The serial: Wee Georgie Day7

This show of disrespect to the Blessed Virgin displeased my dear mother greatly and I was marched unceremoniously down Tay Street, up the Lochee Road and back into Parker Street, up the stairs and sent to my bed. On the way, Mum lectured me on how the mother of the Lord could never be considered anything other than kindness itself and that she was meant to represent all that was the opposite of threatening and scary.

Unfortunately my young mind totally failed to agree with her and I kept telling her how I’d been frightened by the bright, white light, the shimmering figure and the terribly scary voice.

Mum told me not to be stupid which didn’t help much. And I didn’t get to go home via the buses on Brown Street.

To the north-west of Parker Street lay the open spaces of Dudhope Park and the castle from which Bonnie Dundee set out for his final battle at Killiecrankie.

Joe and I spent a lot of our free time in the park getting into the usual scrapes.

Perfect cover

The rhododendron bushes provided the perfect cover for a game of Cowboys and Indians or Japs and British.

Wars were fought and baddies dispatched on a daily basis on the sloping grass of Dudhope.

Pauses in hostilities allowed us to sit on one of the huge, black, iron hour guns facing south over Lochee Road that snaked up to the west.

At weekends in the afternoons the castle courtyard was often filled with large numbers of young folk, all there to take part in the Showtime talent contests that were held during the summer months.

Budding Doris Days and Elvises clambered on to the high stage against the west wall of the castle and treated the assembled masses to their renderings of “Que sera, sera” or “Love Me Tender”.

Imagine my surprise one Sunday when Joe left my side to climb onstage, borrowed guitar swung over his shoulder and entertained us with his version of Cliff Richards’ hit “Living Doll”. I emphasise his version as it was clear he’d mastered the chords of C and G7 but was still struggling with that difficult one, F.

So he had to pretend that he was still playing but not actually touch the strings at any point where F was required.

The castle was also home to two aviaries set into the walls of an archway that passed through the castle from east to west.

In these giant cages you could see canaries and budgerigars on one side and a collection of peacocks on the other.

The peacocks were allowed to roam around the park during the daytime and on more than one occasion wandered across the road to explore the accident and emergency department of the Royal Infirmary.

Beyond the courtyard stood the children’s playground with swings, roundabout, see-saw and chute, the standard four-piece set.

Disappointed

If the roundabout thrilled us with its terrifying centrifugal force, we were always hugely disappointed with the chute.

Its shiny metal surface was invariably sticky, so sliding at any decent speed just wasn’t possible.

What made it sticky was a matter for conjecture but we had no idea.

As far as we were concerned, the see-saw wasn’t for sitting on and bouncing up and down with a friend, but rather designed for launching across the playground any object we could lay our hands on.

Failing this, we’d try to fire each other into the air by a series of heavy load and release operations.

If we’d lived in mediaeval times we would no doubt have been master catapulters.

However, the swings were to cause me to take my turn on a hospital trolley while my head was stitched up.

Our favourite swing game was called “parachutes” and this involved taking the swing to the highest point forward and then jumping off, hoping to land in a reasonably upright position.

I had perfected this technique and could land on my feet most times, taking the applause of my fellow daredevils. But one day after landing safely, I turned to bow to my admirers and was met with the full force of the returning swing flush on the forehead. Joe to his credit ushered me back home quickly. In his haste he actually passed the hospital entrance on his way to our house and Mum had to take me all the way back to get stitched up.

One day Joe disappeared during a game of hideand-seek and the park suddenly stopped being a friendly place.

The “base” was the roundabout in the castle courtyard. Tommy McDonald was “it” and he had to sit on the roundabout, hide his face and count up to 100, doing it out loud in case he cheated.

Meanwhile, we scattered in all directions looking for a safe haven that Tommy wouldn’t find, because if he saw me he’d run back to the base and announce at the top of his voice :“George, block one-two-three” and I had to give myself up.

Followed the rules

Usually everyone taking part in the game played fair and followed the rules.

As was often the case I merely followed my big brother in whichever direction he ran, confident that his extra two years had honed his concealment skills well beyond Tommy’s powers of detection.

Joe was a will o’ the wisp, the unrivalled master of hide-and-seek.

He also hated me following him, so on good days he would suggest places for me to go.

However, on bad days he would turn on me, fists clenched and hint that I might find it less painful to seek out my own hiding place. That day was one of the latter. It was clear to me that staying beside Joe was not an option as we reached the top of the sloping gardens above Lochee Road.

Joe disappeared down some steps and I went to hide in the most obvious place in Dudhope Park – behind the hour gun.

Once Tommy had tracked us all down except Joe we declared him the winner and shouted out his name to bring him out and back to the base. (More tomorrow.)

Budding Doris Days and Elvises clambered on to the high stage against the west wall of the castle and treated the assembled masses