“We know about the brain drain and the brawn drain; now there is a ‘bairn drain’.” – Ian MacArthur, Scottish Emigration Report, Hansell, 1967 – a mother responds to concerns about the young population leaving Scotland

Brawn. Brain. Bairn. Drain, drain, drain.

You said it, Mr MacArthur. Our strength, our wits, and now our wee’uns, circling the plughole, seeping out the cracks of our lives – less jobs, more leaving, not enough babbies. Someone said no factories won’t want to move up North; ain’t enough ‘benefits.’ We ain’t enough, that it?

Brawn. My eldest left for Manchester when you shut the mines. What did you expect him to do? Beautiful he was in shiny black coal dust, but what he got to stay for after?

Brains. We knew it were coming with the next; we made sure and got them proper educated. Way past fourteen; they read better than their Da and me. They read him the letters saying the power were ‘bout to be switched off while I found candles in the bothy. Mam always said you can do anything with a dry match, but it didn’t stop them leaving neither. Further than Manchester, all the way down London – proper scholars they are, university and all. We hear from them sometimes, postage stamps from the continent. My littl’uns on a plane. Fancy that.

Didn’t expect to get pregnant this late; thought my monthlies had dried up and all, but here we are. And I ain’t letting this one go, not this bairn. I ain’t letting him go to no mines, not that you left any. I ain’t letting him go to no school neither, not when it’ll get ‘im far away as I can’t reach.

No, this one’ll stay with me and his Da, in the gloaming, in the candlelight. I ain’t letting him leave. We’ll circle this drain together, Mr MacArthur. How ‘bout that?