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Thistle Soup
A Ladleful of Scottish Life
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‘Hold on tight, peedie boy – thoo’s safe enough, boy. I’ll look out for thee, never fret.’
East Lothian, ‘The Garden of Scotland’ and the setting of a delightfully idiosyncratic story of country life. Often hilarious, always heartfelt and at times sad, here is unfolded the ups and downs of four generations of one farming family from the northerly Orkney Isles, who move to the little farm of Cuddy Neuk in the south of Scotland just before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Through the candid eyes of young Peter, the peedie boy who sets his heart on following in his somewhat eccentric grandfather’s footsteps, is revealed an endearing – and never dull – Scottish story. Growing up to step into his grandfather’s straw-lined wellies to run the family farm, Peter becomes a farmer father to his own sons and puts his ability to see the funny side of things to good use, as adversities crop up with an intriguing regularity . . .
‘Pawky’ rural characters, drunken ghosts, bullocks in the bedrooms, practical jokes, obscure customs and country superstitions are all added to the historic pot: a brimming and lively broth of thistle soup!
Summersdale Publishers Ltd.; May 2004
304 pages; ISBN 9781840248302
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304 pages; ISBN 9781840248302
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CHAPTER ONE
LEANING AGAINST THE WIND
‘No enough purchase o’ the feet, that’s the problem,’ said Jimmy Walker, the County Council roadman responsible for maintaining the stretch of road running past the entrance to my grandparents’ farm near the market town of Haddington, about seventeen miles east of Scotland’s capital city. A summer shower had moistened the grass growing on the banked verge – long weedy grass, which Jimmy was busy cutting down with his scythe. And, despite Jimmy’s habitual assertion that his tackety buits gave him a gran’ grip o’ the grun’, the slippery underfoot conditions on this occasion had clearly showed scant respect for the ranks of hobnails glinting from the upturned soles of his boots while he floundered on his back in the bottom of the ditch.
‘Thoo’s no bad skaithed, is thoo, Cheemy?’ inquired my grandfather, reaching down on one knee to offer the old roadman a hand which, to me, looked like a number nine shovel with fingers.
Whether or not Jimmy had fully understood my grandfather’s expression of concern, delivered in the lilting dialect of his native Orkney, I don’t know, but he chuckled good-naturedly to himself as he clambered out of the ditch.
‘Christ, ma erse is fair soakit!’ he observed in the local East Lothian vernacular, then plucked the drenched dungaree cloth from the cleft of his backside. ‘Need tae get the buits intae the cobbler’s fur a new set o’ tackets.’
My grandfather was laughing now too. ‘Ya-a-as, she’s a bugger when thoo hasno’ enough purchase o’ the feet, right enough, boy.’ He produced a paper five-pack of Woodbine cigarettes from his waistcoat pocket, passing one of the infamous little ‘coffin nails’ to Jimmy, then cupping a thumbnail-ignited match between his huge hands while they both lit up.
‘Aye, nothin’ like kindlin’ up a fag tae put a heat in ye when the water’s runnin’ oot the erse o’ yer breeks,’ Jimmy opined stoically. ‘Ken what Ah mean, Tam?’ Rheumy-eyed, he did his best to stifle a splutter as the stinging tobacco reek assaulted his lungs. ‘Rare wee fags, the Woodbines, eh?’
Marvelling at the mysterious pleasure that both men were deriving from drawing deeply on their cigarettes, then cleverly exhaling the thick white smoke through flaring nostrils, I silently wished that I could join in the ritual. But, being not quite four years old, I’d have to wait a while yet. About a couple of months, as I remember.
My grandfather patted Jimmy’s back. ‘We’ll leave thee tae get on with the work then, Cheemy. I’m away tae check the kye up the hill field.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Come now, peedie boy – we’ll get Fanny tae give us a lift tae see the cattle beasts.’
‘Peedie’ is the Orkney word for ‘small’, so it followed that my grandfather should call me ‘peedie boy’. He’d always done so, and I was used to it. The youngest of a line of three living Peters, I was also used to being called – originally to avoid confusion when we were all together – Wee Pete, Pedro, Young Pate (Pate is Scots for Pete), Paitrick, Pat and even Paderooski (pronounced as spelt). In fact, it was reaching the stage when I would automatically answer to just about any name beginning with the letter ‘P’.
Fanny was a young Clydesdale mare, a gentle giant of an animal with the richest of bay coats, a narrow white blaze bisecting her face, and a kindly expression of eye that gave the clue to her disposition. She was my grandfather’s pride and joy. He had brought her down from Orkney along with the nucleus of his herd of Ayrshire milking cows just a few years earlier. My father remembers seeing him standing on the pier at Edinburgh’s port, long overcoat blowing in the wind, battered trilby pulled firmly down to his ears, while he supervised the unloading of a small tramp steamer that had been chartered to transport all his worldly possessions south from his native islands across well over two hundred miles of sea. Implements and crates were all marked in stencilled letters: CARGO OF THOMAS MUIR – STROMNESS TO LEITH.
He would only have been in his mid-fifties, I suppose, but seeming ancient in my three-year-old’s eyes. Though not a particularly big man, he was as strong as an ox, like most who had spent all of their lives since boyhood working with heavy horses. His favourite footwear, no matter what the weather, was a pair of old wellington boots, the tops turned down, and bought deliberately two sizes too big to accommodate a generous lining of straw.
‘Keeps the feet nice and dry on sweatin’ hot days, and nice and cosy when it’s cowld,’ was his way of looking at it.
And his flat-cap ‘bunnet’ was another feature of his everyday apparel. I even recall him wearing it in bed when he was down with the flu one time, and I don’t remember ever seeing him without it on his head until many years later when he was hospitalised after being kicked in the face by one of his beloved horses. And he did have a face to match his personality; a strong-featured face, with a glint of humour in his eyes, but with a set to his jaw that told you he wouldn’t suffer fools gladly. He was a typical Orcadian, in fact; ruggedly durable in a way that reflects the climate of those windswept northerly isles, and with an underlying ‘don’t meddle with me’ look of honesty about him. He carried the pride of his Norse heritage quietly but unreservedly.
