Strawberry blond afghan coat

Two things you never see these days; Afghan hounds and Afghan coats. Is it the war on terror? Is it fashion? Maybe it is just one of those tricks the memory plays, letting you think powerful events from your past were ubiquitous or represented the norm. So either my memories of these two Afghan items are artifacts of my mind or indeed they were very common in 1970s Fife.

The lad down the road from me on Main Street had two Afghan hounds. The three of them seemed to be everywhere. I guess because I lived opposite the park I saw them a lot, coming and going. He would take his dogs up the fields at the back of the park and onto the hill towards Blythe's tower.

He must have been in his mid teens and seemed the kind of kid everyone described as 'a guid lad'. That meant he wasn't a punk or a homosexual and didn't sniff glue. People would see him walking his dogs up the road to the park and say, "Aye there goes Jimmy and his dugs. He's a guid lad". I never actually spoke to him and didn't actually know him but he is a figure of legend in my memory.

One hot summer day I remember a kind of kerfuffle, an atmosphere. Something was amiss. Voices were calling out and people were gasping. I looked up over my front gate and there was Jimmy wearing what looked like a strawberry blond Afghan coat. Strange for the time of year. His flooding tears were also a bit of a signpost towards the drama that was unfolding in front of our eyes. His coat was in fact his dead dogs, lying limp and lifeless, slung across his shoulders. Stained with blood their long golden coats had become a matted bloody mess. Jimmy walked across the road in front of my house crying his heart out as he carried his dead dogs home. It seems the hounds had got too close to some sheep up on the hill and the farmer had shot them both dead. 

From that point on, if you were to fast-forward through the rest of the DVD of my life, Jimmy had gone. No further appearances, no honourable mentions, no late cameo at a football match ten years latter. No, he was gone, not even to be found as sone long forgotten 'deleted scene' in the extras menu of my memory.

Bowhill nights

Most families have traditions. Some always have fish on a Friday, some stay up to ‘see the bells in’ on Hogmanay, others let off hundreds of rounds of live ammunition into the air from a Kalashnikov during weddings. Us, well be all drove to my Auntie’s on Boxing day and slept over.

This was a real treat for me as my Auntie and Uncle lived in a massive house with a huge garden. I think this substantial piece of property was courtesy of a sizable redundancy package my Uncle benefited from when the Francis colliery shut down. The thing I remember most about that house was the hall. In my memory it is 50 yards long, 15 yards wide and with about 20 rooms coming off from it on both sides. In one room, near the end on the right, so not often visited due to the extreme distance, there was a pool table. Just like the ones you got in pubs and amusement arcades!

Two other rooms off that hall also sit firmly in my memory. These were the bedroom and sitting room belonging to my Dad's dad, or Dai (pronounced die) as we called him. Wee Jock had moved in with my Auntie after his wife had died from Lung cancer at a relatively young age. He had basically transplanted his old sitting room at home into this new room at his daughter's. The reason I remember these rooms so well is because it was in that sitting room that I first saw my Dad properly cry. He had always been a bit of a softy when it came to things like Lassie and Little House on the Prairie so I had seen him shed a tear before, but this was something different. Surrounded by all his Mum's things, which had been brought from the old house to furnish this new sitting room, I guess it was just too painful. He wept.

I remember the bedroom because on these boxing day sleep-overs I shared a bed with my Dai. Now this is strange given the massive house and the large number of rooms with beds in them. But it seems at some point in the past I had asked if I could share a bed with Dai, mentioning that I liked his smell! Can't think why. A heavy smoker and drinker who used to slick his hair back with milk to hold it in place, I cannot imagine the smell would be generally regarded as pleasant. In reality I had talked my little self into a corner. Having said I wanted to, I didn't then want to hurt any feelings by backing out. I actually found the whole experience quite unpleasant for a number of reasons. Firstly, plain and simple he snored. Secondly his body, when clad only in Y-fronts and vest (tucked in) was a collection of tattoos and miners scars, like Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear but with a lot of the air let out! The final reason, and the real clincher, was the cup of phlegm on the bedside table. Yes that is correct, I said a cup of phlegm on the bedside table! Poor wee Jock had worked down the pit all his life since he was about 13. This combined with 30 B&H ever day for 40 years had left his lungs in a fairly parlous state. Through the night he would be coughing his lungs up and spitting the resultant product into a china tea cup which he kept on table by his bed. In the morning, when I got up early to watch kids TV, I would hazard a peek at the contents. My stomach still turns to this day as I remember the cup of greeny brown phlegm, marbled with dark red blood and flecked with jet black coal dust.

