I’m really scratching my head to remember the details on this one. It was another life, another time, and I was reminded of it by something someone said the other day. It’s not that I’d rather forget, it’s just the details have been blurred by the passage of time. Let’s start with now and then cast back.

I’m Victoria Garcia, and I’m sixty-seven, a grandmother many times over and still married to Jesus. I’m Scottish whilst Jesus as you may have guessed is Spanish. We adopted and reared six children because I’m trans. Though me being trans has only a small bearing on what I am going to tell you about. I transitioned and had SRS somewhere in my early thirties I think. I’m not going to look it up because this story happened when I was I think sixteen in 1969 long before then and it’s besides the point.

I was Douglas McLeod, Doug to my friends, both of them. I was a wild knife carrying crazy kid you’d think would have been from the wrong side of the tracks in Glasgow. Actually Mum and Dad were educated and wealthy, and we lived in a prohibitively expensive area in an even more prohibitively expensive house. Somehow I never fit, I didn’t get on with my two brothers or my four sisters. I was an impossible child to rear. Years later I realised I’d just been trying too hard to be a boy because I wasn’t, and I was too scared to admit to the real me due to its unmanly nature.

I was never out of trouble with the law. Playground fights always escalated into someone going to hospital if I were involved, and it didn’t matter how many of them there were, or how big they were. The court appearance that changed my life was when I was twelve and there for nearly killing some fool who’d tried to whip me with a piece of barbed wire stapled to a stick. They said with time and a lot of physio he’d walk again.

The sheriff who was hearing the case of assault against my assailant recognised me which was lucky and unlucky. He said he’d lost count of the number of times he’d met me, and though it was true I’d never started any trouble that he was aware of I had an unfortunate habit of finishing what others had started with devastating results for them. He couldn’t understand how I could do it since I was so small and was at a loss. He said the evidence without doubt pointed to me being the victim of an unprovoked assault, but clearly something had to be done because I was a danger to every idiot who tried to hurt me, which I thought was a completely unreasonable way of seeing things, but I had enough sense to keep my thoughts to myself.

That was the point at which Dad asked to speak. He said he was sending me to an English public school [US readers that is an expensive, exclusive boarding school] in September and would the sheriff regard that as a satisfactory solution. It was the first I’d heard of it, but I can still see the smile on the sheriff’s face as he said since any further trouble I got into would not only be out of his jurisdiction it would also be out of the jurisdiction of Scottish law and he regarded that as an eminently satisfactory solution.

I was clever so I got a scholarship, but it was difficult for me. Yes I was away from the streets where I roamed, but it was an all boys school and the competition for status was rough, and I was far rougher than anything those mummy’s boys could even imagine. So I got into trouble, but I’d sense enough not to use a knife because I’d have gralloched(1) those nancies. I made two friends there, neither of whom I have seen nor communicated with for decades, so Alex and David don’t know that I’m not Doug any more.

Alex and David went to the same preparatory school and knew an older boy called Mike who did too. Mike was eighteen when we were sixteen. The three of them were going on holiday for a month cruising on the river Shannon in Ireland with a fourth boy who dropped out at the last minute. I dropped in. The plan was fly from Ringway airport Manchester to Dublin airport, spend three days in Dublin, train to Carrick on Shannon, cabin cruising for three weeks, train back to Dublin for a day and fly back to Ringway.

It had all been arranged. Normally the cruisers were available for pick up at noon, but we’d rung up the cruise line, I have a vague recollection of it being Red Rose Line but that could be a memory from somewhere else and nothing to do with that holiday, and arranged to collect the boat at nine as our train would get in at half past eight. We were staying at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, which may be another false memory, but I don’t think so though they don’t have a hotel in Dublin now. Three days in Dublin were fun but we were very disappointed by the contents of the X rated films. Helga, the sex education film, was as strong as it got.

The taxi picked us up early from the hotel to take us to the station. The radio was on and we heard about a school teacher who’d jumped in the water in Lough Ree near Albert lock after a pupil had fallen overboard. They were both missing and the search was now in its second day having been continued overnight, but we’d no idea where Lough Ree was and it was just radio noise. More interestingly the long simmering troubles were coming to a boil across the border and about to begin a three decade war. We were in the Republic that August when it kicked off big time. I’d bought a newspaper at the station to read on the train and there were pages about the incident at Lough Ree but little about events across the border.

