Continued from Part 1 Peru.
This part covers Ina's arrival in Britain, from Peru, in 1945
Going home
To get back to Britain we had to make our way to Buenos Aires. This must have taken several months. We went on a boat across Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, the highest lake in the world. We stayed in a place called Flores - in Uruguay or Paraguay? [LM - it is in Uruguay]. We stayed with missionaries and believers. There was something about Beth having a murmur in her heart and we had to go easy. There never seems to have been a problem since. I think we stayed in Montevideo. I remember my father kept up his teaching of capitals and spelling and sums. When we reached B.A. I still remember with a sort of lechery the delicious flavour of meat. I suppose it was Argentinian beef. Maybe even corned beef. But I liked it!
It's strange that I recollect no packing or disturbance or anxiety. I think we confidently went where we were taken and suffered no anxiety.
We got on a French boat. There was a chance we could still be torpedoed [LM, it was during the last stages of the Second World War]. We didn't realise that at the time. Going up on deck frequently and doing lifeboat drill seemed perfectly normal. It took us 6 weeks to get back.
Three things happened that I remember - Agnes tripped over one of these metal fitments and had to have stitches. We had a party/concert. The three of us [LM, Beth, Ina, and Agnes] for our party piece sang "Get them gone all the little rabbits in the fields of corn - envy, jealousy, malice, pride - they shall never in my heart reside". We did appropriate actions. We were thrilled when prizes were given out and they called for the person whose mother had a maroon dress and plaits around her hair - some sort of description anyhow that fitted our mother. How astonishing it seemed to us - how dumb we were! We stopped at a port somewhere and somebody from the shore came on board and stole something so while in port all cabins were kept locked. One night I realised we hadn't locked our cabin and everyone was asleep. What to do? I was on the lower bunk, my mother above and the others on other bunks. 5 of us in a 6 berth cabin. I didn't want to cause a commotion so I stealthily leaned up and kissed my mother. When she woke I expect I thought I'd warn her of our unlocked door. But she jumped up shouting "A cat, A cat!". And everyone woke up and I had to confess. What I didn't realise - dumb again - the ship had now left port and we were moving. No need to lock up.
There were quite a few Scottish sailors. One I remember was inevitably called Jock. They were very friendly and songs like 'It's a long way to Tipperary' were sung but sometime somewhere this was adapted - by Jock? by my father? to 'It's a long way to Auchtermuchty' [LM, 'Muchty is in Fife, Scotland, where Ina's dad was from]. There seemed to be a festive air. It was fun. We enjoyed it.
Our arrival
We landed at Liverpool on VE day - all the flags were out. My parents joked that it was for us. I was six years old.
I think we went first to Ireland but I can't be sure. Of course, neither of my parents had met each other's family. My father had to meet both his parents-in-law and 7 brothers and sisters. My mother had to meet both her parents-in-law and one brother and 3 sisters. I remember our Irish grandmother - a very tiny woman who was half Scottish - giving us dolls. One was a little white doll and the other a rather larger black doll. I think it was all quite exciting. We also went to Raemore, the farm that my grandfather worked as a tenant - near Auchtermuchty, Fife. We helped with the hay and there were two German prisoners of war there - Johan and another. Our Aunt Izabel and Auntie Maud worked on the farm too [LM - sisters of Ina's dad]. Aunt Maud was the shepherd and wandered off on the hills with her sheepdog. Her beau, Jimmy Murphy, would come courting her and then they would both wander off into the hills. We enjoyed his visits - he would bring us bottles of pop. The farm was about a mile from a main road. We would walk to the Glasserts - as the junction to the road was called - and then we could continue to 'Muchty along the road, another 2 miles. That was what my father - his brothers and sisters - would do every day to go to school and then back again by the same route, 6 miles a day. We went to go to church on Sunday and to go to the shops. Our great aunts also lived there - our grandmother's 3 unmarried sisters. They lived in Cupar Road where in fact my father was born. They were Aunties Maud (or Magdalene), Bella and Nellie. Maud was the sternest. They wore long clothes and bonnets, I think, - but certainly always shawls. Bella died first and then there were Maud and Nellie. Maud ruled the roost. Nellie was more gentle. They had a garden full of gooseberry bushes, redcurrants, strawberries, and when we went we were set free to wander at will and eat all that we could. It was wonderful. There was also a wonderful ice cream shop in 'Muchty - Valentine's. Italian of course. It may well still be there in some more sophisticated form. We always had a slider (a wafer) when we visited the Aunties. Our visits continued while we were at school and came north in the summer. I have no memory of the end of these visits, the death of the Aunties (other than that Bella died first) and the sale of their cottage. Fifty years later when Beth returned from Brazil we had a photo taken outside that little house.
