Roamin’ in the gloamin’ (1928)

CHAPTER THREE THIS WEAN'S GOING TO BE A SINGER Looking back on these days in dear old Arbroath I think the one thing that stands out in my memory was the wonderful spirit of my dear mother. Never a word of complaint crossed her lips. She was leal to the core of her intrepid Scottish heart. How she fed us and clothed us and kept a roof over our heads I cannot imagine. But she did it. If ever there was what the Bible calls a "mother in Israel" she was one. Brave soul ! Thank God she lived long enough to share in my success and spend a few years in real comfort. I had to work hard at the mill every other day, but the days in between were glorious — after school hours ! One task, and one only, I hated with all my soul. Each week my mother and I had to tease a hundredweight of old ropes and string, ship's rigging, etc., into "tow." This stuff was sent round from one or other of the factories to the houses of the very poorest people. When teased out into yarn it was mixed up with the flax and woven into canvas or other material. The price allowed was one shilling and sixpence a hundredweight. It took my mother and I an hour or two every night of the week, with the exception of Saturday, to reduce this dreadful stuff into tow. Both her fingers and mine were often bleeding. Many and many a time I cried with the pain and the awful monotony of the job. But my mother's cheery, indomitable, uncomplaining nature was a great encouragement to us both and always, when the night's proportion was tackled — sometimes very late in the evening when the ropes and hawsers had been more difficult to tease than usual — we kissed each other and "cuddled up" out of sheer thankfulness. 43