I’ve just finished reading Julie Cumming’s book From Home. Initially through interviews, and then through letters due to el panoramic, Julie has collated the stories of life in Atholl from the perspective of its resident. From Home captures a precious sense of place and through the stories of occupants, past and present, allowing the reader to escape into Atholl and experience it through the ages. Asking interviewees when they first came to the area, what they did there, and what has changed about it, Julie paints a very vivid picture. Many of them talk about good ol’ days of their youth in Atholl, but all convey an overwhelming sense of community spirit that has withstood the test of time and is surely the foundation which makes Atholl all that it is. I finished Julie’s book feeling humbled by the stories but also like I know Atholl personally though I’ve never been. I think this is fervently down to the sense of community conveyed though the stories she has collated in From Home.
I feel like a little Atholl spirit for many sums up their relationship with Scotland. I was still fairly young when we moved to England from Scotland. This made the golden haze of precious memories I have from childhood there, and from subsequent visits, all the more special. I thought I would tell you about a few of my memories from home.
My grandparents’ back garden was the site of many an adventure and numerous games of “What’s the time Mr Wolf?” for my cousins and I. The garden was on a slight slope, split into two levels, but seemed to stretch on for miles. The lower level was paved and the upper was grassy. Their conservatory, filled with many artefacts and souvenirs from their travels abroad, first lead onto the paved area where my Grandad kept his barbeque. What else were Sundays for? The path followed the perimeter of the conservatory, passing some French doors which allowed parents to keep a watchful eye on us from the living room.
The path was bordered by my Grandad’s rose bushes. To say these were his pride and joy would be an understatement, and you wouldn’t be far wrong to think you saw him visibly flinch when a ball bounced off a window in the conservatory and rolled through the beloved roses. The rose bushes were what divided the lower paved section of the garden from the upper grassy bit, which was a meter or so higher. The paved area opened up onto a small section of grass as you follow it round to the other side of the conservatory. This lower section made the perfect landing pad for us power rangers and wrestlers as we leaped over the roses from the upper level.
The upper level was bordered by trees that reached for the skies and with the long patch of grass felt like it was the size of a football pitch. We would go on expeditions through the shrubs and behind the trees, oblivious to the telling off we would later receive as we traipsed the mud inside when tea was ready. We dodged the gaps in the foliage, as well the midgies, so as to avoid being found on our super secret missions. The final trial of the expedition was normally a race through the flower bed maze which lay to the right edge of the grassy plane – again much to the delight of our grandparents as 9 wee pairs of feet trampled through a vast array of colourful flowers. Of course, to cross the finish line you must land a final perfect star jump over the roses. Brushing off the grass stains, we would trot off to Gran and receive a Mars Bar ice cream – the peak of treats.
Grandad used to grow sunflowers for us. There was one each and it would be a competition to see who’s would grow the highest! Of the 9 grandchildren I was the only girl, but there was an obsession with who was the tallest of us. They all trump me now being around the 6’4” mark, to my humble 5’7”, but at the time we were sure the sunflowers had some correlation to our own height and would wolf down our Weetabix in the mornings, as our parents assured us this was an infallible way to ensure we grew taller.
Another key piece of my childhood was the pool table. It came from a local pub and was going to be binned but my Dad and a few mates rescued and relocated it to my grandparent’s spare room, since affectionately known as the “Pool Room”. Being fairly competitive, we would probably all claim to be descent at the game we played on that table – I’m unsure whether rule discrepancies made for a game that was closer to pool or snooker. But when we were young the pool table had a more important use, the foundations of our forts. The dust sheet for the table turned into an awning tent like structure, and we used chairs, clothes pegs and spare sheets from the boiler cupboard to make extensions. The table fortified our dens as well as our imaginations.
My grandparents’ caravan up in Elgin made for many a classic family holiday for us all. The site had different levels. Some just for caravans and others for camping and lead out into rolling fields of wheat and also abandoned railway lines. You would wake up in the mornings and wipe the condensation from the window to see a thin layer of fog over site, almost but not quite hiding the little grey bunnies that would be hopping around in the nettle bushes. My grandparents’ caravan sat on the upper ring as you first entered the park. Next to it was a clearing under a canopy of trees. In the clearing were several variations tire swings which I highly doubt would still be there now, probably violating many a health and safety regulation even then. To the left there was three smaller swings hung vertically from the trees which you would have to hook your feet in and stand up straight on or sit on top and wrap your legs around to use, but the central one was a large tractor tire hung horizontally allowing for multiple riders. This tire swing was the first and last thing we would flock to, as my older cousins would push the younger lot on, in an attempt to smash it into the tree that it hung from. There were definitely a few bruises acquired in the pursuit of hitting the target just right. I’m unsure if I’m making this up but I believe there was probably a couple of occasions where one was knocked cleanly over as the tire swung back off the tree if one were the pusher rather than the one being pushed. From this vantage point we saw out many a summer sunset over the out reaching fields.
This site was where I remember learning to ride a bike without stabilisers for the first time. My Dad took them off and finally sent me off down the hill, which is probably a lot steeper in my memory than in reality, freewheeling until I had the sense to use my pedals in cohesion with my breaks to slow to a sensible pace which allowed me to come back round the path. This set the mark for most of the life lessons my Dad has gone on to teach me over the years.
There was an old games room on the site which housed a ping pong table, this provided the adults with as much entertainment as it did the us kids. A farmhouse or stable in another life, the musky smell of the furnishings perfectly complimented by the soft scent of the surrounding chestnut trees that always shed their conkers around the time we were up. Yet another game my cousins and I had a loose grip on the rules of, but this never detracted from the sense of accomplishment of smashing the ping ball as hard as humanly possible off the floors and walls to see the result of the ball flying up to the ceiling.
So, I think we all have an Atholl somewhere. My version exists somewhere between Kirkcaldy and Elgin and is full of nettle stings, tyre swings, and conquers. I’m grateful to Julie for inspiring me to consider my own Atholl.
