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It was 1947 in the middle of a war and winter was at its foulest. Our bedroom was directly above the kitchen and, as mother had pointed out, got all the heat that travelled up from the kitchen stove. Everything that could be recycled was, including the gas that we used for cooking.

Also beneath our bedroom was the heavy cedarwood kitchen door. It had high, wrought-iron door knobs. Often when I lay in bed at night, I would hear a dull thudding at the back door. It puzzled more than frightened me and didn’t concern me much until, one morning early, I went down to the kitchen. My mother and I were watching from the window robins prancing about, eating crumbs in a flurry of snow. Suddenly, the same thudding noise began again and my Mother unlocked the heavy door. There, suspended by a piece of twine, tied by their back legs, were two fat, fluffy rabbits, dead and staring out through bead-like lifeless eyes. The image has stayed with me to this day and I still dislike the touch of glassy beads.

Apparently the local rabbit catcher would hang on his neighbours’ door knobs in the night some part of his catch which he sold to them. This way, he avoided being caught by the police. My mother knew exactly when this was going to happen and got up early to skin and prepare these creatures. This explained all those early morning pots of stew that I would find bubbling away along with our early morning porridge.

From that day on, I could not eat meat or bear to see it cooking in pots, or handle glassy beads until many years later.

Maureen Black via Dundee Central Library

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