Malcom Allan was born
in 1925 in Glasgow. To be precise he was born and raised in an area to the east of Glasgow
city centre called Calton, or to be even more precise, 'the' Calton.
Historically the Calton, or as it was previously known, Caltoun, had
been in the lands of the Church although it seems to have been
through many 'owners'. The lands were full of clay deposits and there
are records of early brick making although that changed and it became
a centre of weaving.
In 1787 Calton became
even more famous because of industrial strife and a conflict forever
known as the Calton Weaver's massacre. It is recorded as the first
industrial conflict in Scotland and it resulted in the killing of six
of the striking workers. Gunned down by government forces. I am sure
it was not the first incident of industrial conflict in Scotland,
however history emerges from whoever takes the trouble to write it
down and even if not quite accurate, once time passes, then it is
gospel. Where can I draw that parallel? The incident is also
commemorated in a song of the same named, Calton Weavers. While many
have sung that song, I like Hamish Imlach's version.
In the days of the
weaving the area was reasonably well off, principally because of the
wages a weaver could demand. However that situation altered
dramatically over the next one hundred years or so and in modern
times the poverty in which many Calton residents live was recognised
by the World Health Organisation. In 2006 for example a report
suggested that a child born in the Calton area of Glasgow, that
iconic Scottish city, would have a life expectancy lower than the
residents of the Gaza Strip in the middle east. A strip of land where
most residents forge an existence in a string of refugee camps and in
the main rely on aid from the United Nations to survive. That report
put the the lifespan of a Calton resident at 53.9 years.
There were other
influences. The predominantly Roman Catholic Irish immigrant
population and the sectarian tensions that emerged from that, as well
as the more recent phenomenon, the tribal gangland culture of the
city from which the Calton was not immune. A culture that gave birth
to the Calton Tongs with their war cry, Tongs Ya Bass. So Caltoun
became Calton and then 'The' Calton before morphing into an
altogether more evocative name, Tongland.
Malcolm was six years
of age when, in 1931, in a tenement in Suffolk Street, Calton,
Florence Allan, was born. She was raised into that mix of influences;
history, conflict, culture and poverty. She was one of a family of
nine children and while not from Irish Immigrant stock, one day, in a
place she would never have heard of in her Calton days and in a
different life, she would marry into Irish Immigrant stock and
through that marriage to my mother's brother she would become my
aunt.
Florence was eight
years of age when war was declared on 3 September 1939.
On the 2 September
1939, the day before war was declared, Florence, her mother Jeanie,
her sisters and two of her brothers were evacuated from their home in
the Calton. They were not alone. Children the length and breadth of
Great Britain were being evacuated from cities identified by the
Government as likely targets for enemy air attack. They were taken to
'safer' areas. Many families from Calton were loaded into coaches
that day and taken out of Glasgow to a new world. In the case of the
Allan family that new world was the village of Bonnybridge in
Stirlingshire. It was on the Forth and Clyde canal and was the centre
of many iron foundries and the Rayburn Stove. It was also on the
forefront of what had been a different and markedly more ancient
conflict, between the Roman Empire and the northern Britains as it
lay immediately adjacent to and abridging in some spots, Antonine's
wall. But that's a conflict too far.
One of her brother's
who was evacuated was Malcolm, then 14 years of age.
Her father and her
other two brothers stayed on in Suffolk Street.
The Allan family was
housed in a barber's shop, or perhaps one should refer to it as a
hairdressing salon, in a tenement in High Street, Bonnybridge. So
they in fact moved from Tongland to Tongland I suppose? The barber
and owner of the shop was Allan Gillespie. He was absent on war
duties. The family was informed they would have to move out when the
owner returned.
Their new home,
according to Florence, was good in so many ways. There was plenty
room for the family and it had so many sinks. In fact she had never
seen a house with so many sinks. All these years later her abiding
memory of the house was the abundance of sinks. It was between
McGregor's shop on one side and Marcella's chip shop on the other
side, a perfect location.
The Allan family
settled in and life moved on.
The war raged on and in
June 1940 two momentous things happened. The British Army was routed
and the majority had to be evacuated from Europe at Dunkirk. That
same month the 51st Highland Division, for strategic military and
political purposes, was sacrificed at St Valery en Caux and most were
taken prisoner. My father, a Seaforth Highlander, became a prisoner
of war. I was not born at that time.
The Allan family,
certainly Florence and her siblings, would be unaware of these goings
on and continued to create a home in their new world with all the
sinks.
In 1942 they became
more aware of the war, if even in a child's way. Florence's brother
Malcolm was now 17 years of age and had signed up into the merchant
navy. Florence has no memory of his first ship or where it had taken
him. She was aware however that on his return from that maiden voyage
her big brother Malcolm was frightened. He therefore did not go back
and after a few days, Florence cannot remember how long, two civilian
police officers called at their house and arrested Malcolm and
marched him down the hill from the house to the Toll in Bonnybridge
and round the corner to the police office. While Florence has only a
few snatched memories of that day, she clearly recalls her brother
being taken from the house and one of the police officers who took
him, Sergeant Fraser. She says she will take that memory to her
grave.
That was the last time
Florence or any of his family saw Malcolm.
Malcolm was mess room
boy on the MV San Delfino an 8,702 ton armed British tanker, en route
from Houston to Halifax with a cargo of aviation spirit when she was
torpedoed and sunk by U-boat 203 on 9th April 1942 off the
coast of North Carolina, near Cape Hatteras. Out of a crew of 49,
they lost 28, including Malcolm Allan the 17 year old mess room boy
who was on his second voyage.
He would never return
to the Calton nor the new world of Bonnybridge, nor would he see his
dad Robert, his mum Jeanie or his brothers and sisters again.
Ironically he died close to another new world, United States of
America. After the sinking a
lone, unidentified body from MV San Delfino was washed ashore at
Buxton Wood, Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
That body now lies, along with a sailor from the HMT Bedfordshire,
sunk some time later in the same area, in The British Cemetery,
Hatteras Island. Annually there sacrifice is remembered at an annual
memorial service by members of the National Park Service, who
maintain the graves, the US Coast Guard and the Royal Navy.
Is the unidentified
soul from MV San Delfino that of Malcolm, my aunt's brother?
Until three years ago
Florence, my aunt and Malcolm's loving sister, had no idea where he
perished, nor of the unidentified body from his ship buried on
Hatteras Island or that there was an annual service.
Florence was
heartbroken when I told her of these things. If she had only known when she was younger and in better health perhaps she
could have visited and properly said, 'good bye Malcolm, I love you'.
'Such a long way from
Tongland', she said.
