From Yesterday to Bute (Part 3)

Over the next eight years, the Crafts Centre in Corwen, North Wales takes in several thousands of visitors, including coach parties from Manchester, Liverpool who are entertained by our resident band. At the same time, tens of thousands of our books are distributed far and wide.

With the money earned from the Crafts Centre and from our wholesale jewellery trade, we purchase some smallholdings on the island of Eday, Orkney and begin experimental organic farming. Why Eday? Well that, as they say, is another story. But it’s a long trip from Corwen to Eday, and with no particular need to stay in Wales, we decide that it’s time to relocate northwards.

Dorothy, Bill and I spend months looking for a suitable property in Scotland and the North of England. We investigate old school buildings, derelict hospitals, castles with no roofs, bonded warehouses without windows, and even another old workhouse. Nothing is exactly what we want.

Then in 1988, whilst watching News at Ten, we hear that a disused oil-workers’ village in a place called Portavadie, on the West Coast of Scotland, is up for sale. Dorothy and Bill head off to see it. But by the time they arrive it has already been sold. Whilst in the area, they go to see the local planning officer, who points them in the direction of the Isle of Bute. “If you’re looking for large, empty property at a reasonable price, that’s the place to look,” he says.

They arrive on the island on the short, five-minute ferry from Colintraive. A twenty minute drive takes them through Port Bannatyne, and then into Rothesay. And that’s when they fall in love with the island. Rothesay, set in a beautiful bay, surrounded by hills, is our new home - they just know it. There’s something different about this place, something serene, something safe - and yet something needy. It’s seen better days, for sure, and perhaps, just perhaps, Rothesay needs us as much as we need Rothesay. All we have to find now is bricks and mortar.

These come in the shape of the ‘Isle of Bute Hotel’ and adjoining shops, situated off the main square. Despite the fact that the owner has not wanted to sell to anyone at any price, as soon as she meets Dorothy and Bill, a door is unlocked, a window opened, and suddenly the property is ours.

Gradually, we move our business, our belongings and ourselves to Bute and settle in. I arrive in December 1988, sailing in from Wemyss Bay on the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry. I’m captivated by my first view of Rothesay. This isn’t the place I’d envisaged from my conversations with Robert Paterson fifteen years earlier. Yes, it’s quiet - but there’s nothing boring about the island. And Rothesay is a proper town - with shops, pubs and restaurants - as well as motor cars, telephones and even electricity!

Looking back today at an article published in the local newspaper, The Buteman, regarding our move to the island (‘Move to Bute Complete’, 10 February, 1989), a group of twenty-eight of us are pictured celebrating with a few drinks in a Rothesay pub. We all look very happy. When asked by a reporter what is was like coming from down South to reside on Bute, one person replied, “It’s like coming up from the Underworld to live above ground.” And so it was.

From Yesterday to Bute (Part 2)

After graduating from Edinburgh, my life’s journey takes me to Leeds for teacher training, and then onto London to study astrophysics. I love being a student too much to give it up just yet. But after finishing my year at Kings College, London, I have to find a ‘proper job’, and eventually end up teaching mathematics in a North London Comprehensive.

Teaching for me is both heaven and hell. Heaven being the sixth form, who have chosen to study maths (because they actually like it!), and also the top-steam second year class who adore tests (a punishment for them is to cancel one). Several of the second years also regularly ask for extra homework. Yes, extra homework.

Hell is all the other classes - in particular my bottom second year class, the antithesis of my top stream. They explode into my classroom with unrestrained energy and emotion. I can hardly stand it - I want to run away - but there’s nowhere to run. I put them in detention - then realise that this only means I have to spend another forty minutes with them after school. There’s something wrong here.

Despite the nice parts of teaching, I come home from school mentally and physically exhausted and turn on the television to watch ‘Grange Hill’. It’s cheaper than drink, doesn’t cause a hangover, and provides sympathetic therapy. To see other teachers suffering makes my job just about tolerable - that and the long vacations.

