I look at the children and the grandchildren and wonder what they will remember in another 50 years - total recall or disjointed snatches?
Mum and I were sent to the country in 1940 because Dad had to go for his job, which was arranging evacuations for Glasgow schools.
You'd think that such an upheaval would be memorable, even after all this time.
Memorable for one thing - I cut the apron strings - not completely, of course - but Mum never mattered very much again.
She was too frightened, of the dark, the silence, of our landlord (I don't know why, Charlie blootered was fair game for his wee wife) and of cows.
Imagine being afraid of cows! The boys. as a test, told me to lie down in the field and wait till the cows came to have a look - soft wet noses and great big eyes.
What she didn't know wasn't going to give her conniptions.
- My friend Mathew shared his Woodbine with me, after he discovered I didn't like the milk he stole from doorsteps. Fags from the post office counter were more interesting.
- M. took us both on a swing so high that I could see right over the bar, me sitting down, M. with his feet jammed on to the swing. His surgical boot gave me bruises in a strange place. I can still smell my hands, after being wrapped round the rusty chain for dear life.
- Play with the policeman's chidren, Mum said. Better than hanging around that wee Glasgow keelie from the Gorbals. If we were in the police garden and I needed to pee, they sent me into the bit of garden that was picked out for the purpose that particular day. M. gave me a penny or two, now and then. It's your bum they were keeking at, that's your share.
- we set a field on fire (it must have been a good summer) We didn't mean any harm, our picnic fire just went on spreading until it reached the railway line. One rusty pump was no good. The boys sent me to phone the fire brigade - I had the kind of posh voice that would be believed.
- When I fell off a makeshift slide and broke my arm I just lay in the corner of the shed, not wanting to go home to Mum. I must have moved sooner or later,to give Mum the story she told over and over again. Going to the hospital with Charlie, wondering if he was sober and his car gave up the ghost. We arrived, as I was told many times, in a roadmen's truck stinking of tar.
We went back home in time to watch the glow over Clydebank as it burned, and to dodge the soldiers and police standing guard over Hess's lane. We all came back with our twistec souvenir.
Mum didn't know what we'd been up to. She was left in peaceful ignorance all the rest of her life