Mary Barbour’s rattle sounded out to me long before I ever saw it. I was delighted to be paired with such a fascinating object, especially one so much outside my ken; I knew nothing about Scotland during the First World War. But I should have done. Going to see it meant I could pursue another lead, possibly one to draw on, which had rattled away in the cupboard of family tree stories for years. I made the journey north, travelling from the end-most corner of south-east England. But not immediately to the fifth floor gallery at the National Museum, but heading west, past Glasgow, to the tip of Kintyre. Around the time, 1915, that Mary Barbour was leading her army of women on the streets of Govan, my Scottish grandfather was most likely also in Glasgow, where he was working in the Clyde shipyard. A few years later, CharlesFinn travelled where I had come from, Deal in Kent, to work as a sinker for the new coalfield in the 1920s. He stayed a miner all his life. My father, and his six siblings, were born in Deal but, as far as I knew, none had visited Campeltown where Grandpa Finn came from. He was a child of a fishing family, and his parents, the story was told, had a fishing fleet which plied between Ardglass, in County Down, and Campeltown. Children were born in Ireland or Scotland, depending on where the herring were at the time. Last year I went to Northern Ireland determined to flesh out the story from very bare bones, but more than 30 years of journalism did not prepare me for the slipperiness of memory, and holes in hand-down family yarns. I could find nothing but conjecture about my great-grandparents, although dredged up plenty on the breeding patterns of herring. But back to Campeltown, in my heart for years, and especially with grandparents and parents long gone. The tale told me by an aunt was that Grandpa Finn was related to Cecil Finn, a Scottish fishing luminary and decorated for his work over decades. Through him, I thought, I’d get the full story. Except, when I met him, nothing was resolved. Obliging as he was with family history, Cecil hadn’t heard of any relative called CharlesFinn, and we couldn’t find any other names of likely overlap. If my Finn line came across the sea from Ardglass, where it went after that I simply couldn’t fathom. But this unexpectedly dead end didn’t diminish the rattle pilgrimage. If anything, the thrum of the poem was rattling about in my mind from the first train north, through the several sea journeys, and numerous buses. I took a random route to Edinburgh after Kintyre … via Islay and Jura, trying to gather words. By the time I reached the Museum, I had quite a clear idea about how I wanted to write the poem. Mute in its case, and ambered with age, the object did not disappoint. Even with a film loop playing next to it, I swear I could hear the rattety sound rolling out. If his Clyde shipyard tales are not another red herring, I am left wondering: did Grandpa Finn hear it too?
For all the latest about 26 Treasures across the UK during 2011.
Following on from 26 Treasures at the V&A in 2010, 26 Treasures 2011 sees the writers’ collective 26 lend 26 voices to treasures across the British Isles - 26 in Aberystwyth, 26 in Belfast and 26 in Edinburgh.
Throughout 2011, we’ll showcase reflections from our writers about their inspiration and the inside track on participating in this year's projects, which will run at national institutions from summer 2011 until early 2012.
Mary Barbour’s rattle sounded out to me long before I ever saw it. I was delighted to be paired with such a fascinating object, especially one so much outside my ken; I knew nothing about Scotland during the First World War. But I should have done. Going to see it meant I could pursue another lead, possibly one to draw on, which had rattled away in the cupboard of family tree stories for years. I made the journey north, travelling from the end-most corner of south-east England. But not immediately to the fifth floor gallery at the National Museum, but heading west, past Glasgow, to the tip of Kintyre. Around the time, 1915, that Mary Barbour was leading her army of women on the streets of Govan, my Scottish grandfather was most likely also in Glasgow, where he was working in the Clyde shipyard. A few years later, Charles Finn travelled where I had come from, Deal in Kent, to work as a sinker for the new coalfield in the 1920s. He stayed a miner all his life. My father, and his six siblings, were born in Deal but, as far as I knew, none had visited Campeltown where Grandpa Finn came from. He was a child of a fishing family, and his parents, the story was told, had a fishing fleet which plied between Ardglass, in County Down, and Campeltown. Children were born in Ireland or Scotland, depending on where the herring were at the time. Last year I went to Northern Ireland determined to flesh out the story from very bare bones, but more than 30 years of journalism did not prepare me for the slipperiness of memory, and holes in hand-down family yarns. I could find nothing but conjecture about my great-grandparents, although dredged up plenty on the breeding patterns of herring.
