Goldsmiths - University of London

I open my book. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland by Samuel Johnson, his account of the visit he made to see for himself the wildness of the islands. It's a good read. I pause only to wonder whether our journey in Scotland will provide such rich ground for the unexpected.

The wheels of the train are changing rhythm, beginning to slow: we are drawing into a station. Many of the standing passengers seem to have got off somewhere, leaving the gangway clear, and at last I can see out. Good heavens, we're in Preston, Lancashire! I've read my way up through England. The Japanese are leaving now and the Essex girls. When they've gone there's a quietness.

Across the passageway, round a table, sits a family: solid young father and mother with sturdy, sandy-haired son, all of them reading their papers. I bet they're Scots. The boy looks up to his mother and raises himself to whisper in her ear. She looks at the father who nods. She gives the boy a coin and goes off; he returns a few minutes later, beaming, with a packet of crisps and places some small change in his mother's hand.

At the next table down, watching him, is a lone woman. She has grey, spiky hair that's had a pinkish tint put on it and a pale, lean face. I feel sorry for her, sitting alone like that. She looks as if she's had a hard life.

Looking past her, through the window, I see fields and sheep with lambs and dry stone walls. The country. Northern country. My heart begins to soar.

Since Preston we have a new train manager. This one is a Scot. He announces the stations ahead with throaty, gutteral 'r's: "Lancaster, Penrith, Kelill, Glasguie."

Kelill?

Jack looks at his watch. "Twelve- thirty. Would you like a drink?"

"Tea?"

"The milk will be 'orrible."

"UHT?"

He grimaces and nods.

"Nevertheless I'll have tea, thank you."

He returns with a steaming carton of brown liquid in one hand and in the other a green tin marked Schweppes and Gordons. Sitting down, he opens it and savours the contents. We have reached Lancaster.

"I did an inspection here once," he says, happily nostalgic.

"Were they alright?"

"Alright? I'll say they were. Yes. I did Newcastle too. They were good." I hope this journey will bring more of his reflections on the past; I hope that what made Lancaster so commendable will come back to him and that I can share it but he asks, "How was the milk?"

"It was UHT."

"Utterly Horrible Tasting."

We laugh.

"G and T in one tin looked neat."

"The proportions are wrong."

Kalill? Calil? Oh, Carlisle! Of course. And I've heard it pronounced that way before. By who? By a voice that comes to me over the years. Calil. Some dispute ... Calil and the Kyle of Lochalsh ... wherever that is ... Kyle of Lochalsh or the Clyde ... I hear my parents arguing with my Glaswegian grandmother.

In the peace of the carriage of Virgin Trains, I begin to think about her. I haven't thought about her for ... heavens! ... for decades! She died the year our daughter was born and she is now thirty-four. That's bad. But ... we were abroad, new jobs, new places. The north-east of England in those days seemed remote from the rest of Europe. I try to remember her now.

What comes to mind is the crowded front room of a semi in Whitley Bay, on the east coast, not far from the sea; cups and saucers on the table on embroidered cloths and, on square plates with flower patterns, piles of griddle scones. Solid rounds divided into four and floury; you cut them open and spread the halves with butter and jam. The flour dropped on your plate and your lap and, if you weren't careful, on the floor. Nana's speciality: floury griddle scones.

There were other plates of baking – oatmeal bannocks, drop scones and rounds of rich shortbread. There was Battenberg cake and iced shortbread biscuits decorated with a cherry – I liked those best. You were not to call them German biscuits. You could say Battenberg.

"I'll teach you the recipe," Nana said to Mam.

"No, thanks," said my mother with crisp humour. "I don't need to know."

When I recall that now I'm slightly shocked by her tone, the lack of filial piety and gratitude, but that wasn't so at the time. I suppose a child accepts, as part of life, a sharp put-down.

On Virgin Trains a mobile rings a Highland tune. The severe-looking woman raises the phone to her ear and listens. There's something about the line of her brow and jaw that intrigues me – she's like Nana in her later years. Or am I imagining it? After a minute she speaks into the phone.

