Days like these

Billy Dingwall

I have little recall of my childhood ,I certainly do not remember the ' day' our mother abandoned her 7 children ,nor the 'day' the lorry came to transport my two sisters and brothers and myself to our new orphanage home ,our two older brothers ,would join us later, our eldest brother had run away ,he didn't fancy the idea of going into an orphanage and the second oldest was apparently sickly with pneumonia so our mother decided to take him with her.

I was 3 years old when all this turmoil was going on .

It seems my mother could take no more of our fathers cruelty,

And in a desperate act ran away from it all, at the time our father was back in prison for whatever reason, ( possibly for indulging

In his passion for fighting with the gypsies again, whom he despised with a passion!)

I have no idea what day nor month we left our native Ross-shire

For Aberlour Orphanage in Banffshire, it was a large complex, you could say it was a village within a village living cheek by jowl alongside the village of Aberlour; it was a self sufficient institution

Having its own farm, school and infirmary even a cobbler.

Being so young I was placed in the nursery, I don't remember a lot about it, but what does stick in my mind was my recurring bedtime

experience which is significant to this story.

Nightly I would be found crying in my cot, the housemistress would usually then sit by my cot and hush me to sleep, she new my story well "my brother's under the bed pushing the bed up with his feet." I would feel it literally floating ,she would console by explaining that my brothers were all fast asleep. In time these happenings went away and were forgotten about.

At aged I left the orphanage and entered the big bad world.

Years later a letter arrived at my then address, it was from the Salvation Army in London. It seems that my mother had been trying to locate her kids and they had managed to seek out my

details somehow. After a few exchanged phone calls we decided that I'd pay a visit, so it was with some trepidation that made my way down to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire where my mother now stayed. On meeting her I was slightly taken aback by the frail looking stranger in front of me continually apologising to me for abandoning us all , she cried a lot , I found it hard to cry with her ,

And struggled with the word mum, but something she said on that day has stuck with me, which was, "I have never gotten over the death of your brother Alistair "! This was an utter shock to me.

I had no idea that I had a brother who had died. he had died aged 18 months a few years before I was born , I felt the goose bumps growing on my arms as I remembered those sleepless nights so many years ago and " my brother's under the bed " cries.

Even stranger was that my mother was unable to explain the cause of his death or his place of burial. I decided not to pursue it, it clearly upset her and seemed still fresh on her mind.

My mother has since passed away, but the 'day 'I found my ghostly brother remains with me.

What caused his death? Should I know? Do I want to know?

What will I unearth? I'm unsure ,but would love to visit his place of rest ,until that 'day' arrives I will probably continue to check under my bed before I go to sleep. !