The Boy from Nowhere. Gregor Fisher

      

Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

      FIRST EDITION

      © Gregor Fisher and Melanie Reid 2015

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

      Front jacket photograph supplied by the author, background © Shutterstock.com

      Cover quote reproduced with kind permission of The Telegraph © Michael Deacon, The Telegraph

      All picture section photos provided by Gregor Fisher except where indicated.

      The Scotsman extract © The Scotsman

      Nancy Banks-Smith/Guardian extract © Nancy Banks-Smith

      While every effort has been made to trace the owners of copyright material reproduced herein, the publishers would like to apologise for any omissions and will be pleased to incorporate missing acknowledgements in any future editions.

      A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

      Gregor Fisher and Melanie Reid assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

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      Source ISBN: 978008150433

      Ebook Edition © October 2015 ISBN: 9780008150464

      Version: 2015-11-20

Dedication

      To my mother

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Family Tree

       Prologue

       1 The Curly-Haired Boy in the Corner

       2 Fisher, You’re Playing Pooh-Bar

       3 You Don’t Know Me But I’m Your Sister

       4 I’d Like You to Move to the Colour Blue

       5 Eat the Ice Cream While It’s on Your Plate, Ladies and Gentlemen

       6 Aunt Ruby and the Red-Chip Gravel Drive

       7 The Poem in the Wallet

       8 Kit

       9 The Deil’s Awa’ Wi’ the Exciseman

       10 Evening Comes, I Miss You More

       11 Rab C. Nesbitt

       12 A National Treasure

       Epilogue

       Bibliography

       Acknowledgements

       Picture Section

       About the Publisher

Prologue

      ‘Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides’

      King Lear: Act I, Scene I

      A story has to start somewhere, so let it begin with two men, strangers to each other, but with lives that will run in parallel. Matthew Donaldson McKenzie and William Blake Kerr were born in Scotland in 1888 and 1895 respectively. Both survived the slaughter of the Somme, married the same year, had children the same age, found jobs and sought to make their way in the world. Eventually their paths would cross, with far-reaching consequences.

      Matthew, the elder of the two, returned from the trenches to witness his sick wife give birth, and two days later he was to see her die. He was left with three motherless children, serious trench fever and a damaged leg.

      In 1921 he re-married, to a young dressmaker, and took a job at a whisky distillery in a small village in central Scotland. He moved his family into a tied house – one of the houses under the hills. Remember this place, for we shall return here many times.

      William, the younger soldier, returned from war scarred by the sight of filth and disease. Educated and ambitious, he got a job as a customs and excise officer, married and started a family. In 1928 came the move upon which this story hangs. William took a job overseeing three whisky distilleries within a mile of each other. One of them was where Matthew worked.

      So the lives of the two