My Grandmother Anita: Her First 15 years

Introduction: 

Anita is born: 

1933 On the night before the one thousand nine hundred and thirty third anniversary of the birth of Jesus, a miracle happened. A miracle was needed in urban Scotland in 1933. The world was catching a long breath after the unthinkable turmoil of World War I, but it was a Depressed and grimy breath. Life had been hard as long as anyone could remember, and even harder for the Scots, a sturdy, historychiseled people living in a cold, dark, and stony land. The 1,000 year quest for freedom from the English had been subsumed into the contemporary generation's mission to put back together the pieces of the world shattered by war and Depression. In the event, this little miracle was Anita Cathcart Johnston, the next in the long line of the Johnston clan. Whatever its historical antecedents, by the 1930's the Johnstons had evolved into a hardy, hard-working, nononsense, and yes, a very short clan. My grandmother, the woman who among her many accomplishments made my life possible, would be a watershed chapter in the unfolding of the Johnston story. But that was all in the future, and at the moment, there was just this tiny little girl, Anita, who entered the world on 24 December, 1933 at Maternity Hospital, Elsie Enils, Edinburgh. Family Background: Early 1900’s Her father was a good man. Robert Cathcart Johnston's career started early, at 13 years old precisely, when his mother passed and he had to leave school to work to support his family. He started off as a foreman in the Leith shipyards, perferming the gritty, vital labor of a British stevedore. He adored football (soccer), playing for a team called Leith Athletic and supporting the professional team called Hearts of Midlovian. He was a Presbyterian and a devout member of the esoteric freemasons, essentially precursors to modern day Rotarians or Lions’ Club members. He moved on from the dockyards yet continued as a a working man in a poor neighborhood of Scotland's most photogenic metropolis, Edinburgh. He worked as a sugar-boiler in a jam factory owned by the Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Society. Just as sugar continues to dominate the gustatory preferences of the 21st century world, Scots in the 1930's enjoyed a spot of sugary jam at tea-time, and Robert helped provide it. Anita's mother, Anne Thompson Johnston, lacked the smooth, sturdy, and sweet demeanor of Robert. She supplemented the family income by working as a nanny for the Winklers (a wealthier family of fur merchants), and cooking in a bakery. She is remembered with mixed emotions, because in many ways she was vain, frugal about essentials for the family, and spendthrift about cosmetics and substances for herself. She liked to drink, smoke, and shop. Robert and Anne brought little baby Anita home to their modest apartment at Number 6 Shaw's Place, Edinburgh. The family bunkered down in the top right hand flight of Council Tenement, 3rd floor of 8th Russelry Crescent. The house contained a living room, a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a shared toilet. Interminable chilly winters were kept at bay through dirty but effective coal bunker-fires. The traditional apartment also contained a scullery, which was the place for food preparation and washing. Their home was located in the old, separate city of Leith, where the storied Mary Queen of Scots had once ascended to the Scottish throne. Modern household amenities were mostly unknown to the Johnstons. Of course there was no central heating. The family generated heat by feeding coal into a fireplace in the kitchen; this was the gathering place during long, dark, and frigid winters. It was cold most of the time, and there were not enough blankets on the beds. Anita was particularly displeased with this, as her mother didn’t lack for cosmetics, clothes, and booze, while the family lacked warmth. Anita would lie in a fetal position in her bed, trying to feel warm. Toothpaste came in a cake, and sometimes there wasn’t enough. Showers consisted of sponge washes in the kitchen. There were no bed lamps or reading lamps. The Johnstons used torches (flashlights), lanterns, or gas lamps. Robert arrives: 1937 On 6 October, 1937, her younger brother Robert was hatched. Anita remembers the moment vividly. A man named David Arkirk woke her up, brought in a cup of tea and a roll with margarine, and said, “You have to get up and come to my mother. You’ve got a little brother, but my mother has to get you ready for the wedding.” Anita’s father took her to her Aunty Dot and Uncle Bill’s wedding, which was happening at the precise moment as Robert’s birth. Anita remembers, “ I was standing on my Uncle Bill’s feet. I can still feel the way the satin of Dot’s wedding dress felt. She was one of my mother’s closest friends. They lived in the same tenement as my Grandparents.” This is Anita's oldest memory, and in some ways her most treasured, as it marked the beginning of her relationship with her brother, her best friend, and the only person with whom she would share every stage of life. Growing up in Scotland: 1933-1947 Anita’s clothes were modest and used daily. She owned a set of school clothes, one summer dress, and a pair of shoes. New clothes were not an option, though she inherited clothes from family members or picked up items second-hand. Clothes would be washed in a copper boiler in the scullery. Anita would wring the water out of her clothes by hand, then hang them to dry in the back-drain in the summer, or on pully-hoisted lines on the ceiling in winter. Fashion was hardly a consideration, and as far as function, Anita rarely had enough clothes to stay warm and dry. Anita had no bicycle, no doll, no toys, and no real possessions. Robert had a football to play with, and her grandmother had a rubber ball. A Christmas present might be an apple or a piece of candy. The cult of childhood and the festive celebration of every occasion was also unknown in the Johnston home. Anita and Robert’s birthdays were ignored. Christmas was barely celebrated. The family did celebrate Hogmanay, or Scottish New Year, by cleaning house and clothes, and staying up late making merry. Legend held that the first person to visit your home on Hogmanay would be a dark-haired man who would carry coal and salt to ensure food and warmth. The days were punctuated by household chores, daily trips to the market, and the quotidian rhythms of working-class British life. The Johnstons were Presbyterian by tradition, and Anita was christened in South Leith Parish Church. In their free time, Mother and Father Johnston liked to talk, drink, eat, and smoke. They also liked to listen to the radio and attend the motion pictures. When Anita was young, she was cared for by her Uncle Bill and Aunty Peggy Thompson. World War II: 1940-1945 Catastrophe befell The United Kingdom when Anita was six years old. