NOSTALGIA 1949

The war was now a memory, rationing was decreasing and sweets were in the shops.

When you are nine years old summer holidays stretched ahead forever and the sun shone every day!

If the tide was out we would play away the hours on the shingle, weaving into the cracks that cut into Dumbarton Rock.

Salty air mingled with carping seagulls, hoping for food. Our game might be pirates, smugglers, even spies.

Imaginations ran riot to the sound of hammers echoing in our heads from the shipyard across the River Leven.

Sometimes we’d take a bottle of water and a jam piece then spend the day walking on The

Camels Hump, a local hill. You could see over the town from there or collect wild flowers like

pink campion.

When you felt like being near to home then the swing park was the place to be, playing tig around the bandstand or trying the swings, maypole or horse in rotation.

Weekends were different though! Auntie from Glasgow came on Sundays, very occasionally accompanied by granny. Glasgow grannies rarely travelled abroad, preferring to stay at home and wait for you to visit them!

On just such a red- letter day they both arrived. To celebrate the occasion I was despatched to the Italian café for two bottles of ginger.

Jostling them, I ran back, hurrying up the stairs to our top floor, two roomed tenement flat.

Auntie beckoned me mysteriously into the other room where she revealed my new outfit for Sundays. Soon I was shrugged into the three piece suit, hand knitted in serviceable navy blue.

She wagged an admonishing finger.

"Mind and keep it clean…or else!"

After adding bottles of water and tomato sandwiches wrapped in a towel we trudged to the Clyde shore.

There, we made for the little channel where the water was shallow enough for us to pretend we could swim, always with one foot oozed into the mud.

Auntie unbuttoned me from the suit to reveal her piece de resistance – the hand knitted swimsuit, complete with bib, straps and my name tastefully embroidered across the front.

After a while we noticed auntie waving a bottle of water at us.

"Come out, it’s time to eat!" She klaxoned.

My swimsuit, loaded with seawater, dipped earthwards. Amidst chortles of glee from

my sister and brother I ran, red faced, to the grown ups.

My parents tried to hide their mirth; only granny gave me that gentle, sympathetic smile,

as auntie fumed.

"See you?" She spluttered, scouring me with the only available sand filled towel.

Once again I was hastily shrugged into the cardigan and skirt as auntie, her face crimson with embarrassment, shielded me.

"See you!" She whispered,

"I’m fair affronted. I just can’t take you anywhere!"

    by G. B. Taylor