On The Other Side

Chapter One: The Beginning

It all began with the Highland potato famine. In 1846 a blight infected all the potato crops. Starting in Ireland, wreaking havoc in every field it got its moldering talons in. Destroying dreams, killing what little hope people had left.

Both my Ma and Da were born into poor farming families. My Ma's family of seven children left Ireland first, in 1860, when she was just a wee bairn. They felt starvation was imminent, fleeing to Scotland where they hoped life would get better.

My Da's family emigrated to Scotland in 1865, when he was just a small, sickly 8-year-old. They were tenant farmers, never seeming to have enough for themselves. Always hungry, always cold. Seeming always to pass some sort of sickness down to their siblings. The sicknesses always making a vicious circle, but never leaving, just making a continuous loop through the family.

My Da was number five of ten children.

Life for my parents never got better. When they met, both of their families were destitute, on the verge of being kicked out of their tenement. I don't think it was a union of passion, just one of convenience. He was there, she was there, that sort of marriage.

Then I came along, they tell me, only making dire circumstances even more dire. I was born on a cold winter day in January 1909. The tenement house we lived in often had anywhere between 8 to 10 families living there at one time. No indoor plumbing, no running water.

The shared outhouse was in the garden, back left corner. If the temperature got over 60 degrees, which was rare, the smell of it would creep into the crevasses of our windows and doors, making sleep and play almost unbearable. Not that the cooler temperatures made the smells of bodily odor and human waste bearable.

Lanarkshire, located in the Lowlands of Scotland, is a stunningly beautiful place. If you look past the hunger, the stink, you can see the emerald beauty of it. Most people here can't see past those things. I suppose when you're responsible for a family, for children, it's hard to see past the desperation.

My Ma worked in a weaving mill as a spinner. Spinning and twisting together fibers for thread that would later be used for weaving. My Da was a coal miner, always coming home sweaty, dirty, covered in black. Even after washing up, his nails, the creases in his skin, were forever black, the trails making their way up his hand like a sickness.

My Ma wasn't kind and soft like a mother should be, always yelling at me, at Da, always finding fault. She was always full of anxiety and anger that radiated through her. She was too skinny, her bones and ribs poking out, her shoulder blades sharp. An incessant cough following her day and night. Her hair was black, wiry, dull. Her green eyes hollow looking, with a persistent grey underneath.

My Da is my hero, laughing, and smiling, always a hug for his nighean. At night, his rough and callused hands tucked me gently in, his gravelly voice would sing me to sleep. He was big and burly, with wide shoulders perfect for carrying me. He had wild red hair and amber eyes. His kindness was known throughout the village.

I'm a mixture of them both. My hair is a fiery red, curly, long, and wild. My green eyes are wide-set. Freckles the color of my hair, smattered about my cheeks, my forehead. My Ma's unhappy, morose moods scared me, making my disposition, my personality, more like my Da's.

I was a happy child; I was able to see the emerald beauty around me. I saw the sunshine, felt the wind ruffle my hair.

I was mostly left to my own devices, with both my parents working. I became very independent, teaching myself to read, to write. When I was finally able to start school, I was in heaven. I devoured everything put in front of me. After school, I would run wild through the Lowlands, becoming fast friends with the sheep herders and their families.