I spend mine in the town of Corwen, North Wales, helping to renovate an old Victorian workhouse for a newly formed educational Trust. The building is to be a College, teaching a new way of life and a natural means of health - based on Inspiration and Common Sense. The Trust is non-religious, non-political and non-medical - and its aims appeal to me very much. So much so, that after handing in my notice at school, I join the Trust and move to Wales.

The renovation work involves the usual things you have to do when faced with a building that has hardly changed in a hundred and fifty years. With only limited resources, we patch up holes in the roof, de-nail and sand down old timber (rescued from an old Victorian hospital in Liverpool before demolition), and generally turn ugly into beautiful. The workhouse has been virtually a prison, and now, from our new headquarters, we intend to do our part to set people free. Free from disease, free from indoctrination, and free from old ways of thought.

The building is also going to be a Crafts Centre, providing much-needed funds for the Trust. Candle-making, rug-making, spinning and weaving, jewellery-making, corn-dolly work and flower-craft will all take place under one roof, seven days a week.

In the evenings, when we’re not working on the building, those of us with an aptitude for music get together to write and record our own songs - encouraged by Dorothy Fosbrooke, a founder of the Trust and the original source of all our writings. Another founder, Bill Dawson, has a daughter called Debbie who suffered with cancer of the kidneys at the age of eight - but is now totally cured, thanks to a change to an animal-free diet.

Debbie has a lovely voice and bubbly personality and becomes our lead singer. Our makeshift band performs our songs to any visitors unfortunate enough to stay overnight. Standing up and playing in front of an audience is a totally new experience for me. And though at first I find it daunting, I get so used to it that a hook on a long pole is required to take me off.

From Yesterday to Bute (Part 1)

After the Beatles demise, a school friend tells me that Ringo Starr has taken six months to write his top-ten hit ‘Back off Boogaloo’. “Even I could write a song quicker than that,” I boast one day, under the teenage delusion that I can continue where the Fab Four left off.
“Well, why don’t you then?” he challenges. I pick up the gauntlet, dismissing the little thought that reminds me I can’t play an instrument. But that is about to change.

It’s September, 1973. Given the chance to leave parents, school, old memories and Leicester far behind, I jump at the opportunity. My three A-levels are my ticket to a destination far, far away from home - and the perfect excuse not to return for the weekends: it’s just not possible.

I enrol on a mathematics degree course at Edinburgh University and move into Pollock Halls of Residence. I waste little time in meeting a girl I like very much. She’s not like Deirdre Barker - not in any way. She’s bigger to start with. I learn later that her nickname BB stands for Big Bum. Yes I know, students can be so cruel - but in this case it was her mother.


Anyway, through BB I meet another student in my year who also stays at Pollock Halls. His name is Alasdair Fraser and he’s studying physics and maths. Oh, and he plays the violin - very, very well. He hears a tune and then just plays it. A real musician - unlike me. But I do try.

After collecting my first grant cheque, I waste no time in visiting a small music shop in Edinburgh that is very keen to relieve me of my income. To most students, that money is for books, food and alcohol. But to me, it’s primarily for a guitar - and an entry ticket to the world of music. I learn three chords from my guitar-playing neighbour in Pollock Halls, and prioritise my University schedule: number one, learn to play the guitar and write songs; number two, socialise and meet girls; number three, pass exams.

One day, Alasdair finds out that I play an instrument. I’ve no idea how he knows that. No, wait - I’ve just remembered: I told him. “What songs do you know?” he asks.
“The Streets of London,” I tell him. It’s a song that BB had taught me.
“Nice song. Anything else?”

“The Streets of London very very slowly.” He laughs, thinking it’s a joke. It isn’t. “Actually, I really only play my own songs,” I tell him - missing out the fact that I’m rubbish at playing anyone else’s. But Alasdair is impressed.

“I wish I could do that,” he says picking up his violin and tucking it under his chin, like anyone else would pick up a pencil. And then he plays - beautifully. Fast jigs, slow haunting melodies. He’s a natural, and I wish I’d never mentioned the guitar. But it’s too late. He gets me to play a song I’ve written called “Let Ireland Be,” a semi-political song inspired by Paul McCartney’s ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish.’ Alasdair plays the tune straightaway, and I’m in raptures. I’ve only ever played my songs to BB and my family, and to hear him accompany me is out of this World. He apologises for missing a note. Like anyone would know.

