Great Expectations

I recently read on a 'working class' friend's blog that he had come to realize that posh (public school) people don't choose their birth! I was born into a relatively priviliged family, although my father was a humble schoolmaster and we wore second hand clothes, as to my mother (who died having me), her family were Scottish landowners, people of social status and relatively well to do.

   My mother's older sister Wilhemina Barns-Graham (the artist) put her arm around my shoulder when I was 27, saying she would always look after me. She owned an artist's studio with private beach in St Ives, a country estate called Balmungo near St Andrews and another substantial property in nearby Cupar. My two sisters and I somehow got it into our heads we would be left a property each but the writing was on the wall when the Cupar property, which included salmon fishing rights, was sold. On her death her estate was valued at just over seven million of which I was grateful to receive a legacy of £16,000 which enabled me to clear an overdraft and buy a second hand Smart car.

   On my father's death when I was seventeen my mother's brother Patrick became my guardian and I lived with his family at Carbeth Guthrie, on the road to Loch Lomond. A few very happy and priviliged years for me, shooting and fishing on the land and loch. His father Allan Barns-Graham had allowed over 200 huts to be built on the neighbouring Carbeth estate for working class people from Glasgow to enjoy the countryside. Sadly his grandson and my first cousin Allan Barns-Graham inherited the 'Carbeth Huts' problem in the 1990's which still lingers on today. Although there was a significant rent increase which sparked the hutters' rent strike it was really all out class war 'about the toff living in the big house' (English Colour Supplement quote), a far cry from our grandfather's socialist gesture in making his land accessible to less priviliged people.  

   As an innovative woodworker it had always been my dream to build a modest timber dwelling and with all the land my family owned it is truly sad it was not to be. At one time my cousin Allan offered me a tiny plot on a  'lease', but this never materialised and was yet another disappointment to me. The first big disappointment was not to inherit the Cupar property with the fishing rights as salmon fishing was also a passion, I even made my own rods and tied my own flies. But who are we to expect anything but just to count our blessings! Perhaps the greatest blessing is to have to make one's own luck.

A short extract from 'Missing Jean' by Jeremy Broun