As well as Izabel and Maud, there was Nan [LM, another of Ina's dad's sisters). She was the second wife of John, who lived in Dundee. He had 2 children, Ian and Daisy, then together they had 3 other children - Kenneth, Christina, and Elma. Kenneth, however, lived at Raemore and was looked after by Izabel. This was a bit of a mystery to us but many years later we came to believe that Nan with 2 ready made children had found it all a bit too much having another. However, she did bring up her two daughters. She lived in Dundee - Ambleside Terrace. We visited her and never failed to find her husband John reclining on the sofa. He never worked and was recognised as an invalid but what exactly was wrong we never discovered. Ken always called Nan "Mother" and Izabel "Izabel" and he and Nan were actually son and mother. But Izabel told him what was what and he argued the toss with her. Nan was irrelevant.
In Belfast my grandparents still had two daughters living with them - Agnes (Nancy) and Margaret (Madge). Madge was the youngest. Madge too was courting. She courted Bertie and crimped and pimped in preparation for his visits. Beth remembers that father would tease her, copying her in front of the mirror. Very likely - he was a great tease and didn't know when to stop. He would tickle us until we cried. But of course the crimping and pimping never involved make-up of any kind. Our grandfather had been a man of the world and drinker but one day coming back from Harlands and Wolff's shipyard he had come upon an open air meeting and was converted. By the time we came on the scene they were members of Strandtown Baptist Church. Other members of the family belonged to a slightly larger and more glamorous baptist church - the name escapes me. Our grandparents and daughters lived at 86, North Road and for a short time Beth and I attended the school across the road. We lived nearest but were always the last to arrive. How we all fitted into this house I don't know. I expect my father was travelling "on deputation" as it was called. He explained his work and hoped to attract more missionaries.
Ruth was born in Belfast. I have this picture of my mother dressed in maroon sewing, very demure and modest. This sort of quiet waiting aura made sense to me when I realised she had been preparing for a baby. But at the time I was oblivious. One morning my father came running downstairs and told us he had a lovely surprise for us. The loveliest thing I could imagine at the time was ice cream. It seemed strange to be going up to our parents' bedroom to get it. Well, of course, there was Ruth, the baby. I think it was a bit of an anticlimax. Of course, she wasn't Ruth yet and one day we were all invited to sit around and propose names. I had no doubt that the most beautiful name in the world was Esther. I was shocked when it was rejected. In fact, our opinions were irrelevant. Clearly, it had been decided she would be called Ruth after her mother and Frances after our grandfather Francis, our mother's father. Agnes had been called after a sister of our mother's and Maud [LM I'm not sure which Maud this was, there were quite a few Mauds!] after a sister of our father's. Agnes and Maud had also been Aunts. But they were all family names. But as to the naming ceremony - I was left with a deep sense of resentment that we could be asked and ignored. I realised that things can seem democratic but in fact be autocratic and I felt it was a deceit - not that I rationalised it like that at the time! But it offended my instincts for truth and fairness.
Ruth would be called Ruthilina (I was sometimes called Christalina and Beth Bethalina but Agnes didn't lend it self to this sort of nomenclature - she was Aganapede).
We must have divided our time somehow between Scotland and Ireland. In Scotland we also met our father's older brother and the oldest in the family - George. He had forsaken the farm to be a joiner and done his apprenticeship in Edinburgh. In fact, his father too had been a joiner at sometime (he was also George). Now, Uncle George lived in Newburgh just over the hills from 'Muchty and Raemore. He was married to Chat (Charlotte) his second wife. His first wife, Jean, had died of a weak heart. Charlotte came from Newburgh. She was slightly upmarket, more refined than the faming family. However, my uncle had become a pillar of the baptist church. He was a deacon and successful on his business with a workshop down by the shore of the Tay. Officially he was joiner and undertaker but we never saw any evidence of the latter.
While we were in this limbo world with no family dwelling of our own little did we know that our parents were investigating where they might leave Beth and myself when they returned to Peru. They should have had one year's furlough but because they had had a longer stint than usual their furlough was a bit longer. I suppose because of having no house and also because they wanted to see us settled we actually started at boarding school before it was strictly necessary - they were still around. They took us to Swansea where I distinctly remember we were requested?/invited?/ordered? to sing choruses and recite to some staff in the dining room. This was the place they had decided on, having looked at a place in Arbroath where children lived in a house but went to the local school. This would have been nearer our Scottish relatives. I don't know what decided them against that. They also looked at Clarendon, a girls' school in North Wales. All were Christian schools but I think that one was more posh and more expensive. Later I met a couple of people who went there.
I think I was just seven when I started school. Up 'til then it was really our father who had taught us.
This photo breaks my heart. This is Ina and Beth aged about 7 and 8 on (I think) the day they are left at boarding school in Swansea and their parents went back to Peru with Agnes and Ruth the two younger sisters. Beth and Ina would not see their parents and sisters for another 5 or 6 years by which time the two left-behind girls would be at the start of their teenage years. More on that to come. If you look at the photo of the whole family at the bottom of the Introduction and Contents I think this was taken about the same time.
In the next Part 3 Ina goes on to talk about her life at boarding school in Swansea after her parents and younger sisters had gone back to Peru.