My Mum and Dad.
Seeing as I’m off sick with the ‘rona, (currently feeling feverish after hot soup, with the the impression that popcorn is popping inside my ears and an elephant has been sitting on my chest) I thought I’d pass a few minutes, writing a wee tribute to my much missed parents. Well, you always want your mum when you are unwell, don’t you? — Even one who would have said, “Do you have to be so dramatic? You’d think no one had ever been ill before!” — Or something of that ilk.
Both born in 1942, Mum would have been 80 in February and Dad would have been 80 today. He used to enjoy that he married an older woman, albeit just by a month.
Despite the fact that this photo makes them look quite posh, taken on a friend Didi’s boat in Brittany, they were both from very ordinary backgrounds.
If you are old enough, you might remember the *Class Sketch* where Ronnie Barker looks up to John Cleese and says, “I look up to him because he is upper class, but I look down on him [Ronnie Corbett] because he is lower class.” Corbett replies, “I know my place.” — Well Dad would to tease my mum, say, if she was eating a chip butty, or was scrubbing the step on her hands and knees, he’d say, “she was only a miner’s daughter,” just because his Dad hadn’t gone down the Pit like her’s in Ayrshire but had worked for the National Coal Board in an *actual office* in Fife. It was all just for fun, in fact that’s what I remember growing up, lots of humour and piss taking. (To me, age 14, “did you pay money for that haircut? I’d have done it for nothing”)
They were both the first in their families to go into further education, Mum lasted a year at Edinburgh College of Art, before switching to Primary Teaching at Jordanhill College of Education in Glasgow, where my father was also training to be the renowned P.E. Teacher, ‘Pratt the Bastard,’ as he became affectionately known, at Bell Baxter in Cupar. He loved to tell us how there had been only a handful of handsome male P.E. students and hunners of female Primary Teachers, swooning over these *Scottish School Men.* (It helps if you say Scottish School Men, in a Sean Connery accent, puffing out your chest.) Mum had a perfected eye roll, for moments such as these.
It wasn’t the easiest being teachers’ children. You couldn’t get away with anything. I was held back by a teacher, at school lunches in primary for not eating my cabbage or butterbeans, threatened with her reporting this grave incident to my mother in the staffroom. At High School I’d leave the house, put on make-up, take off my tie and roll my skirt waistband over to make it more ‘mini,’ only to encounter my Father in the school grounds, telling me to wash that muck off my face. My sister and I were shouted at, outside the swimming baths by boys, complaining that my Dad had belted them. (It’s really shocking now that that the tawse was even legal) We both replied at the same time, me saying I was really sorry about that, just as she yelled she’d get him to do it again!
I have been trying to think what things I would pick, that each of them gave me. It’s hard to narrow down. From her, a sense that you can achieve anything you set your mind to, to not give up, that women are equal to men. I got creativity from her too. From him, how to wire a plug (that’s about as far as his DIY skills went but moving to France in 1994 I sure changed a whole lot of UK plugs for french ones, then back again moving back in 2012) How to make great Yorkshire puddings and be inventive in the kitchen, how to drink red wine (and most people under the table) How to be loyal and expect loyalty in return.
They were far from perfect, as am I, but I know I was lucky to have them.
I look up to them.
[After thoughts: He also gave me a fierce pride in Scotland (he voted SNP long before anyone did) and she gave me staunch socialism (voted Labour) that if you had enough/a lot you helped those who had little or nothing. Both believed in free healthcare and education for all. My Dad proving this ‘principle’ by refusing to give me £5 to buy an extra Biology text book, to help my studies on the basis that everything I needed, the school should have provided! I bought it myself. When I needed to borrow £100 for an interest-earning, refundable, Torry (then a run down area of Aberdeen) flat deposit, he refused, saying I couldn’t afford the flat and should find one I could afford. I borrowed it from the Clydesdale Bank. (Also ‘wrong’, you should ‘cut your coat according to your cloth’) Adding these afterthoughts, has made me realise that this kind of blog post could go on infinitely, your parents run in the background of your mind all the time, you are never far from blurting out one of their phrases, thinking their thoughts. They are alive and well within us, whether you want them there or not!]
