His mother, who many years ago had lived in the South Side of Glasgow and worked in the dairy next to 92 Plantation Street, enjoyed telling him about her earlier experiences and particularly recounting tales of the War when she had joined the WRVS. It so happened that John Kilbride knew a man about the same age as his mother, called Angus, who had been brought up at 92 Plantation Street. The dairy was the social hub of the street where locals bought their daily rolls, pies and sausages and exchanged gossip. After John Kilbride swapped his mother`s stories with Angus it became obvious that Angus had known Mrs Kilbride in her younger years. Then it became intriguing to John Kilbride to hear the same stories coming from these two individuals who now lived miles apart. One of his mother`s favourites was the Tommy Tully affair, who became a local hero during World War II, when he ran towards a doodlebug descending by parachute, warning others to get out of the way. The warning saved many lives but the man himself was killed. Mrs Kilbride embellished the story by claiming that Tommy Tully had been her first boyfriend and they had gone dancing together. When Angus heard about that he gave a rye smile and said that if you knew Tommy Tully: "Well she wasn`t his first girlfriend." It amused John Kilbride but he kept that to himself.
These conversations with his mother which ebbed and flowed were precious to John. She told him tales of a life that was no more, her life and the lives of others who had been and gone. It stirred his imagination with laughter, pity and regret. Without these stories from the elderly there was a danger that their experiences would be lost forever. It was humbling to experience the fragility and transience of life and the longing to hold on to it despite the headlong rush into the future. John Kilbride felt there was a place for nostalgia. Good grief! He had played the blues and resonated with the struggles of a bygone age and audiences younger than himself had responded. His memories of the Paddy`s Market were of the hundreds of conversations rippling through the alley; some informative; some scandalous; some downright hilarious; no need for the World Wide Web in those days. Why some people got irritated by the elderly telling their stories he could not understand. As it was, his mother was never more alive and exuberant than when she was going through her history. It had been a joy to him.
John Kilbride at the Paddy`s Market
Elderly people were owed a great deal thought John Kilbride, having suffered enormous deprivations in their youth and endured a war. It is true that in time they were recompensed with the build up of the National Health Service, improved working conditions, social housing and higher wages. It had been hard won. But now it was all being dismantled and corrupted and this same NHS and social services were discarding the elderly in care homes and tying them up in legalese to ensure they would never escape. In fact, the situation was worse than that as John Kilbride was to discover.
Reflecting on his own situation: "There was no softly, softly," said John Kilbride remembering the telephone call from his brother George. All he heard was the voice at the other end of the line saying cryptically, "Do you want to see your mother before they take her down to the morgue?" John gasped in horror and then he heard George again, "I want to remember my mother the way she was."
Immediately John Kilbride exploded: "You bastard! You didn`t let me see my mother when she was alive, with your crooked power of attorney." No doubt his voice was so loud that anybody next to the telephone would have heard him. It was Irene who grabbed the phone. "Make up your mind. Are you going to the morgue or not?" she snarled at him not realising what she had just said. John Kilbride was not only stunned but did not know the answer and turned to his friend who said : "Yes, you should go. Now."
On the road to Hairmyres Hospital all John Kilbride could think was: "This can`t be true. Why am I driving?" His whole body was shaking and in some kind of shock. Fortunately the road was not too heavy with traffic and the hospital was not that far away. There was a feeling of urgency about it John Kilbride explained. "It was the phone call that did it." All John Kilbride could think was that he must get there fast because they were going to be taking his mother away to a place where he was never going to see her again. If George was there he was going to punch him. He had better not stand in his way.
When John Kilbride and Jane Connelly arrived at ward 13 there was not one member of his family in sight and that was probably just as well. It was then that John Kilbride understood his brother`s words: "I want to remember my mother the way she was." George was too fearful and cowardly to see her dead body but then he had a lot on his conscience. Jane Connelly promised John that she would stay beside him if that is what he wanted and John decided that he could not get through this without her and insisted that she should not leave. Because he was expected at the hospital, they did not have to wait long at the nurses station before the young nurse came to meet them and conducted them into ward 13. They passed several patients sitting up in their beds with the familiar splash of flowers and cards on their lockers.This was a ward that his mother had been in before but then John Kilbride had seen her chatting to her visitors on approaching her bedside. How circumstances had changed. There was a ghostly feeling about this. One bed had a curtain around it and that is where the nurse headed.
She pulled the curtain aside to allow them to enter and it was a shocking sight. There were chairs neatly set beside the bed and a box of tissues laid out with the token one pulled out from the top, untouched. Not a crease on the bedclothes. Not a card, bottle of juice, fruit or flower on her locker, nothing to indicate that anyone had been in attendance or wished her well. Like an Egyptian film thought John Kilbride; his mother looked like a shrivelled husk waiting to be embalmed. Eyes wide open and bulging out of her head. Mouth gaping open so wide it altered the shape of her face. To say the vision was horrifying was an understatement. John Kilbride stooped to kiss his mother and Jane Connelly started to cry. The scene was beyond words.
He asked the nurse at the station on the way out how long his mother had been in the hospital? She refused to answer saying that the power of attorney had instructed nursing staff not to provide him with any information. John Kilbride exploded again and his voice could be heard ringing down the corridor. That is when Jane Connelly urged him to go, letting him know that he could sort this out later. He felt bad about it when he got home and calmed himself down but Jane reassured him that he had not shouted at the nurse. He had merely expressed his distress in a general way and given the circumstances anybody with any humanity would have understood.
"Who does that bastard think he is?" John would ask when the scene replayed in his mind. "Mr Power Tripper. I`m not to know how it was for my mother in the hospital. When does this end?"
"John," said Jane Connelly, "Listen. Get a copy of the death certificate. That will be a start. It should tell you the time of death."
