Open Writing

The whole street was flitting to the new housing scheme and mother was over the moon. No more outside wash house, outside cludgies* or dim gaslight! We would be moving to a veritable palace with living room, kitchenette, two bedrooms, a bathroom, electricity and a garden! Now when the women gathered at the close mouth for their daily gossip, the talk was all of flitting and when it would be.

Back then most of the men were on the dole and money was tight. However, Jimmy Wyllie, known derisively as ‘sojer’ because he claimed Field Marshal, Earl Haig personally addressed him as ‘soldier’ during the Great War, decided to take charge of ‘Operation Flitting’ and use his ‘expertise’. As everyone was moving to the same street in the new scheme, Jimmy hit on the brilliant idea of hiring Hughie Wright with his horse and cart for a full day to expedite matters and arranged things for the following Friday.

There were sixteen families in our close and Jimmy tackled the logistics of moving all of them in one day better than Earl Haig had ever planned a battle. The evacuation would begin from the top floor so that the tricky stairs would be negotiated in daylight. Everybody had a specific task and a place to be. Everything would move like clockwork with one group loading belongings at the old houses while the other waited to receive them at the new. Nothing could possibly go wrong. The women collected empty tea chests and large cardboard boxes for packing precious belongings in and very soon the great day dawned.

Bang on time Hughie Wright drew up at the close, cart scrubbed clean and his horse Billy champing at the bit. The men had already started carrying Granny Broon’s boxes down from the top floor. Things were off to a fine start but as Robert Burns once said “The best laid schemes o'’mice and men gang aft agley” and agley they went. Granny Broon’s monster of a horsehair sofa got stuck in the last awkward bend of the stairs.

The men carrying it pushed, shoved, swore and heaved but it and they were well and truly stuck! Hughie Wright came to see what was wrong and began shouting advice—the rest of the gang stood in the entry adding their tuppence worth. It never occurred to any of them the families from the ground floor could be moved while the problem of the sofa was being solved.

Time was passing swiftly and tempers fraying when the women came up with a temporary solution. Tea and sandwiches! Granny Broon was having a cup of tea in Mrs. Jones’ kitchen when Maggie McIntyre thought to ask her how the bloody sofa got up there in the first place. The answer was simple. To avoid the awkward bend the frame was removed from a window in a second floor flat, the sofa hauled up by ropes and taken up the last flight of stairs!

After considerably more hassle the sofa was dislodged, returned to the second floor, a window was removed, the sofa safely lowered and triumphantly loaded on to the waiting cart. By now the horse needed to be fed and watered and as the pub across the road was now open the men decided they deserved at least a pint or three before resuming their labours.

The rest of the flitting, although well behind time, was carried out with a general air of conviviality and mirth. Hughie Wright, normally a dour man, laughed outright when simple Archie McConnell who was carrying Jessie Herrols’ full- length mirror caught sight of his own reflection and told it “ah dinnae need your help. Ah can cairry this looking glass masel!”

One of Nellie Mitchell’s boxes burst and her man’s best suit and bowler hat were missing. There was quite a stramash* when Bert sheepishly owned up to pawning them for gambling money.

Due to these minor hitches and more stops for refreshment, the last of the flitting was carried out by moonlight. At the end of it all the neighbours met in their new street and from a barrel of beer, courtesy of Moss Henderson the pawnbroker (Bert wasn’t the only one to pawn something that day), drank a toast to ‘Sojer’ Wyllie, Field Marshal Earl Haig, Hughie Wright, his horse Billy and "the only moonlight flit ever made by tenants who didn't owe back rent”.

© Marion McKeen 2003

*cludgies—outside toilets
*stramash—a ‘to-do’ or fuss