Читать книгу A Journeyman's Journey - The Story of Jim McEwan - Udo Sonntag - Страница 11

I have always seen the fact that I was born on Islay as a stroke of luck, for which I am very grateful. This island is still the perfect place for me and always has been. Looking back, however, many, many things have changed over these past 70 years. Life on Islay today is nothing like it was then. I was born at a time when the aftermath of the war was still very present, having ended only three years before I was born, leaving clear traces and wounds. Although the war was over, the price of victory had been high and painful. On Islay, husbands, fathers, sons, brothers had lost their lives, now missing from the island, but more importantly, missing from their families.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s the economic situation was still dire, with a lack of money everywhere in the country, while food was still rationed. Those were conditions that we can scarcely imagine today, and thank God we don’t have to. Fortunately or unfortunately, you don’t choose your way into life! Those were very hard times, but they are undeniably a part of my life, helping make me who I am today, and making it possible for me to lead the life I’ve lived. And to be honest, it’s been a pretty good life. I am firmly of the belief that our lives are already planned, even before we take matters into our own hands, this personal book of life having been written prior to our birth. If life was not easy in Scotland as a whole, it was even more difficult on Islay, but still uniquely beautiful. I would like to tell you a bit more about my childhood.

Jim at the age of about five.

At the centre of the island lies the beautiful village of Bowmore. Protecting and watching over everyone is a church perched at the highest point of the village, the only round church in the whole of Scotland. It was built in this shape in 1769 so that the devil could not hide in any corners. Unsurprisingly, the devil has never been sighted in Bowmore.

Jim’s birthplace.

My birthplace, at 7 Main Street, was about halfway between the church and Bowmore distillery, in a building that currently houses the Royal Bank of Scotland. That means there is a lot of money in the house today, but when I was born that was hardly the case. It was sorely lacking then. There were four families living in the building, each in very small flats. I lived on the top floor with my mother Margaret, who everyone called Peggy, and my grandmother Kate. Next door to us lived a woman with her son. On the ground floor, on the right, lived an elderly, retired woman, and a fisherman lived opposite. It was all quite crowded. Our small flat consisted simply of a kitchen-living room and two bedrooms in which my mother and grandmother slept. I usually slept on the sofa, because we couldn’t afford another bed. Poverty was part of our everyday lives. To keep us all warm, there was a small, coal-fired stove on which we also cooked. We had few, if any, luxuries, focussing solely on the essentials. However, we had a roof over our heads that we could call ‘home’, a safe place in which to live, and where we could eat and sleep.

Life in those days was much slower – not easier, just slower. Production in the distilleries had yet to resume, and in those war-torn times, life really demanded a lot. With hardly any jobs in the early 1950s, even we children had to do our bit in order to survive. I recall very clearly that we had special holidays at school, referred to as the ‘Potato Holidays’. This meant that all the children went out into the fields, in all weathers, at harvest time to pick potatoes. Outside all day, bending down, picking up and then carrying the heavy baskets together, it was pretty hard work for children, but it didn’t stop us from having some fun too. Every day we were dirty and covered in mud from top to bottom, for when it rained there was no slacking; the job had to be done. And there are many rainy days on Islay. However, we received a small wage, the equivalent of about 50 pence a day. It wasn’t much, but it was honestly earned and much needed income, on top of which, we were also given a sack of potatoes. In the evening, when we ate them together, they tasted even better. My mother and grandmother were great cooks, always able to make a great meal out of very little. Today, you really only know about all the hardship and poverty from old black-and-white films, yet life was anything but black-and-white. For us as children it was often very colourful. When I recall my childhood, what comes to mind most is what it meant to live on an island. Though today, regular ferry and air services provide the island with everything it needs, Islay was far less accessible back then. Sea links to Scotland’s western islands were served by the so-called puffers, coal-fired steamships, though modern for the time. I will tell you more about these ships later.

