I was just a little boy without care We grew up in a war zone city with a cast iron wind
I remember looking up and seeing you there
I never wandered too far from your sight
Cause all the love I needed was there in your eyes
Broken lives, darken streets, and twisted steel
But around our house the sky seems so blue
And on a wing and prayer we just muddled through
The words of the song by Rod Stewart "Way back home" played quietly in the room. Dr Mallard was sitting in his chair looking at his computer screen, his eyes moist, he didn't hear or was it he didn't acknowledge the slight swish of the autopsy door open.
"What's up Duks," Gibbs asked gently as Ducky now turned to face his friend, "That some picture from the war?" Gibbs asked now pointing at the computer screen.
"Sorry Jethro, had a spot of bad news, an old friend from my childhood passed away at the weekend, Maggie Brown. It was when I was evacuated from London during the war, to Glasgow. Although Glasgow did have some damage, Maryhill was badly affected, it was the shipyards of Clydebank that bore the brunt, but these pictures you see on my screen were not from the war Jethro, this was Glasgow in the 1960's. But I digress, Maggie and I played in streets like that. The single end tenement, not Jethro, was I staying there but Maggie and her 5 siblings did. I lived in a "big hoose" as they say, with a friend of father's, but Maggie and I went to the same local school, we were in the same class."
The music, quietly, reflecting the old man's thoughts.
I'll give you stories, operation burning skies
And our nation with its back against the wall
Like a wide-eyed school boy I hang on with the record
Stories I was too young to recall
"I don't understand," Gibbs questioned looking at the black and white photographs, "These pictures are the 60's and the photographer was?"
"Nick Hedges, he was commissioned by the housing and homelessness charity Shelter, to photograph and document the appalling conditions still in Britain during the 60's. This was to show the British, that despite Harold Macmillan's' famous declaration of the late 50's that "most of our people have never had it so good," there were still people scraping a living and in fact living in poverty, and squalor."
"So it was like America in the 30's?"
"Pretty much," Dr Mallard acknowledged.
"But going back to the photographs, you were there?"
"Yes, after I graduated from Medical School, I went into General Practise for a while and did some Locum work in the East End, tuberculosis was still virulent and extremely rife, it was my job to go round the schools and administrate the dreaded BCG jab. Six little needles into the forearm, if the imprint stayed, then the poor child was isolated in the local infectious disease hospital, and for the unfortunate children, who thought that the mark had gone and that was it, were in for a big shock, and the big needle."
"But Ducky, Maggie, she didn't die of TB did she?"
"By no means Jethro, old age, but it just got me thinking of the old days, but then again, just the other day I read in the Glasgow Herald that a young mother had been diagnosed with the disease, and that at least 20, of her close community were being screened. Did you know that there were 453 confirmed cases of TB in Scotland in 2011 and 150 in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area in 2015?"
Gibbs shook his head but continued to ask, "What did Maggie do after she left school Duks?" beginning to think this was like drawing blood from a stone.
"Sorry, I met up with Maggie when I was doing the Locum work, she had become a district nurse and was sometimes in attendance when I was vaccinating. We just kept in touch over the years. I knew that she had suffered a stroke last summer and was in a nursing home in Glasgow, she never married just devoted her life to those less fortunate."
"Ducky, those houses, those homes…."
"Tenements Jethro, single ends, one toilet for two floors, no inside washing facilities…."
"What happened to them?" as Gibbs drew up a chair and sat down, knowing that he was about to be given a story.
"Knocked down….eventually" Ducky replied shrugging his shoulders, "Moved the people to new purpose built towns, housing schemes. The city fathers decided to regenerate the city. The key words in a report were urban regeneration and the Victorian slum clearance. It was decided to build new housing schemes, Drumchapel, Easterhouse, Pollock and Castlemilk, four huge purpose built areas, and in order to get to these "little towns" a new motorway was constructed, it cut through the city, pulling the heart out of communities, separating families and friends."
"And, I suppose these new "schemes" didn't work?" Gibbs asked not having heard the word before.
"Jethro, that was the whole point. What they thought would be new playgrounds of hope for children, did in fact become drug gang areas. Knife gangs, turf wars, there was you see, not the control, no extended families."
"And Maggie?"
"She tried to unite, to help bring back the community, she had a heart of gold. She sacrificed her life in helping others."
The words of the song, now, reflecting Ducky's memories of Maggie.
How can I ever thank you for the lessons that I've learnt
And the precious warmth and comfort that I've felt at every turn
And the roses sacrifice their lives for freedom and for peace
I will always find my way back, always find my way back home
"Are you thinking of flying over for the service?" Gibbs asked standing but placing his hand on the old man's shoulder.
"To be honest, no," Ducky sighed and continued to look at the pictures. "She had no family of her own, but there will be a good turnout, as they say, Maggie being an upstanding member of the community and an ex-district nurse, she will have plenty daughters and bairns there to see her off."
Jethro didn't know what to say, it reminded him of his namesake and the thought of the retirement home, maybe he should visit Leroy, as he turned and left Ducky to his thoughts, and the words of the song finally fading away into the background.
And we always kept the laughter and the smile upon our face
In that good-old-fashion British way, with pride and faultless grace
I shall never forget those childhood days for as long as I should live
And I'll always find my way back, always find my way back home
The End.