I have only one memory of you and the violin is in it. We were visiting Nan and Pop. This was in Australia, where I grew up and where I lived until my late 20s. I must have been nine or 10. I can’t remember if you were Nan’s sister or Pop’s, but I think you belonged to Nan’s lot. You wore a smart blouse and neat block heels. You moved with ease and grace, and I was sure you must live somewhere bigger than my small town with its pubs and churches and its hot, blank sky.
At some point, the violin was produced. It was in a wooden case with a metal handle. I didn’t play it that day. I’d only just begun taking lessons. But you played and I remember the music was different to the sort I was learning. I now know that what you played was Scottish – ceilidh tunes. Your playing was wonderfully energetic – the way you moved seemed athletic and dancerly. But your fingers were arthritic, you said, and you could no longer play the way you wanted. I was too young to understand how that must have made you feel.
The violin went home with me that day and I learned for another six or so years. By the time I was 16 I’d given it up. But it followed me from my small hometown to Brisbane, where I went to university. When I came to Scotland, it took a bit longer to join me – 18 years.
By then, my family was broken. I no longer had a relationship with my father (your nephew) and for a long time I had no contact with any of your branch of the family. Pop died and then, 10 years later, when Nan died, no one even told me. The violin is my only material connection to that part of my background.
Last year, something happened and when it was over I didn’t know how to put myself back together. For months, I couldn’t eat or sleep and, worst of all, I couldn’t listen to music. I’d been catapulted into a life that wasn’t mine and I was in shock. It was around this time that my sister sent my violin from Australia. A good friend, a musician, put a new set of strings on it and bought a bow.
The violin is old. I remember Nan saying it was given to you in the 1920s. It’s Czechoslovakian – a cheap factory-made violin – and has no real monetary value, which seems appropriate because we were never that kind of family. No property. No heirlooms. No education even, until my generation. But I know you were all taught music and that it was important. I remember Pop playing the accordion in the tiny kitchen at Dalziel Street. Your sister played piano. An uncle was paying for my lessons.
My violin is worth almost nothing but it has a beautiful sound. I don’t play it well yet, but I’m practising. And I’m taking lessons again. My son is learning too. My friends come over and we play together – folk tunes, mostly – and it makes me feel that things might be good again, and that it’s safe to return to life.
If you’re still alive, you’ll be in your late 90s. You might be past 100. In the kitchen that day, I’ll have said a polite “thank you”. But I couldn’t have known what it was you were giving me. Wherever you are now, I’d like you to know how grateful I am.
Your great-niece
