filling yourself with good food.
Then there’s the added joy of the bath. Bath time in the MacDonald household consisted of lining up with your towel beside the great tin bath, which Morag had filled with hot water from the contents of endless kettle runs. The pecking order was youngest to eldest, a happy position for me: I always washed in the cleanest water. Morag would dry us in front of the fire with a rough, if kindly, touch and make us squeal with laughter by hitching up her skirt and warming her legs by the fire. It was a favourite pastime, leading to what we Scots describe as ‘corned-beef legs’ – hot red patches on our traditionally pale skin. She would quickly return to decorum when the croft door, which was never locked, opened to admit a guest. Our childhood was populated by the people who congregated in our home, prattling away in Gaelic. Not a lot happened in such an isolated community, but they could gossip for hours.
The arrival of a visitor was the signal for the children to go out and play. Hide and seek among the hayricks was a favourite, but it was the sandy machair that became my adventure playground. Machair is a Gaelic word describing the extensive fertile plain that lies between the sea and the cultivated land. It is unique to the Western Isles and a world-class conservation site. We would roam far and wide, exploring fjord-like sea lochs that stretched to infinity and from which came the blustering Atlantic winds that had long since blown away the grime of the city from our life. We could hear Morag and Jeanette’s voices in the distance, calling us in for our tea, but we would ignore them. Only when Morag’s voice darkened with anger did we realise we had run to the end of our rope. Jeanette would then appear at the side of the croft, waving a white tea-towel – a flag of truce. To ignore that signal was to go to bed hungry. We invariably made it back in time for dinner, although Johnny did on one occasion run out of the invisible rope.
One of the great treats of childhood on the island was the frantic run home in time for the arrival of the big, green Co-operative Stores van, which motored between the crofts. Ian MacDonald drove the van and his wife, Ina, served. Their nod to corporate image was matching beige shop coats. This rolling Aladdin’s cave could be seen for miles, your anticipation growing as it drew ever nearer. Ian and Ina brought wonderful treats – iced buns and glorious cakes with names such as Eiffel Towers. We were given first pick. On one occasion, this was not good enough for Johnny. He was sent to the van for a message and spent some of Morag’s change on sweeties. She was furious: ‘I’ll not have any boy stealing in my house. Now get up to your bed and lie and think about what we will be eating tonight while you go hungry.’
The recalcitrant Johnny climbed out of the bedroom window in his bare feet and dropped down into the courtyard at the rear of the croft. He went to the barn, got on his bike and pedalled off across the fields to the shop in the village. Alas, the dreary Reverend MacDonald saw him pedalling along, captured him and returned him to the croft. The minister had barely departed when Johnny was seriously cuffed about the ears. ‘You’ve black affronted me, out in your bare feet,’ said Morag, using the Scots phrase for being mortified.
Of course, his caring brothers and sisters thought long and hard about the nature of his wrongdoing and the justice of righteous punishment. How we laughed.
Laughter was a constant companion. It was such a joy for a little boy who was still in many ways the timid child in the corner, who could take fright at things that had no power over other children – such as Santa. Santa is rarely perceived to be ominous, but he scared the hell out of me on my first Christmas on the island. We trooped off to the laird’s ‘big house’, Calarnais House, for the annual bash. The ground was thick with snow and we poured into the elegant surroundings of another way of life entirely. I occupied my usual position in the corner and waited for the arrival of this legendary figure. Father Christmas had not featured large in my life until that time. When he arrived with his great white beard and red coat, I ran for it, straight into the heavily decorated tree. I was trapped in the tree, tied up by tinsel, with only my legs visible as it slowly toppled. Poor Santa was only helping when he attempted to extricate me, but the sight of his big red face made me howl even louder.
Santa said, ‘My, my, what a lot of noise from such a wee boy.’ He rummaged in his sack and a brightly wrapped present materialised. ‘Now, see what Santa’s got for you,’ he said kindly.
I bawled and refused the gift. My brothers and sisters pushed me forward, but Santa’s smiling face served only to make matters worse. I bawled louder. I was led from the room, tear-stained and howling. The journey back to the croft seemed dark and terribly long. I got a few sore ‘nips’ in retribution from Jimmy and Johnny. They, too, were empty-handed, thanks to me. I had failed them. Never been a big fan of Santa ever since.
Not every trip to the big house was so fraught. Lord and Lady Granville would invite me and Jimmy there for a birthday party for one of their children, who were educated in England and did not speak Gaelic. There were few children on the island who spoke English as well as we did, so we were brought in to translate, and to keep the laird’s children amused.
It would not be the only occasion when we would rub shoulders with the aristocracy and royalty. The Queen was a regular visitor in the summer, when the royal yacht Britannia sailed around the islands. Her Majesty would come ashore for the annual Agricultural Show and picnic with her cousin the earl and his family. In the year that I was there, Jeanette was chosen to present Her Majesty with a bunch of flowers when she came to open the show. Morag’s ample bosom heaved with the pride of it all, the signal for Jeanette to be prodded, poked and decorated with a brand-new pink party dress that made her look like a fairy on a cake. She hated it with a vengeance.
‘You will not embarrass me, lady,’ said Morag, ‘by wearing a tatty school uniform to meet the Queen. It’s the new dress for you, whether you like it or not.’
Jeanette could never have been described as ‘frilly’ but frilly she was, in spades. Morag had looked out her catalogue – a Bible of delights that had to be ordered from the mainland: North Uist, like my sister, did not do frilly. When the dress arrived, Jeanette was hoisted onto the kitchen table for a fitting.
My poor sister, who was 14, declared, ‘I feel like a pink blancmange! Why can’t I wear my school uniform?’
‘Do you want everyone to think you’re a scruff?’ Morag mumbled through a mouthful of pins. ‘You’ll not give us red faces, do you hear? This is a beautiful dress. If I’d had a dress like this when I was your age, I’d have thought I was the cat’s pyjamas. Now, stop jumping around while I pin this hem. You don’t want the Queen to see you with a squint hem, do you?’
Jeanette suffered for hours until Morag decided the dress was ‘just right’. It was only the beginning of Jeanette’s discomfiture. For weeks she had to practise how to greet Her Majesty with a proper curtsey. This was a joy to the rest of us. We howled with laughter. Poor Jeanette was never the lightest on her feet. She was ordered to curtsey very low and deferentially. Jeanette then had to take three steps, hand the Queen a bunch of flowers and say, ‘Good morning, Your Majesty.’ We practised with her, behind her back of course, stifling our giggles for fear of offending Morag’s sense of decorum. Jimmy and Johnny could not curtsey if their lives depended on it and they would inevitably end up tumbling over each other, whereupon a fight would ensue.
On the big day, we all trooped along to the show, wearing our kilts. Jeanette waited for the arrival of Her Majesty, picking at her dress, an act that had Morag drawing daggers with her eyes. When the Queen arrived in a big Land Rover, she waved to the locals and offered a wonderfully benign smile. Morag was resplendent in her Sunday best, a navy-blue two-piece ‘costume’ suit that smelled disconcertingly of mothballs. Dear Morag looked glamorous … almost. Even Willie had escaped from his dungarees, replaced for the occasion by a suit and a heavily starched white shirt, which, as the day progressed, was intent on choking him to death. In the end, Jeanette was perfect in words and actions. We stuffed our faces and returned home lit by the glow of it all.
We thought the good times would never end. How wrong we were. The only security in the lives of the Whelan children was the certainty of insecurity. The bombshell dropped when the MacDonalds were informed by the Social Work Department that our mother wanted us back and we were to be returned to Glasgow. For some godforsaken