Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

Now, we get to focus on the type of ‘love’ that goes beyond text. My first love was Susan O’Flaherty when I was five years old. She was my classmate in Hob Hey Lane (pre-primary) School. When I was 11, I had outgrown her and found my gaze had wandered to two other Susans: Susan Jones, the red-haired and vivacious Welsh girl, and Susan Chubb, the delicate ‘English rose’. Yet they had not taught me ‘real love’ yet; Susan Buttercup did! 

You can see their photos in this post: Culcheth Primary School Class Photos

Getting Engaged to Susan Buttercup

Susan Buttercup was the brightest and most beautiful girl in the class. For some reason, she is not in the photo. She was tallish, blonde, and had big blue eyes. Her name also conjured up nice images in my mind of fields of buttercups. We used to hold buttercups under each other’s chins in the sunshine. If we saw a yellow reflection on the chin it meant you liked butter (we actually used to believe that some children didn’t like butter, if we couldn’t ‘see’ a reflection).   

I was madly ‘in love’ with her. The love must have been fairly ‘serious’, because I proposed that we get married. In fact, in the playground, I took a gold and pearl necklace out of my pocket, and wound it around her sweet neck, clasping it together at the back. I then produced a gold watch and fastened it to her wrist. I then went down on my knees, took a ring out of my pocket, a diamond ring, and placed it on the ring finger of her left hand kissing the back of her hand and asked her, “Will you accept this engagement ring?” – which she answered with a nod of her head. 

She quickly accepted my gifts, but didn’t even offer me so much as a smile! She simply went on playing a skipping game with the other girls.

The Grand Reveal

Unfortunately, our ‘engagement’ was short-lived, when I was exposed as a charlatan. My eldest brother Sandy suddenly turned up at the school playground during the break time, asking me if I knew anything about my mother’s jewellery. Of course, I pleaded my innocence; but my ‘innocence’ became unbelievable when he spied Susan Buttercup skipping with the other girls. He easily spotted my mother’s gold and pearl necklace catching the sunlight, as it was swinging up and down her delicate snowy-white neck, following the rhythm of her skipping. 

I had always been fascinated by my mother’s mosaic inlaid jewellery box which was placed on her bedroom dresser in front of the mirror. Perhaps my father had bought it for her when he was working in Burma after the Second World War. In other words, I couldn’t resist pocketing her jewellery in order to impress my beautiful Susan, my darling, my life and my bride, the love of my heart. 

Not a Susan

In retrospect, I realised the ‘love’ stories of my boyhood had not all been with Susans. I remember ‘falling in love’ with Christina Hansen. I was fascinated by her strange looks, name, and voice. She was tall and skinny, with a pale face and lifeless fair hair. She was quiet, shy, and spoke in a ‘funny’ way. Unfortunately, she seemed to disappear as quickly as she had appeared. In retrospect, she was probably Danish. Perhaps her father had been working on some kind of short-term contract at Risley Atomic Energy. She presaged my later interest in ‘cold’, pale and reclusive Nordic girls with lifeless hair and tall skinny looks.

I somehow learned about ‘love’ through my innocent and naive experiences with these memorable girls in my boyhood. What I probably didn’t realise then yet was how much more I was subconsciously learning through the relationship that my parents had.