Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

The Arts

When I was a young boy, my mother was already a woman in her thirties; that didn’t stop her from being quite “childish” in her enjoyment of simple pleasures. We would often make a trip to the seaside or the theatre just because. Because of this fascination with arts and music, my childhood has bits and pieces of fun theatre or musical experiences.

My memory might be failing me, but I remember going to the pantomime at Christmas when I was just a boy. We were still living in Culcheth, Lancashire then. At that time, Culcheth was just a small village and didn’t have a theatre. Hence, I think we had to travel to one of the neighbouring towns – perhaps Leigh – to go to a theatre. I can’t remember exactly which pantomime it was, perhaps it was “Cinderella”; but it is clear to me that it was a ‘big’occasion for a small boy like me. 

She never lost this ‘childish’ enjoyment of life. She was like Pollyanna, always happy and optimistic. I can remember travelling to Brighton with her when my son was about eight years old and she was already in her mid-eighties. On Brighton pier, she still enjoyed playing on the one-arm bandits and other pier ‘games’.

Music

During my childhood, we always had a radiogramme, which was a combined radio and record player built into a cabinet with a loudspeaker. My mother bought Ray Charles records, such as the long playing record (LP) “Country & Western Meets Rhythm & Blues,” which I still have in my record collection today.

However, this is not to imply that my mother was “ethnic-friendly”. I can say that there is a kind of cultural paradox here. The British Mods³⁰ loved Black Motown, as did the early Skinheads,³¹ the ‘descendants’ of the Mods: “Because of their fascination with black culture, the early skinheads were largely devoid of the overt racism and fascism that would later become associated with the movement in the mid to late 1970s.”³²

³⁰ “The Mod subculture’s origins can be traced back to the late 1950s. A group of young Londoners took to calling themselves “Modernists” due to their love of Modern Jazz and the streamlined style and cool sophistication of the African-American musicians who were its stars.” https://artsandculture.google.com/story/we-are-we-are-we-are-the-mods-museum-of-youth-culture/ggUxm0TCZUFLIQ?hl=en

³¹ “Hard mods became commonly known as skinheads by about 1968. Their short hair may have come about for practical reasons, since long hair could be a liability in industrial jobs and streetfights. Skinheads may also have cut their hair short in defiance of the more middle class hippie culture.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead#:~:text=Hard%20mods%20became%20commonly%20known,more%20middle%20class%20hippie%20culture.

³² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mod_(subculture) Read: 22 Sept. 2022.