Death of Frances Murdoch

Frances Murdoch died two days ago. You don’t know her. She wasn’t a celebrity, born in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression. She would have been too young to know anything about depression and she was always a cheery soul. She would become a teenager during the Second World War. Postwar-prosperity, full employment and the creation of the Welfare State would mark the beginnings of her working life. I don’t know what she worked as, or what she done, I only know her as an old woman, my mate’s Ma. I only know her in terms of family. She always chirped good-naturedly about what was happening and never seemed to be down.  I remember her in terms of others, but I’ve not picture of her husband. Nothing. He was an alky that never drank, and never worked. Then he just drank himself to death. The ironic thing is they split up and he stayed in the same high-rise flat as his eldest son Johnny, who also drank himself to death, and that’s the same flat as Gordy now stays and he’s had a few goes at drinking himself to death. He’s off it now, but this is a hard time for him. His mum was always that safety net, when things went wrong.   I remember taking Gordy up the road after he’d crashed Daft Rab’s old scooter off the wall of the high school gym hall, his nose exploding like a duck egg. It was just one of those things.  Moira, pregnant as sixteen. These things happen. How many years ago was it that Johnny fell out a window in Nairn Street and a hard landing onto Dumbarton Road, which left him in a wheelchair and paralysed below the waist? Can’t remember. Frances was lucky because Gordy fell out a window of the street across the road and ended up on the same ward as Johnny, but in hospital for a year, he wasn't paralysed. You see, I can’t talk about Frances without talking about her sons. Kenny was a bit daft but got a job working in a shop up the town. About twenty-years ago the shop shut. He’s stayed more or less in his room, since then, with Frances keeping an eye on him. Then there was Hamish, of course. He was the son she had between Moira and Gordy. He was Christened Graham, but preferred to be called Hamish. He changed his name. It was the punk-era. He changed lots of things. Hamish was in and out of Gartnavel. He met a fellow patient and had three girls with her. He jumped off the Erskine Bridge and killed himself. Frances didn’t let it get her down. Recently, she broke her hip. She was taken into hospital. She also had trouble with her breathing. Frances was allowed home last week. Her breathing got worse. She got took back to hospital. Gordy told me that although his mum was dying she didn’t want to press the buzzer to get the nurse’s help, because they might be too busy. That’s the kind of women she was. She was just a wee woman. Nothing special. If there were more like her the world would be Jerusalem.