My Story Part 1: 1963 - 2026
And so here goes with my first post on this new site, and I suppose my first question for me was ‘where do I start,’ and as always, the beginning is quite a good place.
As mentioned in my bio, I was born in Hawick in 1963, one of the worst winters in recent UK history, if 63 years ago is recent. At the time, the family, that being Mum, Dad, and two elder sisters, lived on a farm called Priesthaugh, some seven miles south of the town, in the rolling hills of the Scottish Borders. My Father was a shepherd on the farm, and my mother was a nurse in the local town.
The weather was so bad that my mother and two sisters had to move into her parents’ house in the town so she could get to the hospital when my day came, which it did on the 10th of February, and on my mother’s birthday. Even in her later years, she told me I was the best birthday present she had ever had, and who am I to argue with my mother?
(Pictures from the early years. After visiting a farm for a day out from his school in Edinburgh, Dad decided he wanted to be a shepherd, and that is what he did all his life, with the exception of two years of National Service in the RAF. I tried to follow in his footsteps in one career and did so for 6 years in another!)
Dad had to use the farm tractor to visit me, using the tops of the telegraph poles as guides to take him over the hills to the treated main roads, where he would meet my grandfather, who would run him into town to see his family and newborn son. However, on his first visit, he had to drive the tractor all the way to the hospital. Mum and the ladies in her ward all got up when they heard this noise outside, and there was Dad sitting on an old tractor (remember in those days no fancy heated cabs with radios,) just Dad in the freezing open air, his old warm forces coat, hat with ear warmers, scarf, gloves, and his pipe in his mouth.
Mum always said she sneaked back into her bed to hide her embarrassment, with all the women gossiping whilst wondering who this strange-looking man was visiting. It was even more embarrassing when the strange-looking man appeared at her bedside!
However, during the conversation, Mum said to Dad, 'Thanks for the birthday present,’ and Dad was immediately put on the back foot, thinking he had missed her birthday and had forgotten a present, not realising he’d actually given her something special on her special day – me!
I’ve never considered myself special, well, except in my mum’s eyes, of course. But I know when I’m reasonably okay or good at something, but I’ve never considered myself the bragging type, or at least that’s my side of the story, and a couple of little stories will come out in time.
My life hasn’t been anything special, and that’s not why I’ve decided on the semi-autobiographical side to it. I’ve done it because I want to, and because I do want to compare 1976 to 2026 or similar or whatever years I might compare, just to tell people who don’t know or maybe don’t understand, as there are many differences in these generations, and I’ll explain some of them along the way. Such as ice on inside windows during winter, it doesn’t happen these days!
Anyway, after the snow had subsided enough, we all went home to the shepherd's cottage on Priesthaugh Farm, where I would live for the first seven years of my life. Things then just went back to normal, or at least I think they did, as I can’t remember too much! But normal in those days were bleak, cold, and white winters, whereby we had to have days off school because the roads were blocked by drifts, and traffic couldn’t get through, and there is another comparison to the winter of 2025. I remember hearing a news and weather report last year saying schools were closing because bad weather had been forecast. If I had asked Dad for a day off school, as bad weather had been forecast, he would likely have chased me the 7 miles to school in his wellies, waving his shepherd's crook in the air, and probably one he made himself; he was a handy man.
(A very handy man, a great Dad, and always missed!)
(The retired shepherd and a professional shoot, but still with the pipe, his crook, and his favourite working collie, later a pet - Queen. He trained all his working dogs himself, as all shepherds do.)
Schools close these days due to the forecasts, or because it is too cold, whereby we were told to put another top on, wear a hat and scarf, or run faster in PE. Things teachers probably couldn’t even say to pupils these days, let alone try to enforce it.
Winters were harsh, but we did just that; we put another top on under a warm coat, some hat and gloves, and went off sledging for hours, building snowmen, and just enjoying ourselves in the conditions. I’m not sure if we did snow angels in those days. But I do find it kind of ironic that kids these days can’t go to school due to the weather, but they too are happy to be out sledging and playing in the snow.
It was so cold in these old country cottages that never had central heating; we went to bed with hot water bottles, and when we awoke with the ice on the windows, the mixture of heat from being in the bed and the cold room meant condensation on the top of the bed covers, and note I said ‘bed covers’ and not a quilt. I don’t think I had a quilt until I was in my very late teens, maybe even early 20s. Sure, they were around, but with my upbringing, we just didn’t have any in the house. But we survived the ice on the inside of the windows, the deep snow, and the cold, and we did it with warm clothes and love and care.
To make sure we had warm clothes in the morning, Mum and Dad would make sure the fire in the living room was roaring, and they would put our clothes around the fire on clothes horses and the arms of the chairs. Yet they had no such comforts, and being first out of bed, with no fire, it was cold clothes warmed by wearing them and moving about!
The summers weren’t always the opposite, with long warm days with blue skies and big white clouds. There must have been the wet, miserable days too, but I don’t remember any of those types of days, but then those days at Priesthaugh, my memories, were only made until I was 7 years old. After that, we moved on with Dad's work, and that will be one of my next posts.
And so I am already talking memories and remembering, and that brings me on to one of the most important events in my life. And being selfish, which is something I can do quite well, for me, it is probably up there with marriage(s) and childbirth, changing jobs, or moving house.
On the 6th of January 2013, I went cycling at the Llandegla cycling centre, just to the west of Wrexham, with three others. Two friends (brothers) and a friend of theirs, we set off up the trail from the car park to find which route we would take for a forest cycle. There was a drain across the track, and one of the brothers told me to watch out and lift my front wheel, which I did. Unfortunately, I didn’t lift it enough and came down too soon and into the drain. My bike went sideways, and I followed.
I hit my head on a sharp object and got knocked unconscious, and I can’t remember very much apart from a couple of vague memories until I was sitting in Glasgow Airport on the 7th of February, waiting to catch a plane to Iceland for my 50th birthday on the 10th. Just for the record, I was wearing a helmet!
And the problems that this accident caused will be a major part of the website, as it was and still is a major part of my life. My recovery, being diagnosed with PTSD and then also with anxiety, and the problems that this brought me in my life, and still does to this day, some 13 years later.
I am not looking for sympathy; I am looking to highlight what life with anxiety can be like, both for those diagnosed and struggling as I was, but also for those living with someone who has been diagnosed with the illness. And I have always said that if I can help one person, I have done something positive.
So please keep reading, if you would like to share that journey, all the ups and downs, and there is a mixture of both (I think.) But I’m here, just as I was after surviving the blocked roads, the cold and frost, and yet again, that ice on the inside of the windows.
Thanks for reading
DJ
