“A burden shared is a burden halved.” - T.A. Webb
Medical Update
As usual, a small update on the medical side. Some good news on two fronts unrelated. My biopsy from the endoscopy and colonoscopy “is innocent” in the words of my surgeon. I think it is a great translation for clarity. Of interest, it has been two weeks since they took the biopsy and they said the results would now be available. With the two weeks up, I sent an email, under duress from Rozanne, to the laboratory at 1930hrs on Monday evening. To my surprise, they immediately replied, requesting that I send proven identification and within 15 minutes, I had the results to hand. I am still waiting for the results for the MRI on my liver and the CT scan on my lungs, both of which, were carried out last week.
This week I also had my routine visit to Professor Silva, my eye specialist. Suddenly, I have an improvement in the affected eye, and the scar tissue from the thrombosis has reduced significantly. This did not stop him from injecting my eye once more. It is uncomfortable, and the material injected appears like oil on water in my vision for a short while. The improvement has confirmed his diagnosis; it was a thrombosis and not AMD. The injections in my eye will continue, but now, less frequently. That’s better than a stab in the eye with a blunt stick!
Whoever coined the term “Waiting Room” describing the reception in a medical facility got it dead on this time! At the radiotherapy department at the University Hospital, Coimbra, there was a rather unexpected wait outside the building due to the fact they limit the number of people allowed in at any one time, due to COVID. I foolishly did not accept Rozanne’s offer of a camping chair to sit on and watched her drive off to find a suitable car park and café for her inevitable long wait. Yet again, I did not heed her sensible advice. It is clearly impossible for this man to take advice from this woman. Within 30 minutes of standing there, I rapidly started to become light-headed and nauseous. So even now, standing up for a short period of time is now beyond my energy level. Luckily one of the gentlemen, another patient, went off and found me a chair much to my relief and gratitude. Lesson learned. Maybe?
That day I also found out that sometimes you do need to know the language of the host country where you are receiving medical treatment. During the CT scan, all staff left the room. The directions of what was required of me were given in some sort of quasi-American accent in Portuguese by an electronic voice, generated by the machine. Similar to Sat-Nav. After every instruction it gave, I prompted the machine, “Eu não falo Português.” To no avail. I just had to guess what was required of me. When an actual human returned to the scene, she seemed satisfied the scan had been carried out successfully. Pure luck!
“Be careful you do not extend your burdens to the extent they become a burden to others, especially loved ones.” Peter McSporran
I feel I am in danger of doing this to Rozanne as she does all the worrying and running around. I have all my medical records and treatments recorded meticulously in folders for each specialist. When I shared them with Professor Silva, my eye specialist, I said my wife had prepared them. Without blinking, he said, “I know.” He has not even met her, but he certainly has the sum of my administrative capabilities.
My father's family
This week, we shift over to my father’s side of my story. This is an easier story to tell. He was around much longer than my mother. We spent a lot of time going around the estate, attending agricultural shows and livestock sales together. On his remarriage in 1960, following my mother’s death, I was sent away to school. That being said, I always returned home to the farm during the school holidays.
Throughout my life, people have either found my surname amusing or accept that it is real, with not just a little bit of scepticism. I can still remember trying to make a reverse charge telephone call home from boarding school and the exchange operator refusing to connect me as she thought I was, “pulling her leg.” This example was not isolated. Case in point of fact, there are many McSporran's in this world with the epi-centre of their universe seemingly being Campbeltown, affectionately known to locals as, “The Wee Toon.” Perhaps in view of the fact that my father and step-mother sent me to school there, following their marriage; I never had the same fondness or connection my father and his family had, or still have of this backwater known for it’s “slow speech.” I can say the same for both towns where I was schooled. I have little affection for either, and need I say, even less so for the learning establishments I attended.
Campbeltown
My father's family are from Campbeltown. Campbeltown, in its “heyday” was a prosperous fishing centre. It had thirty distilleries, twenty-two of them reportedly legal, a colliery, a boatbuilding yard and an American airbase at Machrihanish, along with a vibrant dairy industry complete with a creamery.
There are now only three distilleries, the creamery is just hanging in there, and the rest are closed, except for the farming activities. I may never be allowed back there if the locals read what I have to say about “The Wee Toon” below.
It always amused me to hear Andy Stewart, a patriotic singer, sing, “Campbeltown Loch, I wish you were whisky.” But in fact, during the three years I lived there, the so-called “Campbeltown Loch” looked like “Green pea soup.” However, the smell could not be described as “soupy” more like “poopy.” I thought I'd better not write this, unless I checked my facts and low and behold, I found this rather smelly sensory memory to be substantiated in the Argyll and Bute Archives.