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939 the wool finally fell from British eyes. World War II, the darkest chapter of human history, had descended; fighting began in 1940. Robert was excused from the draft because he was judged to be in an essential wartime industry: Food production. The family remained intact, but the war exacted its toll on everyone. Air raid sirens warning of approaching German bombers became commonplace. While the Luftwaffe didn’t target the city nearly as much as it did London and the industrial cities, Edinburgh was bombed. As the German Air Force returned to Germany after a strike on the shipyards at Clyde Bank in Glasgow, they pummeled Edinburgh. This was the exception though, as Edinburgh was a political, historical, and cultural capital mostly devoid of war-related industries. Urban legend also held that Hitler wanted to live in Edinburgh castle one day. Edinburgh had to learn to vanish into the darkness, and Scots in the city had to practice burying themselves underground in shelters. Anita attended school with a gas-mask in her bag and she knew how to use it. All around the city existed underground “Anderson shelters,” which were essentially holes in the ground covered with a metal shell. Once during bombing a drill, Anita fell back on a plank and a nail stuck to her leg. Her father pulled out the nail, sucked out the contaminated blood, and took her to the hospital. She can still feel the injury if she closes her eyes and thinks about it today. There was never enough food. Hunger was second-nature to Anita and Robert, and malnutrition was the rule rather than the exception. Rationing went into effect from 1939 through the 1950’s. Her family was allotted a 3 oz. mix of butter and margarine per week. They received coupons for meat and ate SPAM one hundred different ways, thanks in part to the cooking magic of Auntie Peggy. Mac and Cheese was a staple dish, and bread and potatoes were the carbohydrate backbone of the family diet. Fish was an occasional luxury. Anita would wait in cues for hours to get food, which included apples, plums, pears, peas, carrots, turnips, hearts, liver, and kidneys. Sunday afternoon was the time for a family tea gathering. The rationing did ease off after the war, but continued well into the 1950's, as Europe and Britain endeavored to rebuild. From six to twelve years old, Anita lived in a country at war. The credo of the ear was: Unity Great Britain: Keep the Germans away from the shores. A United Country. It was a time of shared sacrifice and shared mission. Amidst the chaos of a country under siege, little Anita looked for a child’s normality in the quotidian routine of an elementary school student’s life. Her family paid for her to attend the private Leith Academy, Infants‘ School, from 1937-1944. She looked up to her female teachers, many of whom where spinster widowers who had lost their husbands in World War I. She fondly remembers her elementary teacher, Ms. Mona Large, who always smelled of lavender. However, not even the school was immune from the winds of war. When the evacuation of Dunkirk was on, Anita’s teachers went to the south of England to help. School was closed. She took long walks through the city as young girl, and rode the bus on her own to school. She also enjoyed taking the trolley. She was independent and free at a young age. She would work around town doing her messages (errands). She used to get the messages for her teachers, including visits to Martin the Baker on Juke St. to procure buns for Ms. Large. She would also do the bidding of her mother. She remembers once standing in line alone as a very small child to purchase face powder at Cochrane’s. Anita would also play with her cousins Elaine, Linda, and Sylvia. Once they visited the zoo together. The girls also liked to play hopscotch, hide-n-seek, football, and jump rope. In an era before electronics, the toy industry, and disposable income, childhood fun relied more on creativity and simple games. Anita did listen to the radio. She listened to King George VI (of “The King’s Speech” fame) overcome his debilitating stutter to deliver news of Britain’s declaration of war on Germany in 1939. She listened to Winston Churchill’s regular addresses, including his depiction of the British evacuation at Dunkirk. She listened to the singing of Vera Lynn, and the melodious voices of Petula Clark and Julie Andrews. The channel offerings were minimal- BBC One and BBC Two- but the family would sit together and absorb all news and culture from the radio. She especially loved reading, which provided an escape from the shouting, drinking, fighting, and tight quarters at home. She remembers the library as a sanctuary and a refuge. The library was near Auntie Peggy’s house. She checked books out voraciously, and she took them home to read under the covers with a flashlight after her intended bedtime. Anita remembers the smells of her childhood: the smell of cooking-porridge, wet clothes drying around the fire, the lavender smell of Ms. Large. Aunty Dot’s house smelled of warmth and Christmas. Dot’s husband Bill was gone all during the war. She had a Christmas tree and presents; Anita loved to stay there. From Elementary School to Upper School At 11 years old, Anita sat for a formal exam that would determine if she would attend a college prep high school, a business school, or a technical school. My clever grandmother aced the exam, winning a bursary (scholarship) to attend a distinguished Edinburgh girls‘ school called Broughtan Secondary. She excelled immediately in the contemporary equivalent of middle school, winning academic prizes and participating in school plays. Anita remembers singing as Cinderella as her redheaded friend Laura Walter played the fairy Godmother. Forty girls studied together in a single room, under the guise of Headmaster Cowe. Anita never misbehaved, because she was afraid to after getting into immense trouble at home for things she didn’t do. After the war, in 1947 Robert and Anne moved their family of four to a more prosperous place in England: the coastal town of Ipswich in the county of Suffolk in East Anglia, northeast of London. Anita’s life brightened somewhat as she entered her teenage years after the War. Anita received her first Christmas present, a beautiful water-color painting of Ipswich.