"Aye. We'll be late, mind. The train was delayed before Rugby." The accent is broad Glasgow. "I'll get a taxi."

There's a pause while the caller says something I can't hear. The hard lines of the woman's jaw soften. She says, "OK, darlin'. Love you!"

The accent is familiar to me but the tone ... I've never before heard Glasguie with tenderness. It fills me with yearning, with sadness ... for who? For myself? For my mother? For the grandmother who could never have spoken so?

I want to know this woman who can be herself and be so warm.

My bookmark has slipped from Dr Johnson to the floor. The little boy leaves his seat and hands it back to me. When he's followed his parents to the café, I say to the woman, "Wasn't he well behaved?"

"Aye. He went for the messages by himsel'"

"Aged about seven, would you think?"

"Seven. Aye. Like the grand'daughter I've been looking after. Flat in Canary Wharf – there's nowhere for her to play and you're not allowed to smoke because of the wean. That was my other daughter on the phone, wants me to go round to hers now. My husband died sudden in January and my daughters treat me like a ten-year kid."

"That's not all bad!"

"No." Her eyes darken with laughter as she says, "But I want to be back in my own flat. I'm dying for a smoke."

I'm enjoying this talk and I want it to go on. I say,

"My grandmother was brought up in the Gorbals."

She doesn't look surprised. Of course she's lived in Canary Wharf which must house, in Nana's phrase, all sorts.

"That's been cleared away long ago. In the sixties."

So it's gone.

"I suppose it was considered unhealthy?"

"Aye. But you know, it wasn't that bad. Could have been converted, you know? into des res. Ma son-in-law says to me, 'Joanie! You were sitting on a goldmine.' I say it's the folks that live in a place that make it bad or good."

"You can live happily down in the glen."

Is this expression too fancy for her? It's from a Clydeside song that Nana used to sing, Harry Lauder perhaps. I think the woman recognises it because she smiles and says, "Aye. You can that."

We are leaving Carlisle station – aka Kalil– with its handsome masonry of limestone and eau-de-nil paint work that doesn't go. We pass the old ramparts, the cathedral, the castle ... and we're crossing a fast-flowing river tumbling white along a stony bed.

I look again at Johnson but know he's no use on the question that's beginning to gnaw at the back of my mind. The rhythm of the wheels changes again as the train begins to climb.

I remember only one visit to the Gorbals. Heaven knows where or what address. There was a dark flat –a tenement, I suppose – and in the kitchen a let-down bed. The lavatory was on the landing, shared with another family, and smelt nasty. Great Aunt Jeannie felt the fabric of my dress between a knobbly first finger and thumb. She told me to go and play in the passageway with the other bairns. I was a wimp. I was scared.

"They call me Curly Sassenach."

"Ye'are a poor, wee, cowerin', timorous beastie," Jeannie said with some scorn.

My grandmother said, "You say to them, "Sticks and stones may break ma bones but names canna hurt me."

I thought both those women very strong.

I wanted to go home.

From the shop in Virgin Trains Jack buys us complex sandwiches. We bite into avocado and radish and beetroot, fielding the falling pieces.

"Our grandmothers," I say, " would have thought this weird."

"Sandwiches were ham or cheese."

"Or corned beef. And in thick white rolls. You made them yourself. You wouldn't spend money on a sandwich. Nana would have said, "Tosh!"

We laugh. It was a ludicrous expression. Their son, my uncle, had gone to a posh boarding school – a source of anger for my mother who was clever but who had not. To keep up with him, Nana ornamented her Glaswegian with what she thought was public school slang. "Home fer the hols, Gill? I've tuck fer ye. Aye."

The train speeds through border country in the sun. I think that my grandmother with her economies was a squirrel. No, more like sparrow, cheeky and spirited. But she wasn't happy, not contented in the way that Joanie there is

We are crossing the Clyde. Glasgow Central Station. Now to find the coach and follow Dr J's trail.

We follow his journey along the shore of Loch Lomond, beautiful in the afternoon sun and stop for a break at a picturesque white village on the shores of Loch Fyne: Inverary. Nearby is the gothic castle, the seat of the Dukes of Argyll. Johnson and Boswell stayed in the town, at the Argyll Hotel which we respectfully observe. They were invited to dine at the castle. We are not.

