Is that the only picture we have of our beloved granma Margaret Houston who, by a twist of fate, raised both my Duncan (pictured as a young man) and me, in that wee cottage, Blairannaich!!!

*~*~*~*

 Great Uncle Tom, I saw him the other night in my dream...

He came home from America when my dad was still a child, right around the Great War time. He was Grandfather Guy Browning’s brother, so Great Uncle to me. Strange that one man could change the course of our lives so radically.

He was 6 foot tall with an iron on his leg, damaged ankle; doctor said "Damn carelessness!!" Not set properly from an accident when he was young. Years later Tom made sure that his nephew didn’t suffer the same fate: my father driving a couple of Clydesdale at Gladoch Farm, Loch Lomond, had an accident where he nearly cut off his thumb. Tom made sure that he got to the right place in good time. At the Glasgow Infirmary, they sewed the thumb back on and saved it, even though the ’ring’ round his thumb would be there for life.

Anyway, the story goes that Tom married and had two little ones but his wife died, the baby too, leaving Tom with a little boy to bring up, so much sadness, so young, and then the little boy died at 7 years old. No wonder Tom took off for America. Goodness, it was the stuff films are made of; looking for work from State to State, riding on the outside of trains, bad leg and all. He talked too of running a shebeen liquor operation, women too. But his conscience hit him there. Ah! It’s true; if they had a good mother, the conscience worked well!

So one day he returned home to Scotland, and found his sister-in-law, my granma on daddy’s side, left with 8 children to bring up. His brother Gavin had gone to Canada, ahead of his wife and chidren, to try to make a way for them all to have a life. Had he stayed back with them in Scotland, there would have been more children, and they could barely feed the ones they had.

So Uncle Tom did what he could to help, took the boys out for the day here and there. One day they set off on their bikes from Gartocharn to Helensborough, and they heard a preacher out there talking about a new life in Christ. An inward Voice said to Tom: That’s what you’ve been looking for! Tom got the preacher’s name and address; John Reid, Graham Street, Govan, Glasgow. Tom talked about his experience to granma. She took the bus from Balloch to Glasgow and went to hear him preach; she was a Roman Catholic but off she went, 20 miles on the bus to hear him Speak! That man was John Reid. Uncle Tom joined his band and so did granma. That was granma converting from the Catholic. And with her new Faith, she and the chidren never did follow her man to Canada. Now all we have left of grandfather Guy Browning is an old framed photograph on the wall. But we know he married again and had a little family there in Canada. One of them even turned up at granma’s cottage one day, wanting to trace the family roots.

Back in Scotland Uncle Tom was a tailor too. He worked for Walker’s in Glasgow. My mother’s father was also a tailor there. But then he opened a shop of his own in Shaw Street, Govan, and Uncle Tom along with Willie Cranston, joined him there. "The Tailor’s Board" was a great place to discuss politics and religion. Women also worked there; Susan and Mary Barrie. And all of them joined the band. My mum and her sister Winnie, Isa Hassan, Winnie Hassan, also learned the trade.

My grandfather, James Hassan, was the kindest man I ever knew. To this day it  fills me with warmth to remember him placing his two big gentle hands on my ears, came quietly up behind me, saying "You’re just like your grandmother." And, the time when an earwig fell from the tree and he said "Tree-mend-us!!" Of course grandfather had lost his two eldest. So much sadness. So many children died from disease in those days; people had big families, but many lost their lives to sickness.

Agnes Robertson, who was to be my mother-in-law, was one of 11 children, 5 of whom had died in infancy. She also was with the band in Glasgow but she told the story of when she attended Bethel Hall in Anniesland, Glasgow, she was taking religious ’tracts’ around the doors and said she would rather have given those poor starving families ’a shilling’; a very practical Lady!!