Written While I Still Remember

By Tom Robson

Tom Robson began to write creatively in his forties after he moved to Nova Scotia. Originally, his work was either with or for his elementary school students, or purely for the satisfaction that results from creating. Though his students were primarily the target audience for much of his fiction, poetry and plays, he also compiled reminiscences of his ancestry, his early life in England and, later, his life after becoming an immigrant in Canada.

"Written While I Still Remember" is a history of the times, as well as a personal portrait composed during the last thirty years. The collection of sometimes true stories and poems coincided with a distancing from his children and grandchildren, most of whom had little perception of the people, places and situations that had shaped him. This book is meant to right that wrong—to give life to their shadowy predecessor. Too often, individuals wait until it is too late to discover the facts behind the elders in their lives. Of course, facts can be embellished by the elderly’s tale-telling.

Tom hopes his collection proves that tales from an ordinary life can be interesting to readers outside the family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Catherine A. MacKenzie
• Release date: Nov 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310126024

Tom Robson

Born a proud Yorkshireman before World War Two, Tom Robson grew up amid the history, traditions and beauty of the New Forest in southern England, returning there to begin a forty-year career in education.He and his family immigrated to Canada in 1971. From Montreal, Tom moved east to Nova Scotia while his first family went west. It was then he began writing, with the encouragement of his second wife, Barb, who has put up with his indulgence for almost forty years.Over the years, he has amassed an eclectic collection of plays, poems, stories, fact-based fiction and one award-winning novel for mid-teens. Until recently, publication has avoided him. This book is preceded by his contribution to the anthology, "Out of the Mist, 22 Atlantic Canadian Ghost Stories."Tom no longer believes that self-publication is the last refuge of the rejected writer. He does believe that publishing companies’ autocratic editors are a vanishing breed and that the business of life is the acquisition of memories.“It's good to have these stories written and published for when the memory fades,” Tom says.

Book preview

I discovered the satisfaction that comes from writing when I was in my forties. I have since tried it in many forms and know that the easiest stories to bring from the creative cavern somewhere inside tell of events and situations close to you. Such personal writing doesn’t require too much research. Very few know if your stories are true, exaggerated, a figment of a too-vivid imagination, or a hope for what might have been. Stories create a fragmented picture of who you are, where you came from, and the events and people who shaped you. These stories are snapshots of an autobiography, compiled as I enjoy my seventy-ninth year.

You may find some contradictions in the stories that follow. Put those down to either selective memory or creative license. Any errors are mine. They prove all that teacher insistence on spelling and grammatical accuracy, which turned me off writing in school, did not foster exactness, though it did inhibit creative writing for about thirty years.

My thanks to the teacher, long forgotten, who told me that I, as well as my Grade 6 students, would benefit if I wrote with them. That may also be the same educator who made me realize that setting down one’s ideas and story creations in written form was a key to organizing oneself and a help to students, so they could better formulate ideas and information. She did not tell me you could gain such enjoyment and satisfaction from process and product.

My thanks to those elementary students who wrote, and perhaps suffered, while I pursued these beliefs with them.

Barb has put up with me getting lost in writing for many years, yet has continued to encourage me. I love her all the more for that.

Meeting the members of the Evergreen Writers Group and their supportive attitude to those who write in their dotage has given me a new lease of creative life, and I acknowledge their contribution to this process.

Three quotes typify this book. In Downton Abbey, Mr. Carson said, The business of life is the acquisition of memories. In the end, that's all there is. A university professor commented, when handing back a journal that we had to write as a part of her course and our learning, Tom, you never use one word when you can use six! And, you have been warned because it is what it is!

Tom Robson

November 2014

Legends, Persuasions and Retributions

Some families have a long, legendary history from which stories have sprung. In many families, you don't have to go too far back to find interesting tales.

My grandparents were born in the north of England, though three of them can trace their roots over the border to Scotland. Not so with Emma Harrison, the third child and only daughter of a legendary champion Cumbrian wrestler who brought his family to Durham to work in the new industries at Billingham. There Emma met Tom Oliphant, who had a reputation as a concert party performer and irresponsible lady’s man.