And then Robert Paterson, Alasdair’s room-mate, comes in, holding something that looks a bit like a flute, but I later learn is a chanter - a part of the bagpipes.

“That sounds good,” he says, referring to our playing. “But you could do with the pipes in it.” He has a twinkle in his eye.

Robert Paterson shares not only a room with Alasdair, but also a great sense of humour, a love of music, and a passion for Scotland. “Have you ever been to Rothesay?” he asks.
“No - where’s that?”

“The Isle of Bute - it’s a grand place. It’s where I grew up.” He digs out a map and points to a small island situated on the west coast of Scotland. It looks a long way from Edinburgh. “You should come across one vacation, Steve, you’ll love it there - it’s so quiet.” I thank him for the invitation. But to be honest, looking at his map, I can’t see the attraction of travelling to a small island in the middle of nowhere. ‘Quiet’, to me, equals boring.

YESTERDAY

A suburb of the City of Leicester in 1964. The Beatles have burst onto the World Stage, and Deirdre Barker has walked into my life. I’m completely and utterly in love with the music of John, Paul, George and Ringo - and I’m totally besotted with Deirdre. But as yet, neither the Beatles nor Deirdre know the depths of my feelings.

Then the secret’s out. To my closest school friends, I confess my love for the elf-like skinny one with the soft brown eyes and the voice like Fenella Fielding. No, not Paul McCartney - Deirdre Barker. I believe that my ten-year old peers will never divulge such a secret to all and sundry. Wrong! The secret spreads round the classroom like scarlet fever, and before the day’s out even our teacher knows. How embarrassing! And worse still, Deirdre knows too.

But the good news is that my feelings are reciprocated. Deirdre actually likes me! The Beatles sing: ‘She Loves You, yeah, yeah yeah’.


Deirdre and I exchange more than just knowing glances and smiles. I crumble at the sound of her voice as she greets me in the cloakroom with her trademark sexy: ‘Morning’. I begin to have erotic dreams about her, even though I’ve no idea what erotic means. The Beatles sing: ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’

It’s 1965. I discover that my best friend, Gordon Cockroft, fancies classmate Jane Nourish. The four of us arrange a clandestine rendezvous at the local park, where the girls lie down submissively on the grass and let us kiss them. Wow! Gordon asks me why I’ve brought my football with me. I have to explain that I’ve told my parents I’ve gone to play football - they’d kill me if they knew the truth. The girl’s aren’t the only ones lying.

‘Help!’ the movie comes out, and John Lennon tells me ‘You’re Gonna Lose that Girl.’ He’s spot on: Deirdre passes her eleven plus and wings off to Wyggeston Girls’ Grammar School, whilst I (an eleven-plus borderline failure), get shunted off to Lancaster Boys’ Secondary Modern. Even though her house is only four hundred yards from mine, we lose contact. We’re living in two different universes now.

The next three years are a nightmare as I undergo the transformation from child to adolescent. It’s not a pretty sight. Lancaster Boys is Hell on Earth. Not even the Beatles can save me now, though I’m comforted by a ‘Little Help from My Friends’.

Then one day in early February, as I’m looking out of my window contemplating my pathetic little life, Fenella Fielding rides past my house on her Moulton bike. My legs turn to jelly and my heart beats faster than a Ringo drum roll. I’m captivated. The skinny elf has turned into a gorgeous creature, and Paul McCartney screams into my ear: ‘Got to Get You Into my Life.’ Two Valentine’s cards later, we’re holding hands in the same park where we played as kids four years earlier. And once more, I’m completely and utterly in love.

But the Deirdre I rediscover at fourteen is now an alien creature to me. Mountains have grown where before was flat terrain, and what’s that on her face? Makeup, a friend tells me. She really is from outer space. The little girl I knew is now a young lady, and I have no experience of dealing with young ladies.


