The Garngad Heritage
The unpublished work

Retiral and a Return to the Gad

When I retired from the police I was employed for some time carrying out some investigations for solicitors and doing some scenes of crime photography.   I am now fully retired.

On the 50th. Anniversary of VE day in 1995, I went on a pilgrimage.   Along with my youngest daughter, in our separate cars, we left the south side of Glasgow, our destination, Tharsis Street in the royal burgh of Garngad.   We approached via and as we reached the top of Rhymer Street, I felt rather sad at the condition of some of the buildings, no roofs, numerous windows boarded up.   I wanted to point out to my daughter the house I was born in.   As we travelled down Tharsis Street, three men were standing on a pavement.   I thought I recognised one.   We stopped opposite number 33,  I pointed to the house one up and with my camera, my daughter photographed me in front of the building.   She had to leave as she had made a prior appointment to see someone.   I got back into my car, reversed up the street to where the three men were standing.   They had been 'shirraking' us while the photographs were been taking.   I certainly recognised one and he recognised me.   It was Archie McQueen who lived all those years before in the next close at 35 Tharsis Street.   I persuaded Archie and his two friends to stand outside number 35 while I photographed them.

Recently, I went on another pilgrimage, destination, again Garngad.   I had been informed that the house in which the three surviving McLaughlins were born had been  demolished.   I again approached in my car via Rhymer Street, stopping at the top where it met Tharsis Street and stared down at a great void on my right hand side.  Number 33 Tharsis Street was now only a memory.   I drove home.

What of today?    I am now fully retired although I do some voluntary work and enjoy hobbies of photography and bowls.   My wife Anne, a former Primary School Head teacher who applied for and was given early retirement and I enjoy travelling.  We  have been as far west  to the Pacific Ocean on the coast of the Western States of America, (We always visit Betty in Oregon), and as far east towards the Pacific in the other direction to China and Hong Kong.   I have been white water rafting and 'shot the rapids' on the McKenzie River in Oregon and climbed the Great Wall of China.   We have been north to Iceland and would like to go south to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.  

I am proud of my four daughters.   They all obtained better educational qualifications than me.  My oldest Anne, a double honours graduate of Glasgow University, married with one son, is employed as an insurance underwriter;  my second, Clare (the wee yin - the other three are tall) had various jobs when she left school,  'emigrated' to England, decided to go late into nursing, has just completed a specialist course and has a job in a hospital in Sheffield.   My wife and I will attend Clare's graduation in October this year.   Number three, Frances is a bit of a 'chip off the old block'.   She is a polis with 9 years service in the East End of Glasgow and my fourth daughter Julie, an honours graduate of Strathclyde University's Business School works for a UK multi - national company.   No bad for a wee boy from the Garngad.

ADDENDUM:

I have never known any real heroes from the Garngad.    I suppose Ma Da was my hero when I was a wee boy.   One person I did really respect and looked up to was Louis Daly the cobbler.  Louis was two generations older than I but he was a real gentle man.  Not gentleman but gentle man.   He could appear tough if he had to.   I remember his steely grey hair, weather beaten face and even the fact that he walked with a limp.   I believe he had a club foot.  I never dreamt of asking how he had come by the limp. His whole persona was that of a good man.   I suppose it was really Louis who instilled in me initially,  the possibility that I could become and make a good policeman.    His back shop after all was a haven for the cop on the beat, desperate for a smoke or cup of tea during his shift.   I never knew where he lived but I did see him occasionally in the London Road area of 'the barras' on my way to go on duty in the east end of Glasgow.   Someone once told me he went to Mass daily at St. Alphonsus's Church at 'the barras'.   Sadly, I missed his funeral when he passed away.   I am sure Louis must have soled and healed the shoes of all the Apostles by now........  However I do know one genuine, 18 carat gold heroine.  My sister Betty.