I recall the teacher was male but not whether the pupil was or not. I’ve tried to find the incident on the internet but failed. A search for Red Rose line similarly yielded no results. Our train arrived and we looked for a taxi to take us to the boat. We asked a man digging his garden over where we could get one and he said, “It isn’t far, but you’ll not be wanting to carry all that will you now? I take you in the pickup for a couple of bob [two shillings, now 10 pence, 15 US cents] if you like?” I swear that pickup put more energy into the various rattles it made than actually propelling itself forwards, but it got us there. We didn’t know it at the time but we’d just met Ambrose the veritable prince of diesel engineers.

Ambrose was five foot nothing, maybe mid thirties, bright red haired, and a thoroughly agreeable man. We arrived at the cruise line’s office which looked like a garden shed and asked when we could take the boat. That began a very frustrating day. We were sitting on our cases out in the scorching sun getting more and more irritated with the excuses and put offs. At six o’clock that evening I’d had enough and in usual gobshite fashion ran off at the mouth for ten minutes non-stop, culminating with, “You think those two in the paper had drownt off the boat and you’re still fucking looking for it.”

The manger looked extremely uncomfortable as he admitted, “You have the right of it, Sor, but we know where the boat is. It’s taking part in the search, but twill be back here before dark.”

Ambrose appeared from nowhere, and said, “Tis a terrible tragedy. Indeed it is, but tis a pleasure and a privilege indeed to hear a man as can curse as eloquent and fluent for so long without a breath drawn, so it is.”

The boat arrived an hour before dark and we were told they’d clean it up first because a flare had been set off in the cabin. The cabin floor was stained yellow when we finally went aboard. We crashed out early and set off down stream at first light the following day. We’d not been travelling three hours when the engine stopped. We managed to ring Red Rose from a small shop maybe a mile away from the river. Red Rose said they’d be along in a while. I think we must have been the most exciting thing to happen round there for a long time because the shop must have had the population of the entire hamlet in it shaking our hands and wishing to talk to us. Next thing we knew there was food on the table, and then glasses of ale. Ambrose had arrived at the boat, and not finding us there went straight to the shop, where he was greeted by name and had a pint pressed into his hands.

Ambrose had bicycled from Carrick with his tool case strapped behind his bicycle saddle. When we came out of the shop, all not exactly sober, the rear tire on his bicycle was flat. “I’ve been having trouble with the valve,” Ambrose declared as though the world was ending. “And I don’t have a spare with me.”

I unscrewed the valve retaining ring, that was long before bicycles were fitted with modern Schrader valves, and could see the wee rubber tube was slightly perished at the end that was supposed to cover the airway. I pulled off the tube, spat on the valve to assist pushing it back the other way round, replaced it and pumped the tyre up.

“Will you look at that now,” Ambrose declared, “Tis powerful spit your man has there.” He regarded me as a cross between a genius and a splinter of the true cross thereafter. The boat broke down at regular intervals and as we headed south towards our destination of Limerick, we only got as far as Athlone due to the breakdowns, it took Ambrose longer to reach us on his pushbike each time. But arrive he always did, and fix the engine he always did saying, “The truth is we were flogging her in the search, and she needs a compete strip down. I’ll just adjust the sims.” Sims were what we referred to as shims.

There was a two ring propane cooker on the boat, but it was slow and the heating and better cooking came from a solid fuel stove. When I’d lit the stove the others wanted to know what the hell the smell was. “What smell?” I asked. It was the turf briquettes the stove was fuelled with. I was used to the reek of burning peat, but they were English. For a few days they had to decide whether they wanted to be warm or live with the reek. I just put another pullover on whilst they got used to it.

I can’t recall how long it took us to get to the Jamestown canal which bypasses a non-navigable loop of the Shannon between Jamestown and Drumsna. The canal is maybe a mile and a half long and just before entering Lough Nanoge and then the Shannon it passes through the Albert Lock. When we passed through the lock we saw a frogman in the water and were told he was one of the team looking for the bodies of the two who had drowned, which put a damper on things for a while. Why the radio had said Lough Ree was near Albert Lock escapes me, but I suppose London and Paris or Los Angeles and San Francisco are so close to each other as to be almost the same place if you look at the right scale map.