After a few years of this I plucked up the courage to ask if I could sleep in another room. Duly ensconced in my own suite of rooms I slept like a king. I didn't know it but that was to be the last year of the Boxing day sleep overs. All the kids grew up, moved out and relationships changed. The house was sold and my Auntie, Uncle and Dai moved to a smaller place up the road. Not long after that my Dai became quite ill and moved into a home. I visited him once before he died and was strangely comforted to see the china cup on his bedside table.

The Tower

The three figures walked across the field, two men and a boy. The boy looked with fascination at the silky black barrel of the shotgun. He had never seen one up close before and now, as he climbed the slope, his eye was constantly drawn to its matt metallic sensuality, to its rising and falling in the crook of his uncle’s arm. “It’s a braw gun eh son?” his uncle said. The boy looked away, embarrassed. The strange feelings of excitement the gun was giving him left a guilty echo inside, in a part of him he was only just starting to feel, like looking at a girl’s legs in class and getting caught. “Do you want ti hold it?”

“Naw yer alright there Alec.” The other man interrupted. “You had better jist hold onto it. He’s too wee ti be carrying a gun. He’s no even twelve yit.”

“Whatever ye say John, you’re the boss. Your right…as ever.” Alec replied, the last word drifting off into a contemptuous mumble. “Aye, am expecting gid things fi you John, what wi yer army training an that,” Alec continued, now with a note of contempt, “A wid imagine yer a crack shot eh?”

“A did alright.” Replied John as he lifted the boy over a fence at the edge of the field. As he lowered his son down on the other side the sleeve of his leather jacket snagged on the barbed wire. “Shite! This jacket cost me a fortune.” He cursed.

“A bet. Looks like yer still doing alright. Fancy clase, an that. Yon motor you got yersel? That must o cost a bob or two!” said Alec “ye always did land on yer feet.”

“Dinny start Alec” John replied, still angry from the ripped sleeve, “you screwed up, the rest o us jist got on.”

Alec stopped and turned, a twisted upper lip showing his yellowed teeth, punctuated with gaps. “Jist got on!” he spat “Dinny give me that crap. You only got on coz oor fether though the sun shined oot yer erse. He set you up in that job. Daddy’s bloody golden boy. ‘He’s jist oot the Guards ye ken, Falklands an that.’ If a heard him say that once he must have said it a million times.”

“Look Alec, kin ye jist drop it. Am here wi the boy and we’re ment ti be puttin aw that behind us, noo that yer aff...ye ken...the drink an that.”

“Yer right John. Yer right again.” Alec’s voice trailed off into silence.

Up ahead lay the tower. It stood on top of the hill, a look out post by all accounts, built by some unknown merchant from years ago who watched the sea for the approaching cargo ships. Now it stood in ruin, just the four bare walls. The boy knew this place well. This tower was the limit of his independent world, the point beyond which he never dared to venture. Standing as it did on the crest of the hill, to go beyond it was to loose sight of home back down in the valley. Going beyond the tower meant leaving the invisible zone of protection which radiated out from his mum, up over the park, through the fence and over the field to the top of the hill and the tower. Today it was different. He was with his Dad, he carried that feeling of protection with him.

“This is a grand spot. Let’s stop here. The rabbits come oot the whins ower there. We jist need to sit still lang enough.” Said Alec.

“Wid it no be a bit better if we…” John replied but exchanging a look with Alec, his words trailed off then returned suddenly. “No, yer right. Here’s as guid a place and any.”

The three figures knelt down in the grass and rested in silence. Slowly rabbits started to appear here and there. Alec loaded the shotgun with two blood red cartridges and lifted the barrel into place with a smooth click. The boy still transfixed by the weapon, couldn’t take his eyes off it. But now something was different, the atmosphere around the gun had changed. No longer did it ooze a sensual magnetism, an almost erotic attraction, now it was cold. Where the black steel of the double barrels had once seemed slick and smooth, they now appeared hard and brutal. Still he stared at the gun. He could not look away. It was if the moment he took his eyes of this thing it would turn into a snake and strike out at him. He had to hold its gaze. It seemed to the boy that his uncle felt the same fear for his hands were trembling, his knuckles white with the strain of holding this serpent in check. It looked as if he was privately wrestling with a powerful animal, intent on slipping free from its handler and unleashing its raw, destructive potential.

Then just as suddenly as the change had come it stopped. The hands relaxed, the trembling faded and the boy’s uncle seemed to breathe a sign of…was it relief? Alec turned the gun towards his brother. John only had time to turn and blurt “Alec don’t be a..” when the gun went off, sending an iron fist through the blood and bone of the man’s chest. Alex started to laugh, a loud shouting laugh, a laugh that seemed to laugh at the world.

