SCOTLAND ZEN and the art of SOCIAL WORK

By J.A. Skinner

The story takes place in a village in Lanarkshire, Scotland, called Carfin. This is a unique place as it has a large Catholic population, a replica Lourdes grotto, an Islamic Mosque, a greyhound racing track, and a small Lithuanian community.

Mags (Margaret O’Hara) is a twenty eight year old single Mother of three children. She is emotionally strong and capable, and has a sense of humour that sees her through most situations. She has a close relationship with her brother and sister, and tries hard to keep things on an even keel with her Mother. She has a romance with her sister’s social worker which is fraught with doubts, and she has a reasonable fear that there is Huntington’s Chorea (sometimes called Huntington’s disease) in her family history, but it has been kept a secret.
As this is a hereditary condition with an onset in the middle years, sufferers often have their own children, and have passed on the gene, before they show any signs of the disease. If people were aware of their family history and the odds of having the damaged gene, they might wish to put off having their family till later, but Catholic teaching does not allow contraception, so there is a real dilemma for the religiously inclined.
Tommy is a social worker in the nearest town of Motherwell, he is single, knows the family through Mags’ sister Kate, and has a romance with Mags. He finds it difficult to make decisions in his own life, but has to make life and death decisions at work.
Mary Coyle, Mags’ Mother is a middle aged respectable member of the local community, early widowed and lives alone. She has kept secrets, family and personal, for years and finds it hard to give emotional love to her children unless they behave as she wants them to. She realises that the truth has to come out in the end.
Mickey is Mags’ brother he gets involved with an Asian doctor who already has an arranged marriage planned. He is gay but has kept this a secret from some of his family.
Harry Wang is a Scottish/Chinese social work manager who tortures the English language with inaccurate clichés.
The story opens with the death of an Uncle and the funeral. It describes Mags, her children and her relationship with her ex-husband. Kate is the older sister and she and her husband are going through an assessment to be adoptive parents. Tommy the social worker is preparing the assessment.
Mickey, the younger brother, is gay and has a relationship with a Pakistani Doctor whose nephew is in school with Mags’ oldest child, John.
Mary Coyle (Mags Mother) drifted into marriage just after the war and made the best of her life, with a few mistakes here and there. She has knowledge of the family illness, and another big secret, but has delayed telling her children.
Twins become available for adoption and there is great excitement in the family, at the same time Mickey’s romance goes wrong because he discovers that the Doctor has an arranged marriage planned.
Mags tries to root out the truth about the Huntington’s Chorea from other family members and comes up against a lot of avoidance.. Issues of religious differences and hatred and a divided education system are also highlighted as they play a big part in Scottish culture.
There are many more characters that play minor but colourful parts in the story. It is told in a fast paced style, and takes place over only about seven weeks. The mood is humorous and emotional with plausible characters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.A. Skinner
• Release date: Nov 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465930347

J.A. Skinner

I am presently living in Bournemouth, but I lived for twelve years in a village near Carfin so my book is based on real experience of Lanarkshire and the people who live there. I worked for twenty years as a child protection social worker in Scotland and England therefore I have a wide base of knowledge of the Social Services of the era that I am writing. I have worked at many and diverse jobs in Scotland Canada, England and Spain, from waitressing with roller skates to teaching English to asylum seekers from eastern Europe. I am now writing which is what I really wanted to do all the time.

Book preview

Monday 5th may

Huntington's disease, also known as Huntington’s chorea is an inherited disorder that causes degeneration of the brain cells. This results in a progressive loss of mental ability, control of movement, and changes in personality.

This is the routine. John gets dropped off at school, ten minutes before the bell, enough time for a quick game of football, which is the most important thing in his life. I walk on along the main road to the top of the village with my girls to call on my Mother. I do hope she has her happy head on today, makes me a cup of tea, and spoils her granddaughters for a wee while.

the door. These variations in her tolerance levels depend on what gossip she’s heard about me during the week. I’ve been known to smoke in the street, forgotten to give John his packed lunch, or tried to sneak in late to Mass on Sunday. This last offence being mortally sinful in her eyes, on a par with armed robbery or assault. Mam and I have what is very trendily called a fragile relationship, a bit like a cracked mirror, ready to fall out the frame on any day.

