get into trouble. You just got lost. You just cost me a shilling – the last time, the man said, “If he comes in here again, I’m gonnae keep him!” And Davey says, “Can I give you two shillings, it will save me coming back for him?” [Laughter]

JOHN: I remember back, when we came over in ’75, we had a good time a couple of times over, singing in the car.

MA: Och aye.

JOHN: When we went down to visit Andy, coming back singing in the car.

MA: We always did. Even when Pop and I travelled in the car, together, we never had a wireless in the car, we just sung. The only time we took the wireless was, if we were camping, we didn’t have one in the car, we just carried a portable, and we took it to catch up on the news and that. But I don’t know if you did appreciate it or not. Because when he did come back, it was hard on him. You lose four year out of your life, you know? I mean, he was only a name to yeez for four year. And Davey would say, “Let my Daddy hit me.” Or, “Use a belt, not your hand!” The first time he said that, I thought your Dad was gonnae fall through the floor. “What do you mean,” he said. I said, “I just skelp him.” Scared him with the five finger marks, many the time. Andy says I was hard tae him. [Laughing]

JOHN: I always wondered if Pop really wanted to go to sea.

Russel and Company Shipyard

MA: Well, you see, my brother Bob was in the army the 19914-18 War, and in 1939-40, his sons went into the Army. And he went back to the Army, because he felt his sons were serving in it. And he said the war wouldnae last long, so all the able-bodied men -- well, the job he was in folded up, and of course he would have been idle. Aye, well. He went in and he was supposed to get a home posting. He joined the Glasgow Regiment, to get a home posting. And before the year was out he was in the Middle East.

JOHN: So he didn’t expect that?

MA: Oh no, or he’d never have gone in!

JOHN: Wasn’t he in the Sea Cadets or something?

MA: Uh huh.

JOHN: Was he headed to go to sea at that time?

MA: Oh, he was desperate to go to sea!

JOHN: As his father was.

MA: He was a fireman, in the Navy.

JOHN: That’s how he died, wasn't it?

MA: No, he died in a road accident, when he was out looking for a job. About 1936, it must have been. He got a job working on the country road, and got hit by one of the motors.

JOHN: Was Dad – was he about to join the royal Navy, when he got married?

MA: He would like to have, but by the time he got married, there was one here and one to come.

JOHN: So when I joined the Merchant Navy myself, I wasn’t quite sure if it was something that he’d wanted to do himself.

John with fellow cabin boy Johnny Knox at sea

MA: It was the Royal Navy he wanted in. He would have got in, because he was in the voluntary reserves, but when the time came for him to sign the papers, well….

JOHN: He’d gotten married.

MA: Married, and got a couple of youngsters. [Silence.]

JOHN: Well, that’s about it, huh?

MA: I’d just like to say that I enjoyed my few days here. I’m sorry I didn’t do it before, but I just never got around to it.

JOHN: Well, the kids are fine. They’re nice kids.

MA: I’m fair fascinated how Stirling took to me. So did Niamh. They could have been strange. You don’t need to have a photograph.

JOHN: Aye, well he’s a sweet kid.

MA: Aye, well, any other kid.

JOHN: We’re just lucky. He’s a sweet kid.

MA: Aye, well. The likes of, as long as you say, “Gran’s coming,” and like, I say, “Uncle Bobby and Aunt Anna’s coming,” or I say, “John’s coming,” they’re prepared for you, and they knew you’re their Dad’s brother, he might have been a bit wary. But I’m fair fascinated.
[Side B of Tape ends.]

John and Ma in 1995

Two Wee Stories by Billy McLaughlin