"You know they didn`t take her for her hospital appointment," John Kilbride moaned. "I let the care home know and they didn`t bother. Can they get away with this? And so much for Mr Power of Attorney. He did nothing for her. He didn`t even tell anybody she was in hospital until after she was dead. That`s obvious. There was nobody at her bedside. She died alone. Not even a nurse. Rigor mortis had set it. You saw that."
"I did see that John, and it`s terrible that anybody would do that to their own mother," and so they had to replay the scene over and over analysing the details to figure out what it meant. But it always meant the same thing.
John Kilbride kept busy for the next few days but still thoughts would intrude and he would play out the funeral that was to come. He dreaded it and wished that it was behind him instead of in front of him. At first he decided he would only attend the service and never mind the reception. He wanted to keep as far away from his siblings as he possibly could. He feared that emotions were running too high and his brothers and sister would corner him and lay more rubbish on him and he might blow his top. That is until he got that other telephone call when he changed his mind.
It was his sister Irene with her authoritarian voice. George must have been too fearful to confront him. She told him about the funeral arrangements, where they were to meet and when and that there would be a car set aside for them outside the funeral parlour. When John Kilbride reminded her that Jane Connelly would be accompanying him, his sister warned him: "She`s not going." He slammed down the phone. That was the deciding factor for John Kilbride; he would not be going either and was taking no more of this. His mother died on 29 July 2011; the funeral was 4 August 2011. By that time John Kilbride had consulted an acquaintance who recommended St Blane`s on the Isle of Bute as a spiritual place of great beauty. That is where he intended to spend the day.
So on the day of the funeral John Kilbride, accompanied by Jane Connelly set out for Weymss Bay where they would catch the ferry. The sky was overcast and depressing and the windscreen wipers ticked out a rhythm of their own. It was beginning to look like a bad idea but onwards they went and cheered each other as best they could. John Kilbride talked about the funeral: "George`ll be looking over his shoulder; you bet; wondering when I`m going to appear. I hope he`s on edge. He never knows the minute does he?" Jane Connelly agreed and said: "To Hell with him. Isn`t that what his mother said?" "Indeed it was," John nodded. The further away they got from the New Town the more patches of blue appeared in the sky which lifted John Kilbride`s spirits. "This is the right thing to be doing," he said.
By the time they were in Rothsey the beautiful prize winning flower gardens were looking glorious in the sunshine. There were no crosses, no misery, just brilliant colour and flowers alive in their beds and tubs and hanging baskets. It felt good to be having the traditional coffee and sandwich at the booth at the seafront where John Kilbride was able to get directions to St Blanes from the attendant. "I didn`t want you tarred and feathered by my sister," said John to Jane Connelly. "Oh I don`t think I would have let her away with anything like that," said Jane. "From what I`ve heard of your family they`re not good at having it out in the here-and-now. It`s more texting, quick phone-calls and back stabbing they`re into. You know, the sneaky stuff."
They were heading for a lonelier spot and had their flasks and packed lunches. They passed the entrance to Mount Stuart where they had been to jazz concerts and Paul McCartney had married his first wife. It was an impressive building surrounded by beautiful grounds overlooking the bay. "They were good times," Jane reminded John Kilbride. Further along John became less sure of the road and he passed the turning point before he noticed it and was beeped by a car as he did a three point turn. His nerves felt a bit frayed then but as he proceeded the road and scenery so engaged him that he began to relax. After a few miles the road came to an end and they got out of the car and that is when they were confronted with the most amazing scene. The biggest flock of crows they had ever seen all at once took off from the fields into the sky and flew like a black cloud in the direction of St Blanes. "Wow," said John Kilbride, "And there`s the signpost pointing up the hill."
John took out the chimes which had his mother`s date of birth and her death attached. It had been a hard slog up the hill and Jane Connelly availed herself of the seat beneath the ruin and admired the spectacular scenery. There were cattle grazing below and the hills and the sea beyond that and trees shading them on the right. Jane Connelly could hear the tinkling of the chimes as John Kilbride wandered from place to place looking for the final resting place, and he took his time so that Jane Connelly got lost in her own thoughts. Eventually he signalled that he had found it and tied the bell to the branch of the tree. It was at that moment the clouds seemed to part and the sun which had disappeared blazed suddenly down on them again like a sign from Heaven. "Did you see that John?" He signalled that he did. "Your mother`s all right."
When a couple of German tourists came up the hill John Kilbride decided to leave. It was glorious slowly descending the path with the view ahead. Reaching the foot of the hill and feeling greatly uplifted Jane said: "I understand why the monks picked this place. There`s something really special about it. It had come highly recommended you say. How right that had been." John Kilbride was sure that he would be able to return every year and it would be a visit to look forward to, and then he stopped. "Did you hear the bell?" Jane thought for a minute and then answered, "You know, I believe I did."
As the day drew to a close there was a chill crept back into the air but John Kilbride felt less tense and also had a sense of achievement. He had survived the day. "I would sincerely advise anybody that there`s no need to go to a traditional funeral, especially if it means having to meet family you can`t stand. They`ll all be drunk now. Can you imagine it?"
"Better out of it. It would have been a recipe for disaster. Shall we stop somewhere for tea?" They began to laugh.
Within a few days of the trip to Bute; in fact, on the first working day after the funeral John Kilbride called up to the windswept crematorium on the hill outside of Blantyre to make enquiries about what there was available for visitors to commemorate the passing of his mother. Was there a book to sign, a plaque, a plant, he did not know? The receptionist checked and said there was nothing. But he did learn something unexpected. A woman had called up that very morning to pick up his mother`s ashes.and up to that point John Kilbride had not given this a moment`s thought.
The Isle of Bute
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