We walk smartly, as there’s a chill in the air, it’s the beginning of May, but the sun is a weak, pale disc in the sky, not giving a bit of heat, and there was a light frost earlier, after all, this is springtime in Carfin, in the west of Scotland. It has been said we don’t have a climate, just lots and lots of weather.

Theresa and Rosie have pink hats, scarves, gloves and jackets, they look like little pixies, their cheeks reddened with the cold.

‘Hello hen, come away in out of the chill,’ Mam says.

So far so good.

‘My, those girls look lovely, (a touch of the Miss Jean Brodie) but don’t they always?’

This is definitely a good day. Tea is offered, and I smile genuinely with relief.

‘That would be lovely Mam.’

Of course I could do with a cup of tea, or maybe something more fortifying. I’ve already done a shift this morning, got the kids up, washed, dressed, fed and out the door ready for the walk to school. I’ve also put the washing on, made the beds, smoked my last cigarette and slapped wee Rosie on her precious, delicate wee white hand, for spilling milk and frosties down her clean cardigan. No, I’m not bitter really, but I certainly could do with a cup of tea and a few quid for fags. I’m not a complete addict at the moment, but might be working up to it. I do like to smoke a few a day, but I won’t push my mother yet, let the girls get a bit of attention first.

The watchword in our family and in our village, Carfin, is respectability. Mam is respectability personified, she is always modestly dressed, neat and tidy and her house is as clean as chastity. In her world, the most mortal of sins is giving people something to gossip about, as she says it; ‘filling people’s mouths’.

Mary Coyle, my Mam, is a respectable widow. She is tall and trim, with dark naturally curly hair which, thank god, we all inherited, and grey-green eyes. She is Mother to two daughters and a son. Kate is the oldest, Mam’s pride and joy, and slowly evolving as her clone. Michael is the youngest, hard working and handsome. He marches to a drummer only he hears, and Margaret in the middle, well, I do my best.

Kate is safely married to a good Catholic man, Philip Brady, I am separated, and Mickey is, at the moment, sort of on his own.

My dad Peter Coyle, passed away ten years ago, appropriately on Saint Joseph’s day, his anniversary was last month. He’s now immortalized, by my Mother, as a latter day saint. The reality is a whole lot closer to him having been a hard working, decent Lanarkshire man with the clay feet of a Friday night binger.

From family and friends he always gets a good press, which I suppose is a tiny bit of compensation for dying prematurely at the age of fifty of the Scottish Disease.

We don’t need lottery-money funded research or feasibility studies to analyse the incidence of heart disease in Scotland. It surrounds us like the adipose batter on our fish and chips, black pudding, and fritters, along with chocolate and fizzy drinks, it makes us the sickest nation in Europe with also the worst dental health.

Peter Coyle was one of a dedicated band of village men who, as well as working hard at the steelworks, kept the Grotto in good repair, carrying on the tradition of their fathers, mostly miners, who helped old Canon Taylor live his dream and build a replica Lourdes in Carfin.

After a visit to Lourdes in France in the 1920’s, the young priest, Father Taylor was so impressed by the French grotto dedicated to Saint Bernadette, that he wanted to copy this and build a place of pilgrimage for the Scottish people. This may be hard to comprehend as the original grotto in France was built round the place where some miracles supposedly took place. Maybe father Taylor thought miracles would happen after the fact.

With the help of lots of free willing labour from out of work miners and a very large piece of parkland owned by the Church the Grotto was created. It was his fabulous dream come true. Lanarkshire men were used to hard work and hard times, just the qualities needed to build a national garden of prayer from a bit of wasteland.

There had to be an upside to the general strike in 1925.