Bowmore harbour was the stomping ground for us kids, one of the best adventure playgrounds you could imagine. Of course, it was strictly forbidden to play there. “Don’t go to the harbour! If I see you on the raft, I’ll spank you and you’ll go straight to bed!” – was my mother’s clear message, but then, that was precisely the attraction. How I loved watching all the boats sail out in the mornings, after which they’d cast their nets and return with a rich catch. Every now and then a fisherman would take me out and let me help him with his work. To go out to sea, steering my way through the waters, was total freedom. For a small boy, the sea had no end, and how I wanted to sail out into the world, travel to foreign countries, and get to know of other, far-off cultures. With the sea as a gateway to the world, the fascination was there even then. As young pirates, we fought sea monsters, sailed the seven seas and captured many a well-laden frigate. Every day there was a new story to be experienced. You’d scarcely believe how many small fortresses, prisons, treasure chambers and dungeons are to be found in a small harbour, countless corners that captivated wee boys looking for adventure. Each of us knew where we could and could not go, but the forbidden areas were the most exciting. We were always looking towards the shore, where our parents might be standing, for you desperately wanted to avoid being caught exploring these banned zones. What you didn’t count on, however, was a state of affairs that rarely exists today: you didn’t just have one mother on the island, but several. “Jim McEwan! You know very well that you’re not allowed to do that – surely your mother told you that!” This exact sentence echoed through Bowmore, clearly and unmistakably from a wide variety of voices. Even though I didn’t like it at the time, it gave me a feeling of familiar security, knowing there was always someone looking out for you. On Islay it was the manifestation of a responsibility for others, back in a time before mobile phones. More than once, my mother pulled me off the raft, dragged me up Main Street by my ears, before giving me a slap or three and I was sent to bed without supper. However, when that happened, my ever-faithful ally was my beloved grandmother Kate. She would always tell my mother, “Let him be, he’s only a boy and he just wants to play like a boy. Come here son, here’s your supper.” Granny Kate understood me so well – though, of course, my mother understood too, but she was more concerned for my well-being.

Unfortunately, I never got to meet my grandfather. Though I’m sure he could have taught me a lot, I can only repeat what everyone who knew him said: John McEwan was a kind and gracious man, having lived a spectacular life. Like almost all male Ileachs, he went to sea, having hired out as a horse whisperer on a ship taking horses to Cuba. As a result, he was nicknamed ‘Cuba’. He always travelled below decks with the animals, calming them down whenever the seas became rough. On their passage, the horses undoubtedly learned Gaelic, for my grandfather spoke the language fluently. On his return to Islay, he found work as a maltman, a barley turner, in Bowmore distillery, and like almost all men of those days, he smoked a pipe. When I look at old photos of him, he was always to be seen with a pipe in his mouth. I loved that familiar smell of tobacco, but smoking eventually took its toll, and he died much too young from cancer of the throat. I missed my grandfather John very much, even though I never got to meet him.

The harbour was also a welcome place in which to swim in the summer, though sometimes we were to be found swimming as early as Easter. We even loved to go into the sea when it was raining. Now you probably think I’m exaggerating, for after all, we’re talking about the west coast of Scotland, a stone’s throw from the oft-times stormy Atlantic. But we’re also talking about Islay and the distillery, a place not entirely unknown for the amount of heat generated during the distilling process. And when the heat has done its job, it has to be dissipated, and the stills have also to be rinsed with hot water. All this hot water was discharged into the sea, as, apart from a few mash residues, there were no pollutants involved. We knew, of course, at which point from the distillery wall the pipe with the warm water flowed into Loch Indaal. We therefore had our very own, always warm, swimming pool, a heated outdoor pool that was always open and, above all, could be visited for free from Easter onwards. Islay could be like an island in the South Seas. The more I think about it, the more I realise just how good my childhood on Islay was. How many of you reading can claim to have such an enjoyable and free facility on your doorstep all year round?

But life is not only about play and leisure. The serious side of life was every bit as much a part of it. In my case, that meant having to go to school. As the crow flies Bowmore village school was only a few metres away from our house, but I’d be lying if I said I liked going to school. However, I had two wonderful school friends in Eddie MacAffer and Angus ‘Innis’ McKechnie, the three of us getting up to as much nonsense at school as we probably did anywhere else.

Much later, Eddie became manager at Bowmore Distillery and Angus was my best man, but together we had an incredible amount of fun. I remember having to tend and harvest the school garden, probably the most boring thing to do at school, but it at least offered the bonus of getting us out of the classroom. Back then, gardening didn’t interest me at all, but our headmaster, Mr Crawford, was a keen gardener. He really cared about the school garden and ensuring our responsible use of it, hoping to educate us to be great garden lovers. Harvest time showed how conscientiously you had worked over the year, a time that only served to show how little Angus and I cared for our carrots. When time came to harvest the season’s crop, we invested a few pence in a fresh bunch of carrots from the grocery shop and smuggled them into school, carefully ‘planting’ them in advance, only to re-harvest them in front of Mr Crawford. He was visibly thrilled and we were highly praised for our achievements, never having seen such magnificent carrots in the school garden.

