Bruce

My young fingers held his shaking freckled hand, helping him guide the pencil around the shape of a teddy bear, and then across the page to the line where he must copy the letters: T-e-d-d-y. Next he had to look at my face, as I spoke the word for him: “Teddy”. His sad blue eyes winced as he summoned great effort before an explosive “Deda, Dede. DEDE.” I squeezed his hand as we moved our attention to the next image in the infantile book that the physiotherapy unit had given him. “Monkey”…“Mmaa, maageh ... MmmaaGEH”. Not a trace of the mischievous deep rolling Glaswegian accent we all missed so badly, almost two years after the catastrophic overnight stroke that had paralysed his right side and robbed him of his speech. And robbed my grandmother of the rock that had arrived late into her life as a struggling widow. Her first marriage had been wild and precarious, her heart ultimately broken, but this was the man who had brought her stability, the home of her dreams, and a lifestyle that showcased her talents and her hunger for a little glamour. Now she was his petite and struggling carer, and we popped over as often as possible to help.

I sometimes took three buses after school to visit this extraordinary man I had grown to love, being also the only member of the family that seemed to understand his attempts at deeper levels of communication than his basic needs. He had adopted a form of morse code babble, that frequently rose to a fever pitch of angry frustration. Pretty harsh for a man whose whole life had been about communication. A man who had built himself a successful and meaningful life from an impossible start. The man who, paperless at the tenderfoot age of fourteen, had attempted to enlist for the Boer War in order to get a decent pair of boots. He was rumbled, and dismissed, but was successful a couple of years later, when he joined the Scottish Rifles to fight a bloody war in South Africa. He rarely spoke of his wartime experiences, but it was apparent that there he had found recognition of his many practical and social talents.

My earliest memories of Gwampa Cloud involved, as with Other Gwampa, an adventure to the top of a long garden. In contrast, this was a tightly manicured north London suburban space - all crazy-paving and rosebeds and hydrangeas, with a large fishpond in the middle. A huge and bountiful cherry tree stood at the top end of the garden, shadowing a brick-built building that was part garage and part workshop. There was a brass bell on the split stable-door, the rope clanger just within my reach. I would ring, tense with glee. There would be a pause, a gruff cough, and then a stream of different voices: “Who’s there? What do you want? Have you got a ticket? Did you bring some cake? Woof woof. Who is it? Judy! we’ve got a visitor.” 

The door creaked open, kindly blue eyes twinkled in a chiselled face, as he conjured a strawberry from behind my ear before lifting me up to sit on a special cushion on the worktop. I would inhale the many layers of smells - petrol, leather, wood shavings, oils, varnish, polish, and the ever-present top-note of Woodbine cigarettes and a hint of cigar. Leaded lattice windows channelled soft shafts of light into the dusty interior. To the rear sat his precious polished black Ford Prefect, draped under a huge old Welsh quilt. At the window, Bruce Macloud (née William McPhee, Victorian Glasgow Gorbals orphan) would perch on a high stool at a long workbench, illuminated by a small arc-lamp. In front of him, assorted dismembered limbs, in his hands, a small head emerging from a lump of oak. 

Hanging from the rafters, a truncheon, a string of sausages, a mangle, a long green crocodile, a ghost, a policeman, and a collection of wands. By his feet, the large trunk that contained all the key characters, and the mysterious jiggery pokery of his craft. Maker of intricate models, carver and painter of characters, designer/creator of conjuring gadgetry, inventor of the Punch swazzle - Punch & Judy Professor, puppeteer, ventriloquist, magician - entertainer to royalty, (yes, Elizabeth & Margaret), and children all over the world - and, most especially, Me. This, not least, because I was his prime test audience. I watched all his tricks, but he never gave away a single secret, though I had a few flimsy theories of my own. There were endless card tricks, things disappeared suddenly (maybe in the middle of lunch) and randomly reappeared, bunches of paper flowers burst out of wands, and more than once a rabbit came out of a hat, although I never discovered where it lived. And he never sawed any of us in half, although it was in his stage repertoire.

Grandma made all the puppets’ costumes, including her own, she being his glamorous stage assistant and ‘Ta-da’ lady. I was frequently taken along to special children’s party gigs, and plonked amongst strange posh kids to prime the appropriate responses. “ He’s beHIND you”, “O, no he isn’t” etc. I was word perfect in all the scripts and the singalongs, and an obvious asset, though I was seldom warmly welcomed by the little shits. Grandma had always knocked up the latest in girly fashion for such occasions, and I would have to writhe in flounces of taffeta, with bows in my briefly impeccable hair. With hindsight, bless her - after all, I was her only grandchild, and fortunately female, for her to indulge her undoubtable skills. She really could make a dress out of a beanbag, or old curtains, or an old RAF parachute. But glamour and grooming was never my favourite state. I enjoyed a little style, but it had to be utilitarian and a little messy for me to feel comfortable, to feel Me. But back to Bruce ..

Probably the best Punch & Judy gig for me was his prominent location in 1951 at the joyous Festival of Britain in London’s Battersea Park, because I was granted free access to all the rides and experiences, most memorably the twilight treetop walk. A leading member of the Magic Circle and a Freemason in the industry, he often had exciting visitors: Muffin the Mule, Johnny Morris the storyteller, Sooty & Sweep, and, though I never met him, Tommy Cooper, who kind of found himself through Bruce. Tommy being an ambitious but unpromising magician, it was Bruce who suggested he turn his fecklessness into comedy. 

In spite of his stoic battle to recover himself, Bruce mercifully died of a second stroke when I was thirteen. Those who supported him and Maggie through the broken years (and her until her death), arrived to take away his Masonic trunk. Some of his puppets now reside in the Edinburgh Museum of Childhood.

Only with hindsight do I realise what an extraordinary privilege it was to have him in our lives. A proud and indomitable character, charismatic and generous, and more than a little wizardly. Some of that generosity ultimately trickled down making it possible to put a solid deposit on my own home, many years after his ‘disappearance’.

He was proud to appear, in 1938, as Number 27 on the Churchman’s Cigarette card collection. Only recently did I learn that this image now resides in the National Portrait Gallery. How he would have roared with proud laughter to have become a national treasure in the 21st century.

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