Life at the Manse – J MacDonald
Submitted by: Sally Brewis - 15th December 2021
When we were first married and came to live in Harbottle there seemed to be an aura of romance in the fact that there was no electricity; we had wisely included paraffin lamps on our wedding present list. However in 1953 the village became electrified, except for us. The Presbyterian Church could not afford the £600 necessary to install a transformer. Thereafter the romantic aura seemed to evaporate, and I would walkthrough the village at night, gazing enviously through the brightly lighted window panes!
Water was always in short supply at the Manse. We were at the end of the line and up a slight hill. The birth of our second baby, less than two years after the first, presented great nappy-washing problems when water was scarce. This was solved by Helen Richardson, the doctor’s wife. My husband Alec would take down a bucketful of dirty nappies and would return home with a bucketful of clean ones!
I remember, too, in Coronation Year 1953, a visit to the village hall of a mobile cinema. I was one of the few adults among a scattering of children who sat spell-bound, watching a film entitled “Great Fights of 1924”!!
First published in Clippings in 1989 (reprinted 1990), published by Upper Coquetdale Publications ISBN 0 9515 380 0 4