LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

life when the stars came into alignment. His happy little band of friends centred round the Monaghans’ big, welcoming house. The friendship influenced his life hugely because they were a kind family, who had the money and wherewithal to show their son’s friend a different world to that which Cis could provide for him. Gregor’s eldest sister Margaret had once taken him to the theatre in Glasgow, but the Monaghans introduced him to much more: the excitement of performance on stage and the thrill of getting in a car and going somewhere as a family. It was almost as if, from that first day, Margaret Monaghan had read in Gregor’s face the craving to belong, the fear of rejection, and in a way she adopted him too. She treated him and her son as equals. If Johnny got a tube of Smarties, Gregor got one too. He was included in family trips to the theatre, to the Pavilion in Glasgow to see shows such as Beat the Clock, starring Calum Kennedy. The boys would pile into the back of the family’s old black Bentley – how Gregor loved that feeling of anticipation – and they would head out into a world of city lights and noise and fun, worlds away from watching John Leckie sit morosely by the fire and smoke Capstan.

      Years later, as a teenager, some time after Gregor learnt of his adoption, Johnny Monaghan found out he had been adopted too. His reaction to the news was much the same as Gregor: he chose to put it to the back of his mind and move on. Life was good; he didn’t want to upset his mother by asking questions. It was decades later, three years after her death, before her adoptive son started digging to find what was what and who he was. But it helps to explain something. Did Margaret Monaghan know the circumstances of the little boy with the curly hair, whom she invited in for lunch with her son? Had she guessed he was adopted too? Maybe she had seen Cis and drawn her own conclusions. Gregor does not know but in Mrs Monaghan he was lucky for he had found another good woman with a kind heart and space in it to offer to him. It would become a lifelong pattern.

      He enjoyed primary school, mainly because he fell in love with his teacher, Miss Fay. He thought she was an angel, presiding over the safe little world where they made Easter cards for their mums and decorations for the Christmas tree. Everything started to fall apart, though, in his final year at primary. He was a bright child and it was assumed he would go to Paisley Grammar School, but like so many boys he was not ready for his 11 Plus.

      I was a dreamer or a lazy bastard, whichever you prefer. I used to sit and look out of the window at the clouds and wonder what it was like, being a cloud.

      Instead, he was consigned to the rough house of the local secondary modern, where the whole purpose seemed to be to teach the boys metalwork or woodwork (cookery for the girls) and then churn them out into the workplace. With hindsight, Gregor is extremely bitter at the way secondary modern pupils were treated like drones, second-class citizens, condemned for life for failing a single exam. That was the way it felt to him: a rejection, even if he did not articulate it at the time. Failing the 11 Plus was a self-fulfilling prophecy of further failure, and it meant that school became largely a waste of time for him.

      Back then Barrhead High School was a tall, forbidding place, built in the 1920s in the shape of a courtyard, with separate entrances for boys and girls. Gregor caught the red Western SMT bus down the hill from Neilston and spent the day longing for the final bell. Going home was the best part, especially because it involved a bit of daredevil stuff, skipping off the bus while it was still moving. The bus stop was some way past his house, no point going that far and having to walk back, so he had it down to a fine art – waiting until the driver changed gear on the steep bit, then letting go of the pole at the back of the vehicle and springing off, knees bent, running. Everybody did it, if the bus was passing their house, but on a slippery day there might be trouble and pupils could end up with skinned knees. It was more fun than books, though.

      I was useless at school, worse than a man shot. The only things that interested me were cigarettes, gambling and sex, not necessarily in that order. The first two I did really quite well with: I was a world-class smoker, a very good card player, but the sex was just never forthcoming. Those were my obsessions and as for maths, science and arithmetic, I was utterly, utterly useless. I don’t think I was particularly thick, it was just that at that time I wasn’t interested.

      Pupils were streamed by ability, from A to E. Gregor started off at C and moved swiftly down to D. School was tribal; a jungle. The A and B stream kids wore a collar and tie; they were always nicely turned out, leather shoes polished, with parents who cared. Not that Cis didn’t care but that was the way the A and Bs made the other kids feel – like scruff. Gregor and his chums behaved according to the role expected of them. The headmaster was Mr Burnett, a former Greek teacher, who gave the impression he would much rather have been head of a grammar school than a secondary modern and seemed bitter that he hadn’t made the cut. Mr Burnett, nevertheless, made the most of his status. Every morning, at assembly, wearing his gown, he conducted a messianic entrance: there was a balcony all round the big assembly hall and he would walk right along the top corridor, very slowly down the stairs, with the entire school assembled beneath him, walk to the podium and take the morning service. The pupils sang rollicking great Christian hymns, and the A and B students would perform on their recorders. Often it was just too much pomp and ceremony for the reprobates to bear; it positively begged for a bit of disruption.

      Laughter, Gregor was fast discovering, was a most subversive weapon. He was learning its power. There was one assembly in particular, he remembered vividly, when Mr Burnett stood at the podium and announced pompously that it had come to the attention of the janitor that someone had been blocking the toilets in the downstairs loo. One of Gregor’s pals said – and he didn’t mean it to be so loud – ‘Oh, someone must have shit a brick’ – and his words echoed round the cavernous hall. Time stood still and then came the wave of suppressed giggling. Mr Burnett pointed his finger and the offender was hauled out for punishment, probably the belt. Discipline was still fierce in schools in the 1960s, and while Gregor and his friends headed towards a reputation, the A and B pupils headed towards success – ‘Towards sainthood … Oh, they were probably lovely kids and nice people but school was tribal,’ he says.

      With adolescence, Gregor had grown into a husky, strong young man. Not tall, but fairly broad. It changed the balance of power at home, up the hill in Neilston, where sometimes, inevitably, if there were less than happy memories, they were in the shape of John Leckie. The older man was not remotely interested in interacting with the boy who had invaded his house, usurping his wife’s affections. Perhaps Mr Leckie might be forgiven his resentment at seeing his wife’s attention switch to the cherubic little cuckoo in the nest, the child who made her laugh and brought her joy. Previously, her husband’s welfare had been her main priority – suddenly he felt second in the pecking order.

      There is a duty to understand and respect; and if Mr Leckie seemed a profoundly negative influence, especially towards children, perhaps those judging him needed to walk a mile in his shoes. Scotland in the 1950s was, for all but the very few, a grey landscape of hard graft. Since the Industrial Revolution, work in the heavy industries – mining, shipbuilding, steelmaking, engineering – meant a lifetime of long hours, physical labour, the risk of frequent industrial accidents and low wages. It was just the way things were; there was no alternative. Men, both skilled and unskilled, toiled week-in, week-out, and hoped their sons would secure an apprenticeship to do the same.

      John Leckie was a skilled man, an engineer at Weirs of Cathcart, where he had worked all his life – and mostly on the night shift, in itself a profoundly dislocating and unhealthy existence. Weirs, founded in Glasgow in 1871 – and in the twenty-first century still a global concern – were one of the powerhouses of the mechanical world. During the course of Mr Leckie’s career at the factory their design engineers pioneered munitions for the First World War, developed the autogiro to enable the first helicopter flight and manufactured Frank Whittle’s invention, the first jet engine. Mr Leckie was, in his day, one of up to 9,000 employees.

      If his joylessness was oppressive, events in his early life can explain why. Born in 1901, John Leckie was a miner’s son, with three younger brothers, Sam, Campbell and Hugh. When all four boys were small, their father died in an explosion in the shed where the mine explosives were kept. In those days compensation for such incidents did not exist. Not many years after that, their mother died – of a broken heart, it was said – and John was left to bring up his brothers

Скачать книгу