A life in letters: Dempster, John Cumming (1889-1972)

The Lafayette portrait of John C. Dempster

My paternal grandfather, John Cumming Dempster was born on 11th December 1889, the eldest child of Colliery Engine Keeper William Hodge Dempster and Margaret Dempster (maiden name Cumming.) I was surprised when locating his birth certificate following his death to discover that he had been born at Brownlee, near Carluke where we were then living. John was baptised on 15th July 1890.

In time he was joined by three brothers, Ambrose (Bruce), Robert (Bob) and David. Over the years, the family lived in Overtown, in Cornsilloch, Dalserf, and later at Lilybank Cottage in Ashgillhead. The other brothers inherited their father’s mechanical skills and eventually set up business at Ayr Road Garage, Ashgill from where they also ran a bus hire business. John, however, sometimes referred to in the family as ‘gentleman John’ found his way into teaching.

Apparently, following his own schooling, John remained at school as a ‘pupil assistant’ supporting the teacher. He then attended the Edinburgh Provincial Training College (which much later became Moray House College of Education) for the 1909-10 and 1910-11 sessions. In most of the subjects he studied, he was rated ‘Good’ or ‘Very good’ – only in Phonetics did his performance fall to ‘Fair’. According to the Certificate issued to him on 18th April 1911, his attendance was ‘perfect’ and his conduct ‘exemplary.’

It appears that John Dempster served with the 6th Battalion The Royal Scots (Territorial Force) from 21st January 1910 until 21st November 1917. From 22nd November 1917, he became a Temporary Second Lieutenant, Land Forces and from 1st April 1918 (until, according to a note in his handwritibg 7th August 1918) he was Temporary Second Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force.

In the course of his time in the Royal Air Force a plane he was flying crashed into a hedge (or so family tradition has it.) Two of the propeller’s four blades were broken on impact. John arranged for one of the surviving blades to be sawn off and given to a colleague as an heirloom, while he kept for himself the remaining blade still attached to the boss, a beautifully engineered artefact which he polished up and kept for the rest of his life hanging on the wall, the perfect mounting for a clock. John C. Dempster, it would seem, had an eye for the main chance.

From the fact that he was baptised as a baby the assumption is that he was brought up in the Church of Scotland, but at some point he must have associated himself with the Christian Brethren. His marriage to my grandmother, Euphemia Currie Brackenridge took place ‘after Banns according to the forms of the Christian Brethren’ at 52 Union Street Larkhall on Wednesday 14th August 1918. His brother Bob was his best man, and Euphemia’s sister Kate was bridesmaid.

Over the next six years, John and Euphemia had three children, Cathie (born 1920), my father William (born 1922) and Margaret (born 1924.) Sadly, Margaret died as an infant, and Cathie as a young teenager.

From September 1921 until 1934, John was headmaster of Wiston Primary School, near Biggar in Lanarkshire. He left to become headmaster at Greengairs Primary School – whether his departure to a larger school was simply a matter of career development, or whether following Cathie’s death the previous December the old Wiston schoolhouse held too many sad memories, we can only guess.

 According to the press report of his departure, written in the fulsome style typical of community correspondents to the local papers, he had fulfilled his duties with ‘zeal and efficiency’.

He always took a very deep interest in things pertaining to the welfare of the inhabitants and more especially the children, and his absence will no doubt be much felt. Besides being registrar of births, etc., for the district of Wiston and Roberton and District Council agent for the churchyards at Wiston and Roberton Mr Dempster was Parish Council clerk and inspector of poor for some time, until these offices were taken over by the County Council.

Besides these public duties, he was also a local agent for the Norwich Union insurance company. My father recalls him hitching a lift around the area to collect payments from Norwich Union customers – although he did have his own car – my father spoke of a Lanchester.

John Dempster’s departure, the press report continued, would be ‘deeply regretted’ because ‘he always found it a real pleasure to serve the interests of the community, which services were rendered at all times both willingly and ungrudgingly.’  He and his wife were presented with a chiming clock and a ‘suitably inscribed’ display cabinet.

My father’s earliest memories are of Wiston, and of attending the school through the door from the house. John was apparently innovative - in the early days of broadcasting he had a radio in the schoolhouse, and installed a speaker linked to it in the schoolroom so that dad and the other pupils could listen to educational broadcasts, which began in 1924.

When at Wiston, the Dempster family attended the local Church of Scotland – there’s a story of John getting the fright of his life while taking a short-cut through the graveyard on the way home after a meeting at the manse.

John was headmaster at Greengairs from 1934 until c1947. He continued to attend the local Church of Scotland, while Euphemia and my father worshipped at the local Brethren assembly. It was probably while he was at Greengairs that he stood (unsuccessfully) for the Council. There’s a very formal portrait of him, taken by ‘Lafayette Ltd’ (who had a Glasgow studio) which was perhaps taken in the context of this political challenge. Thereafter, until his retirement on 22nd Deecember 1954 (‘after 43 years in the teaching profession’) John was head at Clarkston Primary School (Airdrie), where my mother was on the staff in the late 1940s. I took my first steps on the staircase at Clarkston schoolhouse.

Following their retirement, my grandparents took two adventurous holidays. One trip was a cruise up the fjords of Norway. They brought me back some totally impracticable furry slippers which had such slippery soles that I kept falling headlong.

