Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

Luckily, I have vague memories even from the time I was a very young child/baby. I remember one of our day trips at Eskdale, specifically in particular wherein I had another memorable mother and son experience.

I was waiting for my mum’s go signal for us to go and feed the horses, but when I turned around, I couldn’t see her anywhere. Suddenly, She jumped out from behind a tree shouting “Boo!”

Since I was a small baby, she had loved playing the good old ‘boo’ game! It started off as a ‘peek-a-boo’ game when I was a baby, but finally evolved into a ‘boo’ game. Even then, she would frighten the life out of me and I would start bawling. This was all the more amusing for her, because then she could comfort me saying, “Oh poor baby did mummy frighten you?” Of course, she frightened me with her jumping out from nowhere, shouting boo, with a wide eyed grin!

She could look pretty ‘scary’, widening her eyes and sticking out her buck teeth, a family characteristic I fortunately didn’t inherit, unlike my elder brothers Sandy and Stuart who did. She always roared with laughter when she saw my frightened expression. Expecting moral support from my brothers, they would just chuckle and say, “What a baby!”

As mentioned, my mother had been frightening me with the ‘boo’ game ever since I was a small baby. Of course, I couldn’t verbalise these feelings when I was a baby sitting in my baby chair, but my bones and stomach still remember – it’s like a long-lasting upset that you never forget!

To read more of our adventures in Eskdale, you can check out my other stories here:
Romanticism in Painting and Poetry | Tea Cake and Dobbin | Brookes and Rivers in Eskdale |
West Ferry | Birth Origins