She talks about things at school like Latin. She tries to explain it, but I say it just sounds like a foreign language to me. Our two universes impinge, coalesce and - at times - envelope each other. We embrace passionately in the streets, loving the contact and loving each other. And yet we are from different worlds.

Deirdre is an only child; I have a younger brother and older sister. Her parents are liberal and understanding; mine are authoritarian and rigid. She rides a bike and stays out until ten; I have to travel with my feet firmly on the ground and return home by eight. I swallow the humiliation of being walked home by my bike-riding, worldly-wise goddess, exasperated by my choice of parents. I really want to give them an end of year report: ‘Could do better - much better’.

For English literature, Deirdre studies ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’, and it just so happens that a film of the play is showing at a cinema in Leicester. Deirdre asks me to go with her - on a real date!. Although this means staying out until after 8 pm, my parents, surprisingly, agree - but only on the condition that my father drives us there and back. It isn’t ideal, but it’s that or nothing; so the lift it is.

Deirdre has her hair done specially in curls and looks like a princess - a fact which I, foolishly, never compliment her on. In the cinema, we sit in fluffy red seats, holding hands, and I awkwardly put my arm around her. We feel and look like a proper couple, albeit a rather young one.


The film ends, and my father’s waiting to take us back. It’s well after ten and he wants to take me straight home after dropping Deirdre at her house. But she asks me in for a drink, and I persuade my father to leave us - saying I won’t be long. He says something about ten minutes, but I’m not really listening. I’m in love.

She pours two glasses of Coca-Cola, and puts on the Beatles ‘Abbey Road’. George Harrison sings ‘Something,’ a song I think he must have written for Deirdre, and she impulsively grabs my hand and takes me upstairs to show me some of her secret possessions: old photographs and her pony tail that she’d kept from Primary school. I can’t believe that she’s actually kept her old hair! It only confirmed that she was indeed an alien being.

Then, just to embarrass me to bits, my father’s at the door. I hadn’t been straight back and he’s furious. I’m not too pleased either, and I won’t go with him. I stay another couple of minutes with Deirdre, then go home.

The next day, my parents and I have a ‘discussion’. An argument about my freedom. I haggle for staying out till ten, but in the end have to settle for nine. Why were they being so protective - didn’t they trust me to behave? Had they brought me up so badly that I was going to rape my girlfriend, or go rampaging through the streets of Leicester?

It was only years later that I discovered the reason for their attitude. My uncle John had been friendly with a Dutch girl called Jonni when he was sixteen. She was a year older. Jonni became pregnant, and her mother found out that John was the father. The two families got together and decided that the best thing for all concerned (the ‘all’ being the parents) was that John and Jonni should marry. Neither of them wanted to; but they agreed to stay together until the child was grown up. My parents were afraid that the same thing could happen to me.

After two months of being with Deirdre, the bubble bursts. Or rather, it slowly deflates. I never stop loving her, but I think she’s gone off me. And she thinks I like someone else better - a neighbour called Debbie Branston. It isn’t true.

John Lennon urges Deirdre and I to ‘Come Together’, but I don’t have the words, or the way to explain how I feel to her. There are no ‘O’ levels in ‘Love’ or ‘Relationships’ at my school, and my parents don’t know what to say to help. Perhaps they think I’ll grow out of it.

And then the Beatles split up. It’s as if they knew about Deirdre and me and decided to call it a day too. After all, they only wrote songs for us, didn’t they? Paul, John, George, Ringo and Deirdre go off on their own individual projects. Deirdre’s is someone called Nick Berkeley - an independent, darkly handsome type who makes me feel inadequate. I had hoped to get back with Deirdre, but Paul tells me to ‘Let it Be’. And so I do.

John Lennon was murdered in 1980 and (I later discover) Deirdre left the Earth in the same decade. She and the Beatles were so much a part of my life in the 1960’s that I can never forget about her - or them; they’ll always be a part of my ‘Yesterday’.

And in the end,
The love you take
Is equal to the love
You make
(The Beatles, Abbey Road, 1969)