By the time the boy ran into the fence at the bottom of the hill the laughing had stopped. He breathlessly crossed the fence at the back of the park which abutted the farmland through which he had just run blindly. The boy felt like the protective bubble his mum projected had never been so far away. She was in the front garden, talking to the neighbour, when the boy ran across the road, without hesitating to look, and crashed into her, holding on tight. In the distance, beyond the park, with its witch’s hat and swings. Beyond the fence and over the fields to the tower, the gun fired for a second time. The boy looked up at his mum and started to cry.

The death of Seve Ballesteros and the end of boyhood

Growing up in East Fife tends to leave its mark on a boy. Besides the chip on my shoulder, I also developed a soft spot for golfers. Leven, standing as it does at the front door of the 'world' famous East Neuk, is often bypassed by the traveller. This is their loss for it boasts one of Scotland's best kept sporting secrets. I am referring to the Leven links golf course. Jointly owned by two clubs, the Leven Thistle and the Leven Golfing Society, it is used as a qualifying course for the Open when it comes to St. Andrews. A tough, unforgiving course, liberally sprinkled with dollops of whin and thick tangled rough, it had broken many a man and on one occasion actually broke my 7 iron!

So, as a young boy growing up around this course, golf kinda got into my blood. My Dad was very active in the Leven Thistle, progressing from mere member to Secretary, to the giddy heights of Captain. I am sad to report that his standing on the course and those off the course did not follow the same trajectory. He stubbornly remained an 18 handicapper. I often played a few holes with my Dad and I think it was there, on that golf course, that I learned something about what it is to be a man. Besides learning how to swear I also saw a normal man struggling with a game that was obviously impossible to master. Time and time again my Dad would start his round by hitting the ball straight off the tee into the burn not 20 meters in front of us. This was humiliation indeed as the first tee sat alongside a busy promenade, bustling with Glaswegian tourists with hair like Irn Bru and for whom golf was a foreign country, a bit like England. These people would stand by the fence and watch in silence, seemingly out of respect for the player and the meditative state into which he seemed to be entering, but in reality, like on so many of the occasions when we stop and observe our fellow beings in their endeavours, we are hoping to see them  make a royal arse of themselves.

Despite repeated failure and humiliation in front of strangers and club members, my Dad never gave up. Sure he would make me run and try and get the ball out of the river while he teed up the next ball, but he always got that next ball out of the bag, put it back on the tee and had another go.

It was the summer of 1979 and a man called Severiano Ballesteros Sota or 'Seve' to his millions of friends, had just won the Open at St.Andrews. With his good looks and muscular approach to golf, there was no reason to dislike him. In my family we loved him so much we even named our cat after him. I once managed to actually come into physical contact with Seve, the man that is! We were at a pro-celebrity golf match, in the days before celebrity had been become a dirty word. It was all quite low key and friendly. You could actually get quite close to the players. So there I was walking alongside Seve, just a few feet from his bronzed, muscular forearm. My Dad is elbowing me and saying, "Go on touch him, go on." And I'm thinking, "That's a bit weird, no thanks" when my Dad grabs my arm and hits Seve with my soft white Scottish hand. Fortunately Seve was great but not Christ and he didn't stop the crowd and demand to know who had touched him. I guess in all the jostling any number of people could have done it. He just strode on, smiling and waving. Very unChrist-like, but still seriously cool.

It is strange but when I think of Seve the man, I always end up thinking of my Dad. It might just be the golf connection but I sense that deep down there is another link, something more fundamental, more basic. I think in the end it boils down to what it means to be a man. My Dad, a fairly normal man playing off 18 and Severiano Ballesteros, a golfing colossus, both deeply influenced me as a young boy. They both came to represent heroic forms of masculinity. One the one hand my Dad, struggling on against the odds, getting knocked down but always 'getting another ball out the bag' and playing the game. One the other is Seve, handsome and strong, taking the challenges in his stride with seemingly effortless skill.

When you grow up, most of your heroes start to loose their cartoon status and become real human people with flaws and cracks just like you know you yourself possess. This brings some comfort against the howling wind that life starts to blow at you but it is a bitter loss none the less. At the end of boyhood, when we are just beginning to try on the images and roles we have seen other men display, we also see that these pictures which have played across the screen of our childhood are just an illusion, a movie, a play, a game.

Seve Ballesteros Sota grew old, stopped winning and finally, at the age of 54, died from a brain tumour. My Dad looked after me and my sister after my parents split. He worked all kinds of jobs, made all kinds of sacrifices. He suffered, was broken but came back. I couldn't see it at the time because I was still really just a selfish little boy. I grew up and can now appreciate what he did. When all the rubbish I've talked about masculinity and role models is stripped away, there he stands, his failings eclipsed by his love for me. When I understood that, at the age of 40, that was the end of boyhood.