The Forgotten Highlander - Alistair Urquhart [4]
On the very rare occasions the adults did speak of it they did so in hushed tones. The trenches of the Western Front were a vast, industrialised slaughterhouse – where youth was squandered in a way that the old Highlanders, for all of their bloodthirsty ways, could never have imagined. Looking back I wonder now what effect the war had on my father’s life. Perhaps before it he had been an exuberant, outgoing character, full of small talk and fun.
Certainly the father I knew was remote and distant. He had survived the Great War and the Great Depression. He was content to live out ‘a quiet life’, and small boys like me should most definitely be seen and not heard. I pressed him on his wartime experiences but he never encouraged my curiosity. The thousand-yard stare that glazed over his eyes whenever the subject came up, or when he heard the wireless’s news bulletins of faraway battles, spoke volumes.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, I went back to work as usual and waited. It did not take long. On 23 September, just a few days after my twentieth birthday, the dreaded letter from the War Office dropped through the letter box at home.
When I returned from work Mum handed it to me and with nervous fingers I opened one of the few letters that had ever been addressed to me personally. The envelope, stamped ominously ‘On His Majesty’s Service’, was addressed to ‘Mr. Alistair Kynoch Urquhart, 9 Seafield Drive West, Aberdeen’. Its contents informed me that four days hence I was to report to the Gordon Highlanders’ headquarters at the Bridge of Don barracks near the seafront on the northern outskirts of Aberdeen.
With a sinking feeling I looked at the letter again and again. But there was no mistake and no opting out. Far from being the last to be called up, I was one of the first. Suddenly the realisation hit me: ‘I will lose my job!’
Since the age of fourteen I had been working at Lawson Turnbull, plumbers’ merchants and electrical wholesalers, which stretched along most of Mealmarket Street in central Aberdeen. Previously I had attended Robert Gordon College, a well-known and prestigious grammar school, along with my brother Douglas, who was eighteen months my senior.
When my father’s income fell our parents could not afford to keep us both in study. I had a two-year bursary but when that ran out the family simply could not pay for me to attend school. To help my mother out I had to get a job and quickly. I applied for several positions and within a fortnight, even though I was shy of my fifteenth birthday and still wearing short trousers, Mr Grassie took me on as an office boy. I was so proud. Ignoring all of the usual distractions I raced home in exultation to tell Mum the good news. I was elated to start work at a wage of 5/- (25p) per week. The hours were long, 8 a.m. till 5.30 p.m. Monday to Friday, and included Saturdays till 1 p.m.; on Christmas Days we were allowed to go home at 3 p.m. But I was thrilled. It was a good job with the possibility of advancement. And I would be contributing financially at home.
To begin with I never had any one special role in the company. I just did what was required. One day I would be packing crates bound for Wick in the far north of Scotland and on the next my puny teenage arms would be hoisting cast-iron baths on to the back of flatbed trucks. I really enjoyed it apart from the cold. There was no heating in the wide-open warehouse and you still had to wear a collar and tie. I had to buy my own company coat and I would wear my collar and tie over the top. It looked ridiculous but it was better than freezing to death. I also used to stuff