Uniquely, Carfin is the only village known which contains a Catholic Pilgrimage Grotto, a centre for Muslim Cultural Learning, known locally as the Paki Mosque, and a greyhound racing track. There is also a group of Lithuanians and some Polish families who complete the bit of colour and ethnicity in our village.

‘I have some bad news for you hen, your Uncle John passed away last night,’

My mother delivers this with a sad expression her eyes are lowered and her hands clasped on her lap. No wonder she has her happy head on today, she loves a crisis. In an emergency, give her an aircraft crash, a bomb attack in Belfast, or a famine, and she comes into her own. She seems to be constantly knitting blankets for refugees or filling shoe boxes with soap and toothpaste to send to orphanages somewhere in Rumania or the Baltics. (Hopefully they will end up with better teeth than us.) Helping to organize this family funeral will be child’s play to her, she’s the expert.

‘The funeral will probably be on Thursday, and, as you well know we’ll all be expected to be there, don’t forget to arrange a babysitter.’ She says.

This death is no shock. Uncle John, my Dad’s younger brother, had been in and out of hospital for as long as I can remember, although the details of his illness had always been a bit vague, some kind of nervous debility or breakdown. He was a nice kindly old man, and I remember visiting him at his sister’s house, my aunty Therese’s in Motherwell a few times over the years. He never married. He moved in with Auntie Therese when his health got bad and he had to stop work. Counting my dad, there was three in their family, now only Therese was left of that generation.

John was always talked about very fondly, in fact thinking about it now, he had sometimes been talked about in the past tense, as if he had already died, poor man.

My mother spent some time explaining to the girls that Uncle John had passed away, and was probably already in heaven, but it would be for the best if they just said a wee prayer to help him on his journey. Death is no longer a mystery to my children. We have had a cat who was run over by a motorbike, and two budgies dead of a virus. We also had some tropical fish that ate their own babies; an experience I don’t ever wish to go through with my children again.

Nevertheless, they are beginning to understand that people and animals sometimes leave and don’t come back. They also love the drama of tears when they haven’t actually hurt themselves, so they manage to cry a bit during the prayer and Mam was well impressed. She calls them her sensitive wee souls.

A Thursday funeral means a reception into the church on Wednesday night. This is an exclusively Catholic tradition, part of the very long goodbye. All the mourners gather at the church in the evening and the coffin is brought in to stay overnight, ready for the Mass in the morning. A few years ago the relatives and friends would sit vigil with the coffin till morning, but sadly all the churches have to be locked against robbers and vandals these days so the coffin sits alone.

This now seems like a good time to bring up the subject of money. Timing can be everything.

‘Can you lend me some money till next week Mam?’ I ask.

‘No bother hen, but don’t you be spending it on cigarettes will you?’

‘Okay, don’t worry.’ I give her a kiss on the cheek as she hands over the money. We should have a crisis every week if it makes her so amenable.

Wednesday 7th may

I spend most of Wednesday preparing for the evening service and the Thursday Mass. I need to organise a minder for the kids, someone to walk John to school in the morning, and find something respectable to wear. I will probably borrow from my perfect sister Kate, as she has outfits for every occasion. She also has a steady job in the offices of the steelworks in Motherwell, a visible husband, and no baggage, i.e. children, so she can afford to be generous and actually, she doesn’t mind sharing.

Just before seven o’clock on Wednesday evening there is a small crowd, mostly women, gathered outside the church. It’s a bitter cold dry evening and the women’s faces are pale as pressed rose petals. Some of my mates, who were just passing by on their way to the bingo in the church hall, huddle together with me chatting and smoking. I spy my mother arriving and throw the cigarette away quickly, but not quick enough for her hawk eyes.

‘Margaret! You’re a pure embarrassment to me,’ she whispers, ‘smoking in the street like a prostitute.’

‘Dry your eyes mother this is 1983 not 1933,’ I whisper back, not fully intending her to hear this bit of cheek, but she gives me a look with enough frost in it to kill a fruit tree.