By August 1912, Emma was six months pregnant, and it seemed Tom had no intention of taking responsibility and marrying her. Her father, the wrestler, threatened to teach Tom a lesson. Before he had the chance, according to the whispered family history, his two sons took Tom to a quiet ginnel and persuaded him to do the right thing by Emma. Tom got the message, married Emma in September, and my mother, Vera, was born in November.

Fourteen years later, Vera, the eldest of what would become a family of ten, was taken by her father to her first job where she was to enter the service of a family. Father and daughter walked to the family’s home, which was over the hill in the next Durham valley, and Vera was accepted as a live-in maid. Tom left her there and headed home, pausing only in a pub or two to refresh and reward himself. When he arrived back home, Vera was there. The lady of the house had intimidated her new housemaid, who sneaked away and ran home to mother. Tom and Vera made the return journey to work the same day. The employer gave her another chance and she stayed.

Ten years later, in 1935, Vera was the live-in housekeeper for a family on Harehills Lane, Leeds. A little ways up the hill lived Fred, the youngest of the Robson family. Fred and Vera met, courted, and were married. Vera gave birth to a son the following June. For years, the son wondered why Fred had given Vera a huge bunch of flowers every New Year's Day. Eventually Tom realized it was an anniversary present, for a wedding date never spoken.

Fred's mother, Jane, had been born a Robson and married another when she lived in Haltwhistle, a town on the South Tyne River in Northumberland. Her husband, another Tom Robson, represented those who had moved from the wilds of Northumberland to find work in the industrial cities, such as Sunderland, where he was born.

Tynedale, the valley of the North Tyne River, had been the ancestral home of the Robson clan since the 1300s. Jane Robson's family had farmed since before the 1600s in a narrow valley of the Warksburn that flowed into the Tyne. This is border country, either side of Hadrian's Wall. It is rugged with rocky outcrops, huge tracts of marshland, heath and few trees. Bushes are stunted in this hill country, but heather thrives, as do sheep. Here the Robson clan raised cattle and sheep. They followed in the best traditions of the border reivers who were active from the 1300s until King James 1st determined to put a stop to the lawlessness, thieving, feuding, fighting and murder that had gone on for centuries.

In the sixteenth century, my Robson ancestors were reivers. Banditry and thieving were the norm. The Charltons, Milburns, Nixons, Elliots, Grahams, Armstrongs, Dodds and the Johnstons are some other disreputable Scottish border clans of this wild region. The area was designated as The Marches—East, Central and West. Wardens were appointed for each by Scotland and England.

It is not surprising that the families had little regard for the wardens' authority. Feuds were many and complicated. You injured a member of a family, physically or honourably, then you offended the entire clan and revenge was a requisite. Some clans could raise 500 men. Clad in leather jerkins, they rode their hardy ponies that could navigate secret paths through the bogs. A reiver could be armed with a lance and perhaps a crossbow, certainly a sword and dagger. Many clans built a fortress, a Pele Tower with a single entrance about fifteen feet up the very thick stone wall, the access ladder being taken in when an enemy threatened.

Cattle or sheep stealing were organized winter activities. Reiving expeditions were usually against another family who had somehow offended yours, recently or even generations previously. Most often the Scots families would steel from the English and then flee back across the border with their plunder. The English looked north for their raids. Some reivers changed nationality when it was convenient.

Supposedly it was illegal to cross the ill-defined border to steal or even retrieve livestock. That law was ignored by the reivers. They adhered to the traditional custom of Hot Trod, where the aggrieved family could cross the border to retrieve their animals and exact revenge as long as it was within six days of the loss. In the harsh winters of the Scottish border, they might not be aware of the loss of sheep or cattle left grazing on the moor for weeks. After six days, however, there was still retribution. Killing was not the intention though it did happen, fuelling the many feuds.

