'Getting By' by Ronald Mackay
As children, any neighbour was entitled to ask us to perform a small task. It might be to help carry a heavy shopping basket or run urgently to the corner shop for a forgotten item. Our duty was to comply with a smile. These, our first “jobs” were really favours that neighbours could request and expect us to perform. Though our mothers told us to expect nothing in return, we might receive a relieved, “Thanks, son!” and a ha’penny or even a penny might be thrust into our hand.
As a teenager, I graduated to “message boy” – employed first by a pharmacy and then a grocery store to deliver customers’ orders after school and on busy Saturday mornings. A grateful customer might reward me with a threepenny piece for cycling an unusually long distance or for delivering, with care, a particularly heavy order.
In 1959, when I began to study for my final school examinations, I had to limit my work to Friday evenings and all-day Saturday. The grocery store that employed me was in the centre of Dundee. It was one of the busiest in town, close to noisy jute mills that employed hundreds of men and women.
Customers would leave their weekly shopping list with the manager. My job was to search the shelves for the required items, pack them in a stout cardboard box, place it into the front carrier of the bike, and deliver it to the customer’s home. Trips tended to be short, because the ancient and overcrowded tenements in the city centre were still crammed with tenants. Housing schemes built to “clear the city slums” were in the planning. A single, new, housing estate was in construction on the outskirts of the city, the first of many to follow.
One Friday evening, after the sirens that announced the close of the day-shift in the jute mills had sounded, a pale woman looking distressed, rushed into the shop. She was still wearing the knotted headscarf that identified mill workers whose hair needed protection from fibres thrown constantly into the air from the clattering looms. She bore the stringent smell of raw jute, so familiar to us Dundonians when Dundee was the jute-manufacturing capital of the world.
She thrust a torn, used envelope at my manager. “Bert, can ye have this delivered?”
“Of course, Mrs Docherty.” Bert was always obliging with my time.
“A’ve wrote the new address. A’ll pay the laddie cash when he comes.”
“Of course!” Trust was normal, then.
A slightly relieved Mrs Docherty hurried off. Bert handed me the envelope. “Ron, make this up right away.”
I looked at the scribbled list of groceries. It was long, but no problem. I knew I could find everything quickly. Then I looked at the address. “Douglas and Angus!”
“Mrs Docherty’s moved from the town centre to Dougla and Angus!” I drew Bert’s attention.
Douglas and Angus was the new housing scheme on the city limits. It stood some three miles to the east. A six-mile return trip for a single order!
“I forgot!” Bert slapped his head. “She did tell me she’d be moving from the Overgate to that new scheme.” He gave me an earnest look. “Ron, she’s been a good customer for years. The poor soul usually carries it all by herself. Her husband’s a cripple.” He paused. “But to Douglas and Angus! Even at your best, you can’t bike there and back before we close”. He handed me a shilling from his own pocket. “Take the bus.”
Even by bus, I knew it would take me at least an hour. The cleaning up would still have to be done when I got back after the shop closed.
“Certainly, Mr Gellatly” To oblige customers was a part of his job. Mine was to satisfy Bert.
The queue was long. Crowded buses swept past or took on only one or two passengers. Finally! Struggling to board the bus with an enormous, heavy, cardboard box full of groceries was a challenge. Crowds of re-housed mill workers were returning to their new homes outside the city after their shift. Despite their fatigue and being forced to stand on a crowed, swaying bus, they, smiled, huddled closer and made room for me.
“Here! Pit that box on ma knee, son! It’s way ower heavy for ye tae hud in yer haunds! We’ve a lang way tae go yet!”
The camaraderie, concern, and cooperation even after an exhausting day tending to thundering looms made the crowded journey easier for us all.
“What address are ye going to son?” A woman who, like all the others, stank of jute, asked as we alighted together at the terminus.
“Baldovie Gardens.”
“A’m goin’ tae that verra street. Come wi me. Ah’ll show ye.”
I struggled alongside her, grateful.
“That’s the door there, son!” She pointed and continued on her way.
The door opened before I knocked. I was expected.
“God bless, ye son! Just pit it doon there! It’s affa good o’ ye. I’da brought them masel but it’s ma man, see? He’s sick in bed. A hiv tae get back fae work quick like, tae see tae him. Tae clean him up, like. He’s on his own aa day an canna get oot o his bed.”
The sour odour of incontinence permeated the house. The pale woman carried her burdens as a matter of course. Complaining was far from her mind. “Grin and bear it!” - was the rule that she, like everybody else, observed.
I left the box on her kitchen table. There, it would be easier for her to unpack than if I left it on the floor. As I turned to catch the same bus back to the city before it departed, she looked at me gratefully.
“Son! Thank ye. Ye made my day! Honest!” She smiled for the first time and slipped a coin into my pocket. “If ye run! Ye’ll catch it. Look! The conductor’s seen ye. He’ll wait till ye get on.” She hustled me out.
Once aboard the bus, I looked at what she’d given me. Half a crown! I could scarcely believe it. Half-a-crown represented 25% of my pay for three hours on a Friday and nine on a Saturday.
On that empty bus hurtling back to the city centre for a new load of tired millworkers, I marvelled at how, from shared hardship, arose such nobleness of spirit and profound generosity.
Dundee buses 1950s
Message boy delivering orders on his bike 1960s
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Dundee Jute Mills 1959
In 1959, I was message-boy for the shop with the awning
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Willie Low, Grocer, Wellgate Dundee,
where I worked part-time as a school-boy
where I worked part-time as a school-boy