But we find a craft shop and, digging in a big basket, locate a tie in the family plaid for our son.

"Isn't it strange that my grandmother, who was totally Scottish, never wore the tartan."

"Wasn't it just for Highlanders?"

"It was. But since Queen Victoria made Scotland popular, everyone seems to wear it."

"At Black Tie dinners all sorts of bods do."

"Things have always been different for the poor."

How different it is now on this sunny morning. Blue sea, white sands and glittering rocks. The old abbey has been restored, extended and decorated with new capitals in the cloisters and statuary. There are sheep in green pastures and, in well-tilled plots, lines of leeks and carrots.

The board outside the Arts and Crafts Centre announces:

Welcome to the St Columba Steadings of the Iona Community.

Open 10–6.

The sun is high. It's eleven-thirty.

They're closed.

But who cares? This is the Hebrides. Time is different here.

A couple of young people in jeans and t-shirts appear from somewhere and open up. They are thin and the girl's face is pock-marked. We buy postcards. The young man counts our change slowly.

I ask, "Are you from the mainland by any chance?"

"From Govan. Aye." He has a thick Glaswegian accent.

"With the Community?"

"We are that. Aye."

The Iona Community, the brotherhood, founded in 1938 by George MacLeod. One of the aims was to give people in deprived areas the chance to work together with a common purpose.

"I guess you helped with the rebuilding."

"We a' do that. An' farm."

I wish Clydeside had had this in early days.

As we walk down to the jetty, I say to Jack, "The Community is the Presbyterian Church in its better manifestation."

"What were its worse ones?"

"Sundays. Sundays were dire."

"Too much church?"

"Morning and evening. And no games."

"What, no football?"

"Certainly not. And no reading – apart from the Good Book."

"Why didn't you say you wouldn't go the second time? Skive off into those sand dunes and do something else?"

I stop and stare at him. Is he laughing at me?

"You cannot be serious! Did a child have a choice? Grandfather was an Elder of the Kirk."

"That dreadful man!"

"He was. How d'you know he was dreadful?"

"You've told me so. Several times."

I can see my husband's had enough of this so I'm silent. I still think about it though.

That night, as I try to sleep, the beam from a lighthouse crosses the bed: one-pause, two-pause, three-pause-pause. The rhythm of the moving light and the talk we've had, bring back to me my grandparents' house: the light crossing the ceiling and the wall, a sagging bed and ironed sheets tucked in fiercely; and from the landing just outside my door, Grandfather's voice in a fury, bellowing, "Mother!"

The timber of the door seemed thin. I pulled the covers over my head but the anger on the landing seemed to come right in.

"Can you nae hear me callin', woman? Are ye off your heed?"

James MacDougall, Elder of the Kirk.

It's raining. Wearing cagoules and sou'westers we walk along the beach. Jack decides he's had enough of this and goes off to see whether the pub is open. I take shelter in the lee of the church. It looms up above me on a small headland, black granite, bigger by far than any other building in Inverie. Why should the church be so rich?

Dimly, from years ago, I recall my father questioning Nana on just that point. Why should parishioners pay a tenth of their earnings to the church when they themselves were poor? And other things. Why should they not imbibe alcohol at some times? Why were the churches so plain? What about the thirty-nine articles? And bishops? And why was godly living so very dull, without the smallest wee dram? Nana's lower lip would project and she'd shrug and say, crossly, "Oh, Jack!" She meant that these were stupid things to ask: for her, things were what they were.

It was Christmas, or after Christmas, that a disagreement flared up that was particularly sharp. (After James MacDougall died she would stay on with us for weeks "to get the value of the return fare.")

The Christmas spirit was beginning to wear thin. We'd told her about our neighbours and she'd told us about hers and the ARP and the beetle drive and the way her coat was sold at a jumble sale and how she didn't like the Jews. Mam was longing to get on with her work but, as long as her mother was there, she didn't like to.