The traditional enemies of the Robsons were the Grahams, who lived north of the border in Liddesdale. The reasons for the enmity have been lost in time, but it was intensified when the Robsons made a foray into Liddesdale and stole a large flock of Graham sheep. They brought the sheep back to Tynedale to mingle with their own herds. Unfortunately, the stolen sheep were infected with scab, which spread through both herds, decimating them and infuriating the Robsons.

The Robsons mounted a second expedition back over the border. There they captured seven Graham men to whom they meted out border justice, retribution and revenge.

They hanged them.

They left a sinister note with the bodies. "The next time gentlemen cam’ to tak’ their sheep they are no to be scabbit."

Considering my early ancestry, it’s amazing I am so civilized.

Ann Lauderdale — A Family Legend

Prologue

I don’t believe that this legendary Ann of the Robson family had her story put in writing until a first romanticized attempt some fifteen years ago. Born in the early years of the nineteenth century, four generations preceding mine, she married my maternal great-great grandfather, Robert Robson, in 1837. A version of the story of her background that she supposedly told to her children and grandchildren has been passed down. The successive retellings attributed noble Scottish origins to her. The version my generation heard described her as the disowned, dishonoured daughter of the Earl of Lauderdale, refusing an arranged marriage and fleeing south across the wild border country to the valley of the North Tyne, in Northumberland, where the Robsons had farmed for generations.

How this noble lady met and married my great-great grandfather, Robert Robson, son of a hill farmer, was never part of the legendary tale. Perhaps it happened this way.

Romance

It was a cold day for late September, even for the bleak and wild hill country around the narrow valley of the North Tyne River.

Snug in their stone house, the farmer and his family were surprised to hear, above the sounds of the driving rain and howling wind, a timid tapping on the stout wooden door to their home. The sheep dogs on the outside had set up a loud barking, which was not unusual on a windy day. But it was not the wind up their tails that caused them to bark that time.

A peek out the window into the gathering gloom revealed nothing. Few people passed the remote farm at Coldcoates, set in the steep-sided valley of the Warksburn. Fewer still visited, especially in such weather.

The only road up to and beyond the farm was a narrow track which led past Kilder Forest to the Scottish border a few miles north. It was a road that, in times past, had been used by border raiders, the reivers. But it was now 1836. Those violent times were long gone, as were the feuds with the Elliots and Armstrongs.

Nevertheless, the farmer took a stout cudgel with him to unlatch the door. His two grown sons, Harry and Robert, stood close behind. When the door swung open, a figure fell in, followed closely by a hooded person who staggered over the threshold. She threw back the hood of her cape and stooped to check her collapsed companion. Her large eyes, pleading for help, looked up at the three men standing over her.

The farmer and his family were stunned. The arrival of two women was the last thing they had expected. The father told his two sons to check outside to see if any others were there. There were no others, only two small bundles. A leather valise was found nearby the next morning. It seemed that the two cold, bedraggled and exhausted women were travelling alone, and on foot.

Back inside, Robert moved to help his mother, who had taken charge of the survivors. By the light of the lamp, held up by his elder brother, he took in the pale, wet and windblown beauty of the tall, young woman who was trying to pillow the head of her fallen companion. Gently he knelt beside her. As he did so, she collapsed against him.

Haway now! Robert’s mother urged. Best get these bairns out of these wet clothes and into a warm bed. You boys! Get that fire blazin’ and the kettle and pots of water boiling. If we div’na get these two warm, they’ll not survive.

Summoning her daughter to help her and ushering the men out of the room, the farmer’s wife took charge and set about reviving the two mysterious travellers.

Thus it was that Ann of Lauderdale came into the life of this family. In that brief instant before she fainted away, while Robert gazed into the pleading blue eyes of the storm-drenched woman, he felt a sense of wonder.

