Episode Nine: The letters, again

Tom, back row far left. Wish I knew which one was his pal, George.

January 21st 1946

Helen’s letter to Tom suggests for the first time her fragile state of mind. Her contradictions.

I do wish people wouldn’t fill my mind with doubts, for mine is a love that needs encouragement. So Tom, if you have even the least bit doubt please tell me now. I have searched my mind but I’m afraid I shall have to wait till I am more settled.

I stopped at the word ‘afraid’ just now. In fact I stopped writing to you for nearly an hour. It’s not you I’m beginning to doubt but myself. This letter must sound very complicated. I don’t have to go into detail, but Annie just came in there and we got talking about Religion. She was telling me I must have absolutely no love for you if I doubt you in the least. She thinks I live far too much by public opinion. But I don’t, Tom.

This letter gets worse and worse. I’m not even taking time to write it sensibly. I’ve just had a good cry since Annie went upstairs. Nothing is very clear. Please don’t go off the deep end about all of these disturbances like I have. I hate the idea of anyone feeling sorry for me.

Please don’t say anything to anybody back home. Your father, I’m quite sure, must think a lot of me too and the reason for his warning is because he doesn’t want to see us getting hurt.

I love seeing that pause in the letter writing. Her need to step away from the page and tell him about it when she returns. The way that her sister, Annie, knows exactly what to say to rile her up. It makes me think about the sisterly dynamic at Lochgreen. Two sisters and a soon-to-be sister-in-law all working together in service to the Collins family, their own inevitable dramas playing out in a below-stairs way.

In amongst all the stuff I found at Auchengate was a long poem written by Margaret, my grandmother’s youngest sister. There were photos, too, that revealed so much about the family dynamic. Their differences. Here is one taken at their elder sister Lizzie’s wedding. Helen is the tall one in the middle of the back row, wearing the hat. I’d discover while writing this memoir that she dreamed of becoming a milliner.

Helen, back row centre, and Margaret second from right. Annie far right.

My grandmother was known in the family as Ella and chose to revert to her birth name of Helen, it seemed, only when she met Tom

These lines say a lot about Margaret’s opinion of her older sister, but speak to the version of Helen / Ella / Gran that I knew. Her hopes would be dashed, of course. I think she thought that marrying Tom and being the wife of a sawmiller would somehow be a step up from the poverty of her childhood. Maybe her nature and early life traumas played their parts in fuelling this fantasy, too?

All four of my grandparents lost a parent in childhood, which may not have been unusual in the 1920s and 30s but I can’t imagine the horror of this now. Tom was 9 when his mother, Mary, died at the age of 29 from TB. I posted about her in this Note on Friday. Helen was 11 when her father died of a heart attack at 39. It’s the reason why, three years later, she was sent from Maddiston, a small village later absorbed into the town of Falkirk in Scotland’s central belt over to Ayrshire to work in service. Her elder sisters, including Annie, had gone before her.

---

And the story, of course, goes on. But not here. Not just now. The manuscript is looking for a home, and I can’t share any more of these words yet. I can, however, share a few more photos that hint at the story to come…

Helen and Tom’s sister Mary in Troon, 1945. This is the photo Helen eventually sends to him. He’d called her a ‘smasher,’ to which she replies in a later letter, ‘Aye - a window smasher.’

Tom and Helen at Auchengate in 1948. I played in and around that saw shop with my cousins growing up. Little sense of danger.

1996, and embroiled in a summer-long game we called The Auchengate Olympics

Tom and Helen on the left. Tom’s father – Alexander – in the middle and second wife – another Mary – beside him (late 1940s). Alexander was the one who encouraged Helen’s drinking while Tom worked away for long stretches at the mobile sawmills in the Scottish Highlands.

---

So in the meantime, if you’re looking for more memoir words, here’s a link to Edges, the extract for which I won the John Byrne Award last year:

And a link to Carapace, another extract which was shortlisted for the Writers’ Award at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival in May 2022:

Read Carapace here

I wrote a piece for Hillcrest Creative in response to their prompt, What is an Island? which draws inspiration from the memoir. Maybe you’d like a sense of how the story ends? If so, this might be worth a read:

Read What is an Island? here

And finally some memoir-adjacent words from the autumn, which flesh out a bit more of my mother’s story which we haven’t really gotten in to at all yet…

---

Serialising memoir in this way on

Substack

has been such a rich experience. Being able to share audio, images and backstory all in one place has helped me to see how much scope we have to make something new here. That a text doesn't only live in bookbound form. In fact, if anything, here it can breathe.

In so many beautiful ways, sharing the beginning of this intergenerational story with you these past few months has brought me back to it after almost a year away from the manuscript. And to how important writing our lives into one another’s actually is. The path to healing and integration it forges.

I'll be writing about memoir next Sunday for all subscribers. My experience of writing one, but also as an invitation to you to think more richly about the stories you hold within you that need to be told. Questioning why we write memoir at all. What compels us to wrestle the chaos of life into something coherent and, even, beautiful.

If this story has resonated with you, I’d love it if you'd tell someone else. Just another human who has lived a life. And if you've enjoyed the preview linked here, or the other free episode I shared on Christmas Eve, remember you can hear all 2 hours’ worth of audio, and access all other Member benefits including this Tuesday evening’s first of four Writing for Better Mental and Physical Health sessions for the price of a ☕ and a 🍰. The Zoom link for the Membership community is below the paywall.

Join us there? You’d be so very welcome.