Every time we broke down we found fantastic people who fed us, took us to local dances and film shewings, both usually in barns, talked with us and never let us pay for anything. Clearly there was little in the way of tourism in those days. We were entertainment, the word spread we were coming for we were expected. Even when we didn’t break down when we tied up in the evening there were folk there inviting us to eat.

At one place, whose name escapes me, there must have been fifty of us drinking and eating out side a pub whose bar could take ten or twelve at a push. The entire local population must have turned out, men, women and kids too. We’d had a few, when someone said Danny had been taken to hospital sick and so wouldn’t be coming. “Who’s Danny?” I asked.

“The squeeze box player,” I was mournfully told. “That’s his over there waiting for him. I’ll take it back inside.” It was an old forty-eight base Hohner. I owned one like it, but a later model, and a one twenty base Scandalli too. I looked at it, and not thinking ran my hand over the keys to be asked, “Do you play?”

“Only Scottish airs and dance music,” I replied.

“You’ll do just fine, son,” an ancient replied from a chair nearby. “Sean, pass Danny’s box over and and give the man some room.” At that point I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. The other three didn’t know I played. I’d kept quiet about it at school because somehow singing and playing didn’t seem very manly in England, though at home it was different. I think they thought I was bluffing and had been caught out. It was fine night, and the tunes were Scottish not Irish, but they were just as suitable for dancing to. I ended up singing too, and the look on my mates’ faces was a picture.

At some point a woman in her twenties joined in playing a fidil and said, “You play, and I’ll accompany you.” My mates got a further shock when she took the playing, and I joined the dancers. I could dance, we all could back home, and what we were dancing was folk dancing which isn’t a whole lot different in Ireland, Scotland and I daresay England too. They’d never danced before and were embarrassed when they were dragged up to join in. It’s a social thing the English don’t have. I danced with little girls, teenagers, married women, grannies and probably a couple of great grannies too. It was just like it was at home at a cèilidh. I had a feeling I was going to get a whole load of grief the following day and would have a lot of explaining to do, but the bridges were burnt.

It turned out I didn’t get the grief I thought I was going to. I was asked how long I’d been playing and I couldn’t remember whether I was four or five when I started. I’d not done much for a few years and realised that’s probably why I’d been in so much trouble. I’d have been better off playing in clubs and the like rather than roaming the streets.

Eventually we reached Athlone where I was introduced to Guinness that should really be given a viscosity rating like EP140 gear oil rather than any other description. It took so long to pour I was offered a bottle while I waited. Our journey back was even better than our journey out, for we were meeting old friends, and I seemed to be doing a lot of playing and singing though usually with numerous others taking a turn too. However, I was the novelty. They could listen to locals play and sing anytime, but I was passing for the last time and my music and song were different.

When we reached Albert lock we were told the bodies had been recovered and we read the details of what had happened in the newspaper. Apparently the pupil had fallen in and the teacher had jumped in to save her/him. I have a vague memory that neither could swim but that may not be true. Not much else occurred on the way back, we were still not allowed to pay for anything

I don’t remember much more. Not the train journey to Dublin, nor the time spent there. The flight back has gone as has how I got back home. I do remember the violence in the North of Ireland had flared and the papers were full of it. Interestingly at one place we stopped when we were having a meal and a drink the locals were asking us what was going on in the north. It seemed they neither knew nor cared much, but were puzzled by it. They lived in a small place that was entirely Catholic except for one elderly widow. Those with cars took it in turns to take her fifteen miles to her church on Sundays, waited at the back of the church during the service and then took her home again. Puzzled I’d asked why, and was patiently told that if they didn’t take her who would. She was a member of their community after marrying one of theirs fifty years ago, had done her share like everybody else, and now she was elderly was looked after like everybody else.

