This is one of mum’s memories. She wrote it down for me and I have transcribed it faithfully from here. She used to say that they didn’t have birthday cakes when she grew up, instead my Gran would bake a clootie dumpling. Dumplings remain a family favourite of my sisters and me and are very much a family tradition.
One of Mum’s stories worth also mentioning here is that it was tradition that the birthday boy or girl would “give the dumpling a slap” – the equivalent of blowing out candles on a birthday cake. She recalled that her brother Ronnie, on one occasion, have the dumpling such a slap that it flew out of the window 😊
Anyway on to the Dumpling Soup story!
I think it was 1948 or 1949 that Ronnie my brother had gone to Boys Brigade camp at Balcomie Links, Craill. He had only been gone for three or four days when my mother received a telephone call to say that the person that was to make the meals for the boys had had to be sent home as he couldn’t work because of his drinking. Apparently Ronnie had said to Captain Ferguson that he was sure his mum would help out if he phoned and asked her. After discussing this with my father, she said she would go but only if I could go with her which they agreed to.
I remember when my father came home home the next day he had a feather sleeping bag. It was the same as the duveta we have today, but we were using blankets at that time as you didn’t have duvets and of course we didn’t have covers either. He also had a fold up bed for me as he didn’t want me sleeping on the ground in a palliasse. My mother was to have a bed provided. On that first first year my mother had been been a smoker and smoked about 30 cigs a day. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Hugh Gaitskill) put a shilling (5pence) on a 20 packet and Mum said as she couldn’t afford an extra one shilling and six pence a day she would need to stop smoking. Up until that time she was very thin and couldn’t get above above eight stones. I suppose she would have a cigarette instead of a biscuit et cetera with a cup of tea say. Anyway the budget would be March and this would be July or August and by that time she had put on three stones in weight. She had no clothes that fitted because you must remember that clothes coupons were still in force and most of those were used for Ronnie and self. I can remember sitting on the train going to Craill she wore a blue suit. The jacket had to stay unbuttoned and the skirt zip would not reach the top where she had had a row of safety pins linked together to close the band. While she was at camp she wore a pair of my father‘s overalls as she couldn’t get into anything over her own. We were met at Craill station and we got a taxi as the camp was about 3 miles away. When we arrived, Bill Jenkins, a local policeman was standing over a large pot on a stove. He had a beard and was unkempt looking, which was not at all like Bill. He just looked over and said “Oh am I pleased to see you?” Also along with us was Mrs. Ferguson the captain‘s wife and her younger son Charles. Their older son Iain was already in the camp. It didn’t take the ladies long to settle into their jobs ably assisted by the boys and officers. My mother used to go on the pillion seat of an officer’s motorcycle to, usually, Anstruther looking to buy supplies which were not yet plentiful because of rationing. When the ladies heard that one of the boys had a birthday in a few few days Mum said it would be great if they could make a dumpling. So Mum got on the back of the motorbike and went shopping. After a lot of haggling she got enough ingredients to make a large dumpling. She got a sheet and made a cloot and the ladies made a large dumpling.
The boys had all gone to play football, et cetera, on the beach so the camp was quiet for once and so the ladies decided to go for a lie down. On getting up the first thing Mum did was to go and check that the dumpling had not gone dry which would’ve been unlikely. When she lifted the lid from the boiler where it was cooking she couldn’t believe her eyes. It was a boiler of soup like substance. One of the officers who had stayed behind thought that the dumpling was going to go dry so he had added COLD water. There was nothing for it but to get soup bowls out and that night they had dumpling soup. The boys seem to quite enjoy it and Mum said they had to eat it as she had had to use some of the ration coupons for the ingredients.
Notes
Although Mum remembered the camp as taking place in 1948 or 1949, the increase in the price of cigarettes which she describes occurred in April 1947. In his Budget of 15 April 1947, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Dalton—not Hugh Gaitskell—increased tobacco duty. The price of a packet of twenty cigarettes rose by one shilling, from 2s 4d to 3s 4d. At thirty cigarettes a day, this would indeed have cost Granny an additional one shilling and sixpence each day, exactly as Mum remembered.
The reference to clothing coupons is consistent with either 1947 or 1948. Clothes rationing did not end until March 1949, so a camp held in July or August 1949 would have been after clothing coupons had ceased to be required.
Gran’s recipe for clootie dumpling can be found here.
Craigachan 