“Jim McEwan is a true Ileach! And I am very proud of what he has achieved in his life. I love to see the boys of Islay do great things and he has truly achieved extraordinary things. I’m delighted to be able to call him a true friend.”

Eddie MacAffer

Master Distiller, Bowmore Distillery

But school days were not all plain sailing. Though I can’t remember exactly what, we had once done something wrong and were punished by having to clean out Mr Crawford’s chicken coop. This was hardly a favourite chore, but one that had to be done nonetheless. Mr Crawford led us to the chicken coop, with the birds still inside. However, after the headmaster had left, we decided to otherwise occupy ourselves, emptying the small metal water pot, using it as a drum kit, while wailing at the top of our voices. This startled the chickens, all of which flew around in a wild panic, colliding with each other in the air, feathers flying everywhere and the panic-stricken birds screaming in terror. In a panic of our own, we ran away. Though Mr Crawford never said a word about the matter and never punished us in that manner again, those chickens probably never laid another egg in their lives.

But we didn’t just have a great headmaster who loved the garden; we also had a wonderful teacher. She had us Islay boys well in hand, and most importantly, she had something that other women didn’t. Our Mrs McArthur had a television! Wow! Brand-new technology that few could afford in those days, there were very few televisions in Bowmore, but we knew there was one in our teacher’s sitting room. This was easy to discover; you needed an aerial to receive television, aerials that were so big that they could be clearly seen from a distance. I’m sure even NASA didn’t have aerials that large, but these giant masts, more like the posts on a rugby pitch, were necessary to pick up the TV signals from Ireland. However, we’re hardly talking about ultra-high definition quality here, but a rather mediocre black-and-white picture. Once a week there was a children’s programme on TV, called ‘The Lone Ranger’, a western series starring Clayton Moore. He was our hero, the cowboy who stood for good and put many a bandit to flight. It’s hard to imagine, that once a week there was such an exciting programme for us little Ileachs, yet none of us could actually watch it. Mrs McArthur, however, had a big heart, knowing well that we children didn’t have a television at home. So when, purely by chance, almost all the children were hanging around her house just before ‘The Lone Ranger’ started, she invited us into her little living room. Can you imagine? We squeezed together, older ones standing in the back, the little ones sitting huddled right in front of the tiny screen. At first I thought all the programmes depicted winter scenes, because it always seemed to be snowing – that was until I realised it was related to the poor reception. ‘The Lone Ranger’ was the highlight of the week for us, particularly when his adventures ended happily in each episode. ‘The Lone Ranger’ brought a new world to Islay for us: the Wild West, and as soon as we’d left Mrs McArthur’s house after the show, Main Street turned into a vast prairie. From High Street came the Indians and from the harbour you could hear the loud, unmistakable trampling of the great herds of buffalo. Most of the time, on Jamieson Street, the bandits with their kerchiefs in front of their faces lay in wait for the cowboys. I must have been shot 4,000 times between the church and the harbour. There were plenty of cowboys on Islay, but I was almost always one of the Indians. Even then, I never wanted to go with the crowd. To be the Indian in the midst of cowboys, that was the McEwan story.

As children we had vivid imaginations, creating our pretend worlds without computers. When we weren’t chasing Indians, cowboys or bandits, or making boats, we sometimes got carried away snacking on forbidden fruit. These grew in our pastor’s garden, surrounded by a small stone wall. I can still remember mustering all my courage to steal gooseberries from the parish garden, sneaking up with others, and paying close attention that no one saw us. At least that’s what we thought. Then I’d creep over the wall, crawl through the tall grass to the bushes and steal as many berries as I could carry in my hands. Then quietly and as unobtrusively as possible, I crept back and over the wall once more. In supposed safety, I shared with my friends the ill-gotten treasure from the pious garden. How delicious these gooseberries tasted! They were probably the best gooseberries in the world, if only because we took enormous risks to get them. But no sooner had the spoils been consumed than we were nabbed. “Jim McEwan! You know very well that you’re not allowed to do that – your mother must have told you that!” The oft-heard cry from one of the ubiquitous mothers that followed us everywhere. So, thankfully, my childhood criminal career came to an abrupt end – and only later did I discover that the priest had seen us, but was glad to let the gooseberries go, because he didn’t like them.