“Until 2002, the majority of Campbeltown's foul and wastewater was collected, screened and pumped to an outfall pipe which discharged into the waters of Campbeltown Loch, but at a distance from the centre of the town. Although untreated, this system of sewage disposal operated largely without complaint regarding faecal solids or odour, although the town did suffer from flooding from time to time.”
How did they not figure, all the discharge, would return with the tide twice a day?
My McSporran Grandparents
My great-grandfather, Peter, was a successful man by all accounts up until the crash in 1929. He is said to have been a transporter with over 100 Clydesdale horses, he had a watchmaking business, farms and in addition, was a cattle trader. His downfall came when he invested in the stock market. The ramifications from this were massive on the family. He lost everything in the crash of 1929, with his children liquidating their assets to save his reputation. He ended up on a small farm near Stewarton, a village just outside Campbeltown, called Little Dalreoch. He continued cattle trading from this farm until he died.
My Great Uncle Charlie, my grandfather’s youngest brother, took over the farm where he produced dairy and pigs, yet, like his father, he was a consummate cattle trader. During my time in Campbeltown, I spent most Sundays out on the farm. Supposedly, my great grandfather was a very respected man and a real, “livewire.” However, It seems his legacy was destroyed even before his death.
Of interest, after me declaring in my last post, the inability of my male relations to provide me with meaningful anecdotes about my family’s past, one of my male cousins, John Anderson, came forward with the fact that my grandfather, Archibald McSporran, had fought in WWI. He also said my grandfather came back with a knowledge of the German language, which made me wonder which side he was on. He did indeed serve with the Argyle and Southern Highlanders in the trenches in Europe. My cousin, Alison, has a couple of his service medals from that particular conflict.
He seemingly came back from the war with pleurisy. Farming was no longer a suitable career due to his health and financial situation, so he found himself pursuing alternative work. When I knew him, he worked for the council. Curiously, pleurisy did not stop him from fathering eight children in the post-war years.
His wife, Mary Smart, was an immobile invalid due to a stroke when I knew her. It was rumoured that she might have been illegitimate, but now I learn there may potentially be a birth certificate somewhere and she is known to have had a sister too.
My father’s siblings
My father had two brothers and five sisters.
Charles, his youngest brother, was a senior engineer in the merchant navy and returned to Campbeltown opening his own marine engineering business. He married a lass from outside of town, Jean, and by all reports, they” enjoyed a party.” Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack at the very early age of forty-one. Peter, the other brother, was an enigma. He lived outside the boundaries of the McSporran family normalcy. No one seems to know what he did in the war. He worked at the distillery; he enjoyed very much what the distillery produced, seemingly within and outside of prescribed working hours. Shockingly, he married a Roman Catholic from outside of Campbeltown. When I lived in Campbeltown, children at junior school were segregated into Protestant and Roman Catholic schools. After all, I suppose, it is just a stone's throw away from Northern Ireland.
Whilst thinking about Peter, I suddenly realised he had a great similarity to Private Walker in, ”Dad’s Army.” Perhaps this is a clue to his career in the army. See pictures below to compare.
I had never spoken to my grandfather or father about their military service other than at some stage; my father did say he served in the RAF during WWII. When I asked the surviving widow of my father’s youngest brother, Charles, she replied, “Yes, he was in the RAF. He was a driver because he had, “both a car and petrol.” That statement leaves me with more questions than answers.
My father's sisters, with the exception of one, Nancy, continued to live in Campbeltown. They were formidable, and even my stepmother was circumspect when she was around them. Mary, the businesswoman, at times, seemed to be the leader but was often challenged by Elizabeth, who held a good financial brain and a keen sporting ability. All the sisters married, except Elizabeth. Even her employers called her, ”Miss McSporran”, which tells us something about her character. She was an excellent golfer and any male companionship she may have had, was rumoured to take place illicitly at badminton evenings.
In summary, my father’s sisters were Mary, a businesswoman and with her husband Hugh, owned McGrory’s on Main Street, Campbeltown. This shop sold everything but was known for fishing tackle, camping gear, school uniforms, shoes, and toys. It was an institution now gone. Mary had no children. Elizabeth, a spinster, Margaret, a nurse who married a fisherman named Lachie McDougal, from Tarbet, but lived in Campbeltown. They had two daughters Mary and Alison, both with teaching careers in Campbelton. Nancy married Ben Anderson of Carnbo, Fife, and moved there where he had his own carpentry business. He was a master craftsman. They had two children, John and Mary. John has taken over the family business. Father’s youngest sister, Catherine, looked after my sick grandmother for many years to her detriment. She eventually married Willie Colville, a farmer. They have two daughters Ailsa and Catriona.
In my next blog, you will meet my father, “The Boss.”
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
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