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Memories: Look at Me
My father closed his eyes when I was ten years old. Memories of him are like distant candles, too far to emit significant light. I have one picture of us when I was seven. He has a Mediterranean look although his grandfather was from Donegal. Many agree that he looked like the actor, Antony Quinn, rugged with compassionate eyes. He is dressed in white shirt and black trousers. He appears dignified.
His business was successful which allowed us to live in a nice building in the shipyard town of Govan. His proudest possession was not the home, but the view from our third storey. When visitors came, he would point over to Hills Trust Primary School and tell them it was the school John Mclean (1879-1923) taught in. Although McLean was a half century out of the public eye, ‘Mother Glasgow’s succour is perpetual’ and everyone remembered him as the political activist who was dismissed by the Govan School Board for ‘Using language likely to cause a breach of the peace.’
Mclean taught evening classes in Marxism and political economics. Dad shared his views, and he would put me on his shoulders and march round the house singing John McLean’s March; a song that celebrated Mclean’s release from prison.
Hey Mac
did ya see him as he came doon the Gorgie
Away o'er the Lammerlaw and north o' the Tay
Yon man is coming now the whole toon is turnin' oot
We're all sure he'll win back tae Glasgow today.
I never understood the foreign sounding words, but I enjoyed the bonding as he marched round the living room ignoring the precarious position of ornaments and photos as they defied gravity.
Books were his pleasure: Twain, Dickens, and The Untouchables by Eliot Ness. I think it was the sense of justice and injustice explored by these writers that appealed to him. Bedtime stories were memorable as I would be privy to abridged versions of Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Huckleberry Finn. They were related with incredible feats of memory and accent skills, enhanced by his rhythmic wheeze that was sustained from a childhood bronchial condition.
He always had time for the lonely. I recall an ex-employee regularly visiting us. Jimmy Hooper was his name. I guess he was young, but his long brown coat, working boots and seven o’clock shadow aged him. Jimmy stopped working for my father when he was admitted to a mental institution with schizophrenia. He had a severe stutter, and my father, with his hands clasped like a priest would, patiently listen to Jimmy, as he lost all self-respect when rhythmically moving his head to and fro like a Rabbi reading the Mishnah in an effort to blurt out a simple sentence. It was stressful for all in his company.
In ‘66 Dad was rushed into hospital with respiratory failure. My last image was a pale looking man gasping for life.
A few years ago, I was at the Edinburgh Festival; a BBC live recording. The folk group, Tonight at Noon performed John MacLean’s March. My eyes filled with pleasing tears. When I related this memory to Kanoko, a Japanese friend, she put both hands to her mouth and uttered ‘natsukashii’. In this context, she was using a word for a positive nostalgia; a fleeting, but sweet memory, initiated by music.
Nostalgia is a vogue word that’s obscured by abuse, misuse, and overuse in society. Like a last-minute kedgeree, the various nuances of memory are thrown into one pot and labelled ‘nostalgia’ in our English language. But memory is never that simple, the complexity of images and films drawn up in our private vaults hidden away from human scrutiny, reveal a colourful array of thoughts and meanings that change with the transfer of time and space and present themselves in colourful assemblages of meaning, reminding us we are unique and individual.
natsukashii: evoking sweet memories from the past.
Writing: © 2024 Jim McCrory