Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

I have read all the wartime letters between our parents and have read through Gavin’s emails which have significantly helped clear up a few mysteries, particularly those about our home addresses, our mother’s furnitures, and our family pets.

#1: Home Addresses

I think our eldest brother Sandy imagined he lived at Rannoch Cottage when he was a little kid. He was born at Rannoch Cottage; but I think it is nearer the truth that our parents just rented rooms. This was probably so our mother could give birth at home rather than give birth in a hospital. In other words, this address ended up on his birth certificate although they probably never lived there.

On the other hand, Stuart was born at a different address in Dunoon – Market Square. This can also be seen on his birth certificate below.

It is also probable they rented rooms in Sunderland to give birth to Alistair, although the letters discuss moving to Sunderland. So they might have lived in Sunderland for a short period. However, my father was working in Burma in 1946; there would be no point in my mother living in Sunderland when they had a house in Edinburgh. 

From the letters it seems our mother lived at two different addresses in Argyll:

1. Woodbank, Dunoon (where she lived as a lodger) – around 1941
2. Mardrumho Cottage, Strone (where they probably rented a cottage) – also around 1941. 

She lived most of the time at 2 Chesser Loan in Edinburgh. Our father probably didn’t have such a high salary in the RNVR. This might explain why she left the cottage some time late in 1941/early 1942. It’s also probable she became pregnant at Mardrumho Cottage because she gave birth to Sandy in June 1942. 

It seems that a Miss Hogg owned Mardrumho Cottage (mentioned in the letters). See following website: https://digital.nls.uk/directories/browse/archive/90688897?mode=transcription

#2: Our Mother and Her Furnitures

Gavin’s Email:

“After her appendicitis, I suggested she come and live in my house. She liked this idea until she realised that she wouldn’t be able to bring her furniture; although she had a real good go at trying to convince me to get rid of my stuff in favour of her stuff in particular her bedroom suite. I was going to house her in my living room where she would have been independent and able to have her own privacy and visitors. However, she wouldn’t leave the bedroom suite behind and that was completely impractical.

Ironically I ended up with all this furniture anyway. I sold the bedroom suite on ebay. When the couple who bought it arrived to collect it, I asked them what they intended to do with it. They were going to paint it all white, as apparently was the current trend. Of course, this was just a recycled trend. I remember both you and Stuart and Cath painting all the furniture white including a piano when John Lennon was shown in pictures having all his furniture white.”

Stuart’s Business

Ha ha! This is highly comical! My brother Stuart was obsessed with painting everything off-white / egg white / antique white. When we lived in Billericay, Essex, I stayed in his flat near the station. It was around this time that my brother, the ‘entrepreneur’, had the crazy idea. He wanted to start a ‘nappy cleaning’ business, as he had had such a job in London. All the ‘nappy washing was done in his washing machine in his flat. Probably, his wife Cath, was in charge of this operation. 

Stuart bought an old Bedford van to collect the dirty nappies, and deliver the clean ones. He had the crazy idea that if he hand-painted the Bedford CA van in an off-white colour, this would cover all its blemishes, so that it would look like a ‘new’ van.  

My brother Gavin is more or less right about the 1960s fad for painting everything white. He refers to John Lennon, but we can trace this fad to an earlier date – the film “The Knack”.

“The Knack …and How to Get It” (1965) was directed by Richard Lester. In the film, one of the characters is obsessed with painting everything white. This is somehow connected to the seduction of women in the film.

Of course, in the seventies and later, the obsession was to be ‘authentic’; that is to strip the paint from furniture to show the natural wood.

Edwardian Chairs

As regards the Edwardian chairs, a bloke came round to buy them. I asked him what he wanted them for. He was going to use them as garden chairs. I surprised myself by refusing to sell them to him even though I’ve hated those fucking chairs my whole life. I think it’s called being The Keeper of the Flame and respecting my mother’s wishes. Of course, I couldn’t do that with the bedroom suite because they had already paid for them and it never occured to me that someone would vandalise it in this way.

Treasures and Furnitures

This is almost tragi-comic. I’m glad I wasn’t in Gavin’s position. My mother used so much energy in trying to create a permanent family home – which included these old chairs! This relates to the idea that “You can’t take it with you when you die.” But this doesn’t seem to be quite true.

The middle classes try to imitate the upper classes. For example, the British royal family manage to iconize various material objects. An example is their places of residence such as Buckingham Palace and Balmoral. Recently, the coronation of King Charles III took place and included the “Gold State Coach”, which has been used at every coronation since 1831. In other words, the rituals and material objects of the aristocracy outlive the ‘living’ people. 

However, it is unlikely that the “Gold State Coach” will be sold on e-bay and then painted white by the buyer and used as a garden decoration for various potted plants!

E-bay

Despite the efforts of the middle class to imitate this behavior, the material objects of the middle class are often ‘disrespected’. They usually end up on ‘E-bay’, which seems to undermine the existence of the people of this class. But, this is part of my endeavour here. After all, material objects are just that – material objects and subject to erosion.

Rituals may have more permanence, but are often counter-productive to progressive social change. In other words, one might say that such social rituals contribute to the preservation of a society, but they can also function reactively and prevent positive change. This family history is not aimed at promoting some kind of social order. At least it can function as a comment on the ‘way things are’. 

#3 My Mother’s Pets

My mother stayed at Strone with two cats, Poppy and Jonah, and a dog called Buster. Poppy and Jonah might be the two kittens shown in the photo with Janet – her friend at Woodbank (where my mother stayed as a lodger). ‘Poppy’ might be the same Poppy that lived in Culcheth. Buster might have been my father’s mother’s dog. 

Another interesting thing about the document you sent me is the fact that the ‘burning boat’ (see document above) is a launch, and that it sank at Strone. A whole new scenario emerges here! Strone was about 30-45 min drive from Dunoon – my father might have had a car at this time, but petrol was rationed (in one of the letters from Uncle Alick to my mother, he mentions that our father had bought a car around this time). 

Gavin suggest that “Buster the dog” was Auntie Violet’s dog. He also suggests that ‘Poppy’ from the 1940s was the same Poppy of the 1950s. He says that Poppy met his demise in 1961 – I don’t remember this – but this may very well be the case:

“It met it’s demise in 1961. Alistair was the nominated person to take the cat on its one way trip to the vet as he had also done with the dog. I can still remember mother and I seeing him off on the bus at a bus stop very near to the house. What stuck in my puny brain was that he took the bus in the opposite direction to the bus I caught once a week.

If you came out the house mum and I would cross the road, i’d get a walnut whip at the shop to pacify me and then catch the bus. Alistair’s bus was the same side of the road as the house and i never went in that direction. Poppy mark two in Billericay lived till 21.”

My comment

From an egotistical point of view, I regretted the death of my older brother Alistair because he had such an excellent memory. I would have loved to chat on the phone about our young days. Our memories corresponded more or less. My memories also correspond with my younger brother Gavin. But he is nine years younger than me, and had a closer relationship with our mother. But this is only positive as it relates to the story of “the Blind men and the Elephant”.