Betty was a bit of a 'wee nippy sweetie' as she was growing up,  still is a bit today?   You do not get on her wrong side.   However, she left school at 15,  worked in this country for a few years and emigrated to California in the United States when she was 22.  She had a job as a domestic to go to.  After a while, she met a young man, Daniel Bartholomew Valentine.   Dan's father was a doctor and soon Betty was the doctor's secretary/ receptionist.   Dan was a history student, with a particular interest in British History.   Betty and Dan were married, they had a daughter (Lisa)  in their early married life.    They travelled quite a bit, Britain, (all countries) Ireland, Europe.   Dan had a brilliant brain.   He was  the cleverest person I had ever met.   Although he didn't drive, he could read a book and virtually strip a car engine down with his mind and tell you where the parts went.   He qualified, was entitled to use 'Professor' before his name, and after a further qualification, was entitled to use 'Doctor'.    Betty and Dan had a son (Iain).   Dan lectured in history in the University in Los Angeles, California for a while, the family moved on and finally settled in Eugene in Oregon.   Dan lectured in the University of Oregon in Eugene.   Betty meanwhile worked as a secretary in the Linguistics Department in the University.    She assures me she tried but could not get broad Glasgow twang accepted as a foreign language.  Their family grew up.

After a while, Dan became disenchanted with University life and started his own travel business in Eugene.   The business was not a runaway success although it did give a job to a number of people.   Betty meanwhile continued in the Linguistics Department. Dan became an entrepreneur and with friends, who were qualified as and to train pilots, bought into a small airline business.   He was in the process of negotiating deals to train pilots to fly commuter planes in Moscow in Russia when he died suddenly in December 1992.   Plans for their small airline and the Russian deal collapsed.   Betty is still in the Linguistics Department.

What makes Betty the heroine I said she was?  Betty's husband Dan was struck down with Polio when he was a boy of twelve  (12) was paralysed from the chest down and was, when not in bed, in a wheel chair for the rest of his life.   He had the use of his arms and hands but his brain was the most active part of his body.  He really only had one workable lung.   Betty married Dan despite knowing that life from then on would not be easy..    She had to put him to bed nightly, had to dress and undress him, had to manhandle (should that be womanhandle) him into his wheel chair every day, had to humph him in and out of every type of transport they used, car, plane, train, etc. and how she managed despite being  quite small in stature I will never know.  It was amazing watching her puting Dan into and getting him out of a car.  I have tried and did it and it was no easy matter.   If Dan could have stood on his own two feet he would have been over six feet tall.  

Dan's general health during their marriage wasn't all that great.   Betty's health insurance in the job's that she had covered a lot of Dan's medical bills.   His handicap prevented him from obtaining normal health insurance.  He required quite a lot of treatment.  

In the latter years of their marriage, because of the pain that Dan suffered, they slept in separate rooms, Dan requiring the full use of a double bed, and because of the pain he suffered, Dan would shout on Betty at least twice a night to come and turn him to ease that pain.    This despite her holding down a full time job in the Linguistics Department and  rising early in the morning to prepare him for his business.   I was really sorry when he died.   He really was a great guy.   He had a wicked sense of humour and liked his dram.   He himself could laugh at others' humour, even directed at himself or his infirmity  and had to guffaw one day while in Glasgow, while Betty was pushing him in his wheel chair outside Marks and Spencers in Argyle Street, when a wee boy, holding his mammy,s hand  looked at him and said,  "Heh mister, whit's wrang wi'  yer feet'!    He usually had a nickname for all his intimate friends and they had nicknames for him.   I remember meeting 'The Bald Eagle', 'The Cowboy' and others. When I was promoted Inspector, I became 'Clouseau'.   He was 'The Doc', 'His Abundance', 'Ironside' and many more. I was at the funeral.   After the service, before his coffin was placed in the hearse, one of his friends played 'Danny boy' on the bagpipes.   You should have seen the tears.   The friends who attended hadn't a bad word for 'The Doc' and although many   sympathies were expressed and Betty really misses him, life is a little bit easier now.    Betty still works in the Linguistics Department, the Oregon State University in Eugene.

Now there is a genuine 18 carat gold, no I'll change that to 24 carat gold heroine that the Garngad can rightly be proud of.   Betty McLaughlin Valentine. Big Robey's beloved daughter.