The other holiday was to the Holy Land, as part of a party led by the Church of Scotland minister George B. Duncan, presumably in the late 1950s. I remember standing with my parents looking up at the bus window, waving them off in the pavement outside the Central Hotel in Glasgow – on that occasion they seemed nervous, fearful that they might not return safely: dad said my grandfather had talked about his insurance policies. An itinerary John wrote for my father survives, along with elaborate details for addressing letters to them while they were away. This document, in the familiar, untidy handwriting, is very precious to me.

After an overnight at the Easton Hotel (38-40 Belgrave Road) on May 9th, they travelled to Gatwick from Victoria Coach Station. Their flight left at 9am, and after ‘One service stop’ (‘Advance watches 1 hour’ John had written with military precision) reached Athens by 8pm.  Lunch and dinner were served on board. After an overnight stay in a hotel, they flew to Amman Airport in Jordan. They had lunch on board, as the flight lasted from 9.30am until 2.00pm.  From Amman they travelled by bus to ‘Old Jerusalem (Jordan) where they spent 6 days sightseeing and taking excursions.

On May 17th they ‘Cross[ed] through the Mandelbaum Gate to New Jerusalem (Israel). After they’d established themselves in their hotel, they visited Mount Zion, the Tomb of David and ‘the Cenaculum – scene of Last Supper.’  On the 18th they drove to Galilee via Jaffa and Tel Aviv. Four days later they took off from Lod Airport for Athens (‘tea tray on aircraft’) where they had a later dinner in their hotel.

The next day (23rd May) they departed Athens Airport at 11.30am (‘Retard watches 1 hour’) reaching Gatwick at 8.15pm and Victoria at 10pm. Once again, they stayed overnight at the Eaton Hotel before travelling north.

In retirement, my grandparents lived in three different houses. The first was The Neuk, Townhead Road, Coatbridge  (where I spent the first couple of years of my life and where later I visited them as a young child. I remember playing the Jemima Puddleduck game, and the Hallelujah Chorus on the radiogram, and the foul-smelling fish-paste glue I was given to stick things together with, and the Education Committee of the County Council of Lanark jotters he gave me to draw in, and the wild white cat which one of his pupils had given him and which he passed on to us, and the barrel of rainwater in the garden, dark and impenetrable, and the wooden garage warm and redolent of oil and petrol and paint.) Then they moved to 6, Criffell Gardens, North Mount Vernon, Glasgow a new-ish house which in my memory always smelt of old people’s clothes, and finally to a lovely, untidy, lower flat in an old house with a panelled sitting room - 2 Brierybank Avenue, Lanark.

All the time I knew them, they attended first the Brethren fellowship, Ebenezer Hall at Coatdyke, and then the Assembly in Lanark.

The celebrated their golden wedding in 1968 with a celebration held in the restaurant at Bairds Department Store in Wishaw. I think John knew one of the directors of the firm through some Christian organisation both were involved in, and got a special deal. John C. Dempster knew how to be cautious with money. I remember him fussing around rather anxiously organising this event while my father, who might have been very willing to do it for him, shook his head.

Both my grandparents in reasonable health during the time I knew them, although at some point in his life John had survived meningitis. Both grew frail in their final years. I was really proud to take my friend Campbell round to see them at lunchtime when we were at a school event at Lanark Grammar one day. And I remember buying a volume of John Donne’s poems with some money my grandparents gave me for my 20th birthday and asking them both to sign it.

That summer, John grew seriously unwell. He bought himself a new car – a Marina – which my parents thought was daft considering his condition, but they failed to see the purchase for what it was, a commitment to cling to life. My father arranged for John to be admitted, not to a ward, but to the Sick Bay at Law Hospital which was intended for staff.

I was working in the hospital in the General Store that summer, and each day when I finished my shift at four o’clock I would go and sit with my grandfather until my dad, who also worked at the hospital, was ready to go home. I can’t remember much of what we said, as I sat on the chair beside the washbasin. I remember he spoke about the name of the Hillman Avenger car, which had been launched in 1970. He felt it was a strange, cruel name for a car. I remember sharing the outline of a sermon I had heard at Carluke Gospel Hall which had impressed me – it was on Psalm 126:6 – ‘He that goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.’ We were back with the Brethren by that time. When we were making the move, my dad asked me to ring my grandpa and tell him. ‘We’re coming home,’ I said.

And I am almost certain I recall a conversation about a plant which someone had given him, and his comment that if the plant lived, then he would live too, but the plant seemed to be withering.

He had cancer, and I guess there wasn’t much they could do for him. But he didn’t seem to be in immediate danger of passing away, and so my father was himself hospitalised for surgery which he urgently required. But before he was released from hospital, John C. Dempster died on 1st September 1972. The hospital phoned to say that the end was approaching, and I drove down to the hospital – my mother didn’t come.

I was too late. I saw the familiar face through the small square of glass in the door, pale and still, the last breath taken. The nurse came and fixed a wooden square to the window. I registered his death and helped arrange the funeral, which I attended in dad’s place with my mother.

John was buried at Wiston churchyard beside Cathie and Margaret after a service in the old church. I remember as I sat in the pew seeing a black cat walk purposefully across the aisle.

They tell me I have inherited some of John’s characteristics and mannerisms, and perhaps his impetuousness and impatience, and I am glad that something of him is preserved in me. I wish I had known him better – there is a limit to the communication skills of a gauche teenager. But I loved him, and I hope he knew it.