The service is short and John Coyle’s praises are duly sung. Old Father Ryan rambles on a bit and reminisces about when John was a young boy, a devout altar boy of course. Father Ryan could, of course, be making this up. At every Carfin funeral I have attended the deceased have either been dedicated alter boys in their youth or in the case of the women, members of the Legion of Mary, one of the many in-house cults of the Catholic Church. All a bit too good to be true, but a compassionate embellishment. Father Ryan gives his apologies, he will not be saying the morning funeral mass as he is going on his annual retreat. A bit like a busman’s holiday, these retreats, lots of praying and contemplation, supposedly what they should be doing in their day job anyway.

A relief priest, Father McDonald, will be his replacement for the week. A soft murmur of disappointment floats round the church, Father Ryan is very popular with the older set.

I help to give out the tea and biscuits in the church hall after the service. I hand Father Ryan his tea and he sits down heavily on a bench at a trestle table. Not a drop of tea was spilled, the sure sign of a practiced drinker. While he sips his tea, at least a dozen people approach him and say how sadly missed he’ll be tomorrow and for the next week. I think they forget that it’s Uncle John who is supposed to be sadly missed. Thankfully, I am able to leave a bit early by telling Mam that I was paying a sitter by the hour.

I lied about paying the baby-sitter, my intermittently estranged husband had turned up at teatime. He’d heard about John’s demise on the grapevine and offered to watch the kids tonight and tomorrow for the funeral. The lie was a necessity, as Charlie is not too popular a character with the rest of my family. Charlie O’Hara’s not really a bad guy, just a shit husband. Mam feels more upset about the separation status than we do.

He’s handsome, with light brown wavy hair and blue grey eyes, he is funny and a good cuddle. He’s also fickle and childish and can’t really resist women in general, which makes any long-term relationship with him virtually impossible unless you are a forgiving saint. I’m not. I always had the feeling early on that it would never work with us so there was no real surprise, after little Rosie was born that Charlie started to spend more and more time away.

We sort of drifted into separation not long after being shot-gunned into marriage. However, despite all his flaws, Charlie is a trusted baby-sitter and a friend to the kids, if not a father figure. He’s very discrete about his other activities, some romantic and some a bit illegal, so we get on fine. Mam thinks I live in sin because I don’t keep my marriage vows, but she conveniently forgets that it takes two to make or break. Our situation is not so different from lots of couples I know who try to remain friends while apart, for the comfort of the kids.

Kate also frowns on my relationship with Charlie, her world is more black and white than mine, and she thinks we should be together or divorced with proper bits of paper stating custody and access, and legal words setting us free to start again. There may be just a touch of envy there, she scoffed at my pre-nuptial bump but I bet now she wishes it could have been her in the same state.

Everyone accepts that mothers cry at weddings, but at mine the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom clung to each other and wept tears of relief that we had made it to the Altar, before the waters broke.

Chapter 2

Thursday 8th May

Huntington's disease was previously called Huntington's chorea. Chorea means jerky, involuntary movements - a main symptom of the condition. This is so far an incurable condition.

Thursday morning, and the church is full to the gunnels for the funeral Mass, everyone looking smart, wearing nice dark respectful clothes and solemn expressions. Most of the people in the church are related to each other, from close family to kissing cousins.

Patrick comes on the Altar to light the candles, he is also a distant cousin, but not too bright, in fact not even as bright as his candles. He has helped the priests set up mass for the last 40 years. He has a terrible limp. He drags his left leg like a truculent child back and forth in front of the altar, a victim of childhood polio. When we were small Kate and Mickey and I were terrified of Patrick. He was the real life boggy man and we scared each other silly with stories of how he would capture us, and torture us, and worst of all make us touch his bad leg. We could imagine nothing in the world more horrible than that.

Poor Patrick, he probably has no idea of the traumatic effect he had on a whole generation of Carfin kids, parents threatened their children with him as punishment for bad behaviour, we thought he was a monster.

‘You better be home before dark or Patrick’ll get you’, still rings in my ears.