When night passed and daylight broke through the scattering storm clouds, Ann revived. Momentarily her eyes opened. As the mother forced warm mutton broth between Ann’s lips, she assured the younger woman she was safe and urged her to sleep. She did not say her less robust friend was suffering from cold that neither blankets nor hot stones wrapped in cloths and placed in her bed could remedy. The walk through the wild terrain in such terrible weather had exposed her frail health to conditions from which she would not survive.

Before Ann woke, many hours later, the Robson brothers were digging her companion’s grave in the plot of land beneath the tall oak where lay others of their family. When Ann was sufficiently recovered to ask about Mary, the woman she had half-carried to the shelter of the farm and family the prior night, Margaret Robson gently told her of her companion’s sad fate.

The news put Ann into a state of melancholy that kept her in bed, seemingly with no interest in ever emerging again. That condition persisted for a few days until the farmer’s wife determined it could go on no longer. She intervened. Behind the closed bedroom door could be heard whispers, tears, commands and comforts that ceased when the door opened and both women emerged.

As the days passed, Ann gradually regained her strength and emerged from the girls’ bedroom for a little longer each day. Her clothes had been cleaned, washed and dried. The only clue the garments gave to her identity was that they were far finer than anything worn or seen by the Robson women. A search of the travelling bag had revealed a little money but no clue to the identity of either woman.

Though Robert dearly wanted to know who the mysterious beauty was, he was not bold enough to ask. An outdoorsman, used to spending long days working on the fells with the sheep, he suddenly spent many unaccustomed hours inside the house, happy to catch a brief look at the lady. For it became clear she was a lady. Simply to be near her was enough for the love-struck Robert.

But his father had a curiosity that needed to be satisfied. Who was she? What was her story? A direct man, the father wanted to question Ann. She had revealed her name as Ann Lauderdale. Her voice spoke in a lilting accent that disclosed her Scottish origins. How and why had she walked south through the rough border country? The senior Henry Robson itched for answers. Much to his annoyance, his questioning was postponed by the protection afforded the young woman by his wife. She insisted Ann was not yet strong enough to answer questions.

Ann’s health improved. She ventured outdoors when the late autumn weather relented. Robert was there whenever he could, to walk with her beside the rushing Warksburn. He comforted her whenever she paused beside her companion’s fresh grave, where she wept, seemingly inconsolable.

His father chided him. Tha’d best marry her, lad. Tha’ll get nothing done around here while thas mooning around after that lass! Then he would add, But she’ll not have thee, tha knows. That’un is too good for the likes of a poor farmer’s son!

For her part, Ann seemed to enjoy Robert’s attentions. But one evening, while the family sat around the supper table, Ann announced that she would have to move on before winter set in.

The announcement caused Robert dismay. It also gave his father the opportunity he had been denied by his protective wife. He told Ann she was welcome to their hospitality, poor though it might seem to her, and could stay as long as she wished. All she owed them was an explanation of how and why she had come to arrive, half-dead, on their doorstep a month previously.

Then, as if to ensure that his wife would not be too angry at the questioning of the secretive but still frail Ann, he assured her again that she did not have to leave them.

Ann sat quiet for a long minute. She looked directly at Robert, and then at his father. I have to leave, Mister Robson. I cannot stay if I tell you why and from whence I came. I would dearly love to stay, for I have found peace and contentment here that have been denied me this past year. But if I stay and am found out, my presence could spoil the happiness your family knows and shares with me.

There was another long silence, and looks were exchanged between father and mother. After the unspoken communication that occurs between husband and wife, who have no need of words on such occasions, Margaret Robson spoke.

Haway, love! Tha must stay if that’s what tha wants. Nobody’ll bother us up here! And pay no heed to that husband o’ mine. When you’re ready to tell us your tale, we’ll listen. She turned to her husband. Until then, Henry Robson, be patient!

The head of the family nodded, in agreement.

Ann responded that she would not stay unless she could help, as did others in the house. And stay she did, much to the delight of the lovelorn Robert.

It was scarcely a month later when Robert, with a loud clearing of his throat, interrupted the quiet that followed one family supper. That preceded his announcement that he had something important to say to them. With anxious glances in the direction of his father and