Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

I have heard family rumours throughout the years. Some are simply related to family locations as previously discussed due to incomplete documents. On the other hand, some are related to difficult family challenges.

My mother was married for about two years before having her first child, Alexander. This gives credence to one of the ‘family rumours’ that my mother was pregnant with twins but had a miscarriage.

My mother, like my brother Alistair, had ‘introspective’ tendencies; she would ‘mumble’ things without stating them clearly, and then leave it up to you to figure out what she was trying to say. I remember my mother bringing up this topic without her saying anything definite.

Most likely, such miscarriages are not listed in official records. So perhaps the only ones who know the truth about this matter are my eldest brother, Sandy, who is 80 years old, and my Auntie Violet, who is about 90 years old (as of 2023). 

Grandmother’s side

I seem to remember my mother saying (this was many years ago) that this ran in the family; this suggests that her mother also miscarried twins. There seems to be a higher rate of miscarriage for twin pregnancies.²⁷ I could be wrong about this story because her mother married on October 29, 1918; that was only two weeks before World War One came to a close on November 11, 1918.

Her first child, Alick, was born on August 13, 1919, roughly ten months after the wedding. However, I am perhaps using faulty logic here; my grandmother’s ‘miscarried twins’ may have been miscarried after the first-born. This can be explained by the fact that my mother (the second-born) was born some two years after (in 1921) the first-born, Alick. 

Flora was the third of three children. My mother told me that her mother always used to say to Flora, “I only wanted two children, but then you came along!” So the third was ‘unwanted’; and so the fourth and fifth children – Donald and Violet – were probably ‘accidents’.

The Unwanted Third Child

Is the third child unwanted? A search on the Internet seems to confirm this.³¹ Similarly, it seems my mother had perhaps planned to have only two children, but ended up with five! The third-born Alistair was more or less ‘unwanted’ and ‘unloved’ by her throughout his upbringing; this suggests that he was also ‘unplanned’. 

It seems my mother and her mother had at least two things in common: miscarriage of twins, and antipathy towards the third-born. I was most likely also ‘unplanned’, having been born four years after Alistair. However, by the time I was born, her three children were less of a burden as they were now 4, 5, and 7 years old. 

Similarly, my younger brother Gavin was also ‘unplanned’ as he was born some nine years after me! But by that time, my parents probably looked at baby Gavin as a nice surprise! In fact, he was born in 1958 when my mother was 37 years old, and my father, 42. In the 1950s, being 37-42 years old was considered to be ‘middle-aged’; this means one is already preparing for the last lap of life. 

Under what influence?

One can ask the question: If my mother and her mother only wished to have two children, why did they both end up with five? One probable guess is that alcohol played a role; their spouses might have became over-amorous when ‘under the influence’. This is not so unlikely; in fact, my grandfather, Hector MacGillivray, worked as a spirit salesman at MacMillans in Vulcan Street, Springburn, Glasgow, for much of his life. As such, he probably came home many a night ‘tipsy’.³²

Of course, my father also loved  Uisge Beath³³ (the “water of life”). Thus, the “water of life” in this context took on a literal meaning; it gave life to two of my aunts, one of my uncles, and to two of my brothers, as well as myself. 

^{27rererrerererere} https://www.verywellfamily.com/twin-pregnancy-risks-1960314. 

³¹ “Third child syndrome”: “Third Child Syndrome” is a term used to describe the idea that third-born children in a family may be overlooked or neglected in comparison to their older siblings. While every family is different, some parents may find it challenging to give their third child the attention and support they need to thrive. https://parentguidenews.com/articles/family-matters/understanding-and-overcoming-third-child-syndrome/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThird%20Child%20Syndrome%E2%80%9D%20is%20a,support%20they%20need%20to%20thrive. 

³² MacMillans was later renamed the “Vulcan Bar”: https://www.oldglasgowpubs.co.uk/vulcan.html Read: 11 Jan. 2023. 

³³ Uisge Beath is the Scottish Gaelic translation of the Latin term for distilled alcohol: “acqua vitae”, or “water of life”.