When we couldn’t watch TV, we loved the radio, again something that not every household owned. There was a large snooker hall in Bowmore, referred to as the ‘British Legion Hut’. It was used for gatherings of all kinds, though for us kids it was a magical place, situated right on my doorstep. Today, in Bowmore, it has been replaced with a big open square and the tourist information office, but back then it was a meeting place par excellence. The ambience in this wooden barrack was unique. People met, played snooker, had their hair cut or told each other stories about times long gone. Only men, those who worked hard in the distillery and the old war veterans, were allowed in, though sometimes we boys were allowed in too. I loved listening to the stories of the old men, for in times before smartphones, television and the internet, that was our entertainment. We children somehow belonged there too, as long as we behaved decently and, above all, quietly. From today’s perspective, the times to which I refer, are from long ago and may sound strange to most of you. All the more so, were the stories I heard as a child about adventures on the high seas or about the two world wars. There were war veterans who had never left the island before they were drafted, dragged out into a hostile world without any certainty of a safe future, only the hope of a safe return. That’s mostly what the men talked about, or what it was like to go to the Scottish mainland for the first time, and to see Islay from the outside. For me as a boy, these were captivating stories that I absorbed completely. The old Ileachs were fantastic storytellers and I was part of their appreciative audience. There was a lot more talking and, above all, a lot more listening done in those days, on top of which was an aroma in the air that was so fascinating to me – this masculine melange of whisky, pipe tobacco and fire.

There was a lot more talking and, above all, a lot more listening done in those days, on top of which was an aroma in the air that was so fascinating to me – this masculine melange of whisky, pipe tobacco and fire.

The highlight of the week was Saturday, because every week at 3 p.m. football was broadcast live on the radio. From 2:45 p.m., everyone started gathering around the radio, with us children allowed to sit on the floor, but only if we made absolutely no noise. Otherwise we would have been thrown out faster than we would have liked, Mr McNeill making sure that there was total silence from us. He was in the Navy, could cut hair and, in the British Legion Hut, his word was law. As a little boy, those were unforgettable moments, surrounded as I was by old veterans, some of whom had even lived through both world wars. I loved the atmosphere, the flair and, above all, the privilege of witnessing the football broadcast in this legendary company. I also really wanted to smoke a pipe and drink whisky! I was sure that when I grew up, I would become one of them! On a Protestant island, of course, everyone was a Glasgow Rangers fan. All except little Jim McEwan, who, for whatever reason, was a Hibernian Football Club supporter. I didn’t mention that too loudly though, because most of the time they lost, but on the rare occasions when they did win, I’d let everyone know. Sometimes for weeks. When Scotland played, we all stuck together. If there were 50 people listening, there were at least 50 experts, all equipped with sufficient knowledge to be the national coach. When Scotland played, there was unity across all club boundaries – especially when it was against England, but then there were usually more than just 50 people in the hut. I’ll never forget the goosebumps when I got to listen in on a football match. “… Jim Baxter in midfield wins the ball, plays steeply to Willie Stevenson. He races through the midfield with the ball, leaving three opponents in his wake, then passes forward to Max Murray. Brilliantly he takes the ball, turns, takes heart, pulls the trigger and … Goooooooal!” When that happened, young and old were in each other’s arms, celebrating. Football was life, emotions ran high, yet everyone had a different game in their mind’s eye. None of us had ever seen the inside of a football stadium, but we all felt as if we’d scored the decisive goal. You won together and you lost together, unfortunately more often the latter than the former. But you shared this experience, this enthusiasm, these unique emotions. Unfortunately, Scotland lost many more games than they won, probably why I learned such a wide vocabulary that I couldn’t have found anywhere else – Gaelic rants. This Gaelic poetry, as I would like to call it, was much different than all the swear words that are used today. The F-word did not exist then. People simply found very vivid comparisons with which to compliment each other. Despite all the ill-will that existed during an argument, people insulted each other with respect and rarely with cursing. Often comical comparisons were made, but if it came down to an argument, the one who had the last word won. “I’m pretty sure that was in 1642!”; “I’m sorry, Wallie, to have to tell you that it was in 1643, exactly on the 22nd of July in the evening, at half-past seven. That was the exact date, sir!” Lying they both had been, but it didn’t matter. Those were really wonderful times and I remember them very fondly. So many generations from different families under one roof and all with the shared joy of having a good time together. Happy days indeed!