My grandmother was particularly bouncy that year. She had an answer for everything. She was full of energy. And she was bored. I overheard my mother say to my father in the bedroom, "What can she do all day?"

"Ask her to do some baking. You don't like doing it so ..."

"But with those scones she makes such a mess ..."

"The lesser of two evils. You'll see. She'll be pleased. I'll tidy up."

And after some demurring, because of the strangeness of the kitchen and the lack of griddle and whether a frying pan would do, Nana rolled up her sleeves and made a batch of floury scones. She came into the sitting room, looking very pleased, took her knitting from the woven bag and began to click them. She was making gloves on five needles for the next Church bazaar.

My mother left the room. I knew she'd gone to the kitchen. She came back with a scowl between her dark brows and whispered to my father through clenched teeth, "Flour everywhere."

Pa half rose but she stopped him, saying, "I've cleared up." She went on scowling and wouldn't say a word more. My father looked worried. The needles clicked. The silence was heavy.

"Tell me," he said to my grandmother. "Do you really give a tenth of your income to the Church?"

"Aye," said my grandmother, clicking. "But now I'm a rep it's not so much."

"A rep?"

"A rep of the congregation. We choose the new minister."

My mother looked up, astonished and a little scornful.

"You, Mam?"

"Aye. Any objections?" Nana was defiant. "We had a little red-head come to try a sermon the Sunday before I left. Fiery little fellow. Not bad. But we won't be having him."

My parents exchanged glances of astonishment, surprised, I think now, by her authoritative tone. I think my mother didn't trust herself to speak. Pa asked, "And what was wrong with him?"

Nana giggled.

"He raised one eyebrow higher than the other. And his ears weren't right. I said at the meeting, "We're not having him!"

My mother, colouring, said in a tone she used when I was stupid,

"Really, Mam!"

"I did," Nana repeated. "I said he wouldn't do." Her tone was triumphant, the former shop girl who'd left school at twelve doing more than these graduates. She added in a tone that seemed to finish the argument, "It's what your father would have done."

My mother flushed scarlet.

"That's ridiculous!"

My father intervened.

"I wouldn't say James was ... judicious."

"He was an Elder of the Kirk."

Something broke in my mother.

"Elder of the Kirk. You're a fool, Mam. Did you swallow that? Did that give him the right to beat me?"

"He did not."

Nana looked down at her knitting, not meeting her daughter's eye.

"On a minor? His own daughter?"

"He did not."

"James MacDougal was a Victorian." My father was trying to calm the storm. "Corporal punishment was the norm then."

"He was a bully and she didn't protect me. He didn't go for Pete because his son was bigger than him but he went for me because ..." My mother was choking with rage. "... and she never stood up to him." Nana's hands had stopped working. "So you have heard me this time. Even when I ran away, you didn't tell the police why. Not let the neighbours know what he was up to! The Elder of the Kirk!"

Nana put the half-finished glove in the bag. She was crying silently. I was amazed and uneasy that my strong grandmother should weep. She got up from the sofa, her frail shoulders hunched, and left the room. We heard her footsteps moving slowly in the room above us.

My mother got to her feet, putting her head in her hands and exclaiming, "She's packing! If only ... she'd admit it ... admit what happened! If only ... she'd acknowledge what he did – instead of pretending he was wonderful! We could talk about it and begin again. Oh Lord! Now I'll have to go and beg her to stay on another week."

My father pulled her to sit beside him and put his arm round her tiny shoulders.

"Why d'you think she can't face it?"

"Respectability." Mam was scornful. "Royal Avenue after the Gorbals – a big step for her."

My father said, "Gill, go upstairs and look after your grandmother. Tell her your Mam will be up soon."

I went out of the room slowly and pulled the door to. My father was saying, "It's not so simple, pet. It's my guess he was also ..."

In Knoydart the rain has stopped. The sun has appeared through the clouds. Jack comes across the shingle, swinging the sou'wester and saying, "The pub's open."

I stare at him. I'm still chilled by understanding what my father must have meant.

Jack says, "They do coffee here with a sensation – very Gaelic. Come on!"