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ABC,’ she explained, with a laugh. ‘You’re the one that’s started school to learn all your letters, and it’s going to take a long,
long time. I hope you manage to stay at school longer than me – I had to leave at age fourteen even though I got medals, to work in Coatbridge. You won’t have to leave early, but
you’ve got to go back tomorrow, young lady, and stick in at your lessons. At this rate, you’ll never get up in the morning.’
    ‘I’ve got to go
back
?’ I was horrified. Like many another child before me, the realization that school stretched ahead for years was incomprehensible. I went off to
bed in a grumpy mood.
    I stayed at Whifflet Primary for a year, but in 1955 two milestones disrupted my scholarly routine. One was the birth of my younger brother, of whose impending arrival I had been told nothing. I
was sent on holiday to Granny Jenny’s and the first I knew of Ian’s birth was after I came home and spotted a cot beside my parent’s bed. I was captivated by a tiny hand waving in
the air. His birth meant that we needed a bigger home, and this is how we came to be offered what we regarded as a step up in the world, the house at 51 Dunbeth Road, Coatbridge, about a mile and a
half from Whifflet.
    My mother was thrilled. It was downstairs, instead of upstairs on a landing, it was near all the shops in the town centre, and was opposite the town hall and the police station. The smaller
number of people in the building meant the wash houses did not need such a strict rota, and drying greens would be more flexible, a boon for someone with a young baby, but we had inherited yet
another shared outside toilet.
    Number 51 had a small kitchenette, a living room with two bed recesses and a separate room for my parents. There was even a tiny garden, which my mother enjoyed filling with wallflowers and
Virginia stock and Tom Thumbs, teaching me how to plant the tiny seeds.
    In our main living space, one bed recess had a double bed fitted into it for the children, while my father set about converting the other to a dining area, with makeshift bench and table.
    My father was by now working on the buses: he did shifts with sometimes unsocial hours. To compensate, his wages rose remarkably from sixteen shillings to several pounds per week, which in the
1950s represented good money. So much so, that he began to look out for a family car. Mr Allison, the butcher, had allowed him to use the van at weekends, and my father missed it.
    After trying to resurrect one or two old bangers, he purchased a shiny black Baby Austin car from a Mr Cowie, who was retiring from his hairdresser’s shop in Coatdyke. We were all excited
at the arrival of the new addition to the family – especially me, when my father drove me to my new school.
    Gartsherrie Academy was a large, handsome Victorian building, which dominated the top of the highest hill in Coatbridge, vying for position with Mount Zion, the local name for the kirk with its
clock that even today presents four slightly varying faces of the hour to the town.
    My father now had two main obsessions outside his work: taking things to bits, and his Baby Austin, which became his pride and joy. He lavished all his spare time on it, polishing and cleaning
its bodywork, painting the black mudguards, and treating any signs of impending rust. Anyone laying a finger on the gleaming surface of the bonnet or boot was shouted at, and I was horrified when
Ian, my little brother, who had just turned two, was soundly beaten for daubing it with white emulsion paint. Children of all ages, but in particular my friends, were attracted to this vehicle like
bees to a honey pot, and it was regarded then as a great treat to be taken even a short distance in someone’s car.
    A car meant outings for all the family. Going off on a day trip, bags stuffed with sandwiches, was a welcome event, especially as going off on a fortnight’s break, perhaps ‘doon the
watter’ to Millport