I suppose now I’ve started I may as well explain how I came to be who and where I am. Back at school the story of me playing, singing and dancing gave me a lot of grief, but the photographs of me with my arms around pretty girls on a dance floor or dancing outside on the grass soon shut that up. I didn’t change at school. I got in a lot of trouble and didn’t fit, but I left with good Advanced level results. After that my life was a mess. I did well at university without trying and was lucky to have avoided gaol the amount of trouble I got into. I’d have been twenty-eight when I realised I’d just had enough of it all. There was no trigger incident that brought it about. It just gradually crept up on me. The fighting, the drifting without purpose, the alienation that I’d created with my family, and all for what?

I’d reached that place where ending it all is a certainty unless one can find a good reason to live, and I’d never had one. I was earning a crust by busking(2) on the streets. I considered all I could do, and whether there was anything I wanted to do, or was it just better to quit. I could fight, fact is despite my lack of size I was the best street fighter I’d ever come across, because I’d absolutely no scruples at all, had studied anatomy with a view to crippling an opponent, and I was very fast. Hardly a recommendation to base a future life on. I was clever, I had a first class honours degree in theoretical physics and had no desire to do any form of science for a week never mind the rest of my working life. I could sing and play and I liked doing that, but could I make a living out of it?

I came to the conclusion it was either try or die. I tried, and I did ok. I didn’t earn a fortune singing, but I made enough to rent a flat whereas before I’d been living rough. I bought some decent clothes and a razor and rang Mum. She came to see me and brought my accordions with her. I took her out for dinner at the club I was singing in that night. She told me I sounded good and asked did my voice never go any deeper. I was puzzled, but said my singing voice was essentially my speaking voice. I’d never considered my voice to be high high as in falsetto, but it was at the top end of the tenor range for a man. Mum asked me about women in my life, and I admitted I’d never had one and never felt the lack.

When we got home she asked me to sing for her. I agreed, but the songs she asked for were all love songs and sung from a woman’s perspective. I objected, but she asked me to just gratify her whim. I did. Christ, even I could hear the difference. I was ok singing as a man, but I was phenomenally good singing as a woman. We talked. We talked the night away. I told her things about me I was only realising as I spoke. I’d not so much been in a closet as much as in a sprayed on box. A box so tight even I didn’t know I was in a second skin, a male skin over the female me, but after that there was no going back.

Mum was fine with it, but I was bothered what the rest of the family would think. “Why do you care, Douglas? You’ve never bothered before. I appreciate you’d like to build bridges and get on with them, but if they can’t accept you then they can’t. Your dad will take a couple of hours to accept you, but trust me, it’ll take him no more than that. He’s as difficult as you, and if your brothers and sisters won’t accept you they’ll have to keep quiet about it in his house or leave. You know that’s how he is. I know he’d rather have you back as a daughter than living rough as a son.”

“I don’t know how to do this, Mum. I can sing as a woman, and I’d like to, but not as a drag artist.”

“Do you trust Lizzie?”

Lizzie was next down in age from me, and we’d been close once before my behaviour drove her away. “I don’t know. Why?”

“She never gave up on you. She works from home, something to do with computers. She would be happy to come down here to help you.” Mum looked around. “But not in this place.” Find a decent place with three bedrooms, better four. I’ll bankroll you. Before you object the others have all had sizeable sums off your dad and I for various reasons. You need to get yourself a name, Love. There’re not many girls called Douglas. If you’d been a girl I was going to name you Victoria, but have a think.”

That’s how it happened. I found a decent four bedroomed flat overlooking the river, and Lizzie moved in to help me with clothes, make up and a million things about being a woman. Mostly it was easy, some I had to work on. I wasn’t even scared when I went out as her sister shopping that first time a fortnight later. Six weeks after that I was singing as Victoria McLeod and not long after that turning work away. I just looked it up, I was thirty-two when I had the last of my SRS related surgeries. Lizzie and I still shared the flat though she moved out a couple of months after into her fiancé’s place and got married soon after that.

I met Jesus in the theatre where I was performing. He came backstage after the shew. One thing led to another and eighteen months afterwards I was Victoria Garcia.

1 Gralloched, gutted, disembowelled. A Scottish term dictionaries seem to only define in connection with deer though it is widely used with rabbits and other game too.

2 Busking, entertaining in public places for gratuities.