Young Father McDonald, who’s a stranger to most of us, gets on with the Mass and then at sermon time, he talks briefly about Uncle John’s life. There is a moment then that will be remembered by me for a long, long time.

‘Although John O’Hara was ill for many years, we cannot say he didn’t lead a useful life. He was a hard worker in his day, and a great supporter of the Grotto. The Lord has reasons for everything, but some, we will never understand.’

Father McDonald then went on to say,

‘I will pray for John’s family who have had to bear the burden and worry of this particular condition, as the hereditary links can be ruthless and devastating.’

Silence, you could have heard a pin drop, and then there was a soft intake of breath from someone behind us, and a few embarrassed sounding coughs. I couldn’t catch my Mother’s eye and I was totally mystified at what the priest had said. What burden? What condition? Hereditary, what was he talking about? Mam kept her head respectfully bowed but Kate turned to me and gave me a look and a shrug which implied the Priest was at the wrong funeral, because he certainly wasn’t making any sense at this one.

The mass finished with the final blessing and we all sang ‘Receive his soul into the Kingdom of heaven,’ the finality of the words of this hymn make it a real tearjerker. It’s unfortunate that it’s the last hymn as it’s the worst time to get emotional, when you have to walk out of your seat and face everyone else in the church.

As we leave, I see Mickey in the back pew, he steps out as my Mother passes and he takes her arm protectively. He is such a dear, he holds no resentment towards Mam although she consistently criticises him and fails to condone or even understand his lifestyle. He is so handsome, heads turn, and Mam manages a sad smile, she can always play to the gallery.

Things get a bit busy then, sorting people in cars and the hired bus for the short journey to the cemetery. The cortège passes the main Carfin crossroads where the Muslim Culture centre is, the makeshift Mosque. Called locally ‘the paki mosque’. It started life as a Church of Scotland, and with few modifications is now a unique cultural landmark in Lanarkshire. A group of young men loitering on the front steps stop what they are doing and move to stand respectfully at the edge of the pavement until all the funeral cars go by.

These young men are second and third generation Pakistani Lanarkshire lads. Mostly they are exotically handsome with dark good looks and broad west of Scotland accents. They seem to have confidence in who they are and where they belong, and have adopted some gallus Carfin habits, like always having a fag behind their ear, for any emergency smoking opportunity, and acknowledging friends with an upward tilt of the chin, which is not so much a nod but equivalent to a handshake.

They retain their middle-eastern identity and their style is polished off with adopted Scottish-ness, for example, they smoke, bet at the race track, and wear their football colours when not wearing their robes.

I kept going over and over what Father McDonald had said at the mass. What was he talking about? I’ll have to interrogate him and Mam later.

There is a standard steak pie reception in the Cooperative hall in Motherwell, good wholesome food, nicely cooked. We call the steak pie purvey a nice funeral or a rush wedding; guess what we ate at my wedding?

Everyone has a drink but no one overdoes it, there’s no house to go back to continue the wake, as John’s flat was given up to the council a long time ago. John’s sister Therese thanks everyone for coming but doesn’t invite anyone back to her house. Fair enough, it’s only an excuse for more alcohol and that’s never a good thing.

Chapter 3

Still Thursday 8th may.

It is possible to have symptoms of Huntington's disease for a long time before you find out you have the condition. It is a very gradual onset.

The funeral finishes and it’s still early. Mickey has his car so he drops me off at my mate Betty’s house, one street away from mine, for coffee and a gossip. I may as well take advantage of Charlie’s good nature, if I stay away long enough he‘ll collect John from school give the kids their tea, a nice wee break for me.

Betty has a pleasantly chaotic household. She has two wee boys, two dogs and an evil cat, and more often than not a social worker sitting on the couch with a face like a smacked arse.

Today the boys are playing in the back garden. They are both pre-schoolers. Andrew, who is five, starts school in September and Jamie, four, goes to playschool three day a week. No John-Paul or Francis-Xavier for her boys, she is one of the few non-Catholics in the street, and in