A child awakening in a rural Scottish town in the early 1950s.
INNOCENCE In KIRRIE
By
Miller Hopkins Caldwell
It would take a further year before Hoppy understood the meaning of “Following ardi inti mations”. Despite hearing this announcement weekly from his father’s pulpit, these words were not the speech of daily family talk. “Ardi inti” was reserved for Sunday mornings. Sunday morning was when Hoppy, wearing his best clothes, accompanied his older sister Joan and his mother, took his place in the manse pew.
Intrigued by his middle name ‘Hopkins’, his earliest efforts to pronounce it caused mirth. So ‘opi’ became Hoppy and this made him happy as Hoppy sounded like happy and happy was what Hoppy liked to be.
He had become used to his sister leave the manse for primary schooling but he showed no interest in where she had been for most of the day. Instead, Hoppy arranged chairs in rows in the breakfast room to pretend he had a bus to drive to Forfar. He was the ticket collector too and so with guttural grunts, and exaggerated hand manoeuvres, he kept the engine ticking over and the hand brake on while his imaginary passengers paid their fare. An old handbag was strapped over his shoulder providing imaginary change when needed. All this was accompanied by radio music from the crystal set on the chest of drawers by the door. He became familiar with radio theme tunes of the Light programme as he did so. The sound of Workers Playtime, Listen with Mother and Life with the Lyons but every Saturday night without fail, Hoppy would march up and down the manse hall with a miniature walking stick to the traditional music of Scotland. In the town square he has seen the Pipes and Drums of the massed bands parade in the summer evenings and so he was able to imitate the Drum Major as he held his stick aloft, to the left and to the right. A keen ear had also taught him to bring the stick down on the fourth last beat of the bar. It was a comfortable and unperturbed existence for a four year old.
Hoppy’s young life had not however, been without trauma. The cross of Lorraine scar on his stomach, a frequent source of unconscious caressing, was testament to the skills of a Glasgow paediatric surgeon, weeks after Hoopy’s birth when pyloric stenosis had been finally diagnosed, as the cause of his fading away. His medical uncle had intervened with the young general practitioner to give a second and wiser opinion. This intervention had certainly benefited Hoppy. There was no evidence of that now. He was really quite chubby. Unbeknown to him, the parishioners knew of his past surgery and it made them occasionally enquire of his heath. He had noticed this was not always asked of his sister. Nor could he detect the nuances of family interaction that had made his grandmother favour his sister as a result of the attention, which he had been given by his parents, during his first weeks of life.
Nor had his sister experienced the secret meetings Hoppy had had weekly at the corner shop at the end of the Manse lane while she was at school. It began quite innocently enough when Hoppy stood in front of the shop window nonchalantly eyeing the display of sweet jars.
“And which sort would you like Hoppy?” Miss Fairlie asked.
He could not read the labels. So he selected by colour. “Um…Ummmm” then he simply pointed at a jar not knowing what it might contain.
Thereupon Miss Fairlie entered the shop with him and bought a small white paper poke of the selected sweets.
“There you are. You know it’s not true what they say about Manse sons, is it Hoppy?”
Hoppy did not understand this observation. A smile sufficed as the first sweet entered his mouth. This weekly encounter lasted a full month before suspicions were aroused. But it was not parental discovery.
Sharing the contents of his white paper pokes with his sister strengthened their bond. Being two and a half years younger, left Hoppy in awe of her achievements, in writing, reading and now she even had badges sewn on her brown Brownie tunic.
On his fourth birthday, Hoppy received a real leather football. His father took it to the cobbler where the ball was inflated and then dubbin was rubbed into it. This gave it a distinctive smell that was to stay in his memory for years to come. After weeks of practice on the garden lawn, he took the ball into the manse lane. It was a private un-tarred road. An unpredictable bounce was the norm. The wall of the church, which was parallel to the manse wall, returned each kick at varying angles and in time his kicking skills improved. Sometimes he would catch the rebound and claim a save. Yet each time the ball hit the Church, it was a goal. His one-man team never lost. He wondered tough, if God would be angry at his game against the wall of His house. Then he remembered the hymn-singing that previous Sunday “The Church is One Foundation”. He would not cause it damage after all he thought.
One late summer’s afternoon the ball did not return from the wall. Instead it glanced off the Church and headed out of the lane onto the road beyond the corner shop. It proceeded to gain momentum on the smooth road as it approached a green and cream Angus Milling Company lorry. Suddenly there was a loud bang. The spherical ball came apart under the lorry’s tyres. Tears welled up, disbelief confronted him and after the lorry was out of sight, Hoppy went to retrieve it. The stitching had come apart, the inner bladder was torn. No cobbler would or could repair the ball. This was his first and last leather football and this was the only unhappiness he ever knew in six years living in Kirriemuir.
Precocious thoughts bred in this familial and rural security. One weekend shortly after Easter, a minister from Northern Nyasaland, Rev Samuel Nkosira, arrived. He would be preaching the following Sunday and during the week he accompanied Hoppy’s father around his scattered parish. On the Saturday evening, after the weekly parade with the walking stick that amused Samuel so much, Hoppy was sent for his bath. As there were no signs that the guest was tiring of the children’s playful attention, Hoppy was allowed to stay up a little longer. The roaring fire, stoked by fresh logs perched on hot coals, behind the brass fireguard, mesmerised Samuel. He had never experienced fires inside a house. No wonder he had seen a Fire Station not 300 yards from the manse! He took his feet out of his slippers and warmed his feet. He felt relaxed in front of the flickering flames.
Drawing up beside the reflective Samuel, Hoppy removed his slipper boots and placed his foot by Samuel’s. Hoppy was transfixed at seeing Samuel’s feet. They were not black. “ Our soles are the same.” he said. Samuel smiled. He lay his hand on Hoppy’s head then stroked his fingers through his blond hair like a giant comb.
“Yes they are, they are indeed. ” he replied.
Imagine the surprise the following morning, when in addressing the children from the pulpit in his jet back gown, Samuel repeated this story. He added a bit more of course and mentioned the word ‘souls’ so often that Hoppy found his message confusing. Anyway, he felt he had got Samuel’s children’s’ address off to a good start the previous night!
ends
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