1

A LIFETIME OF MEMORIES

Why have I at seventy-two years old, decided to record my memories of these years?

Who will want to read this and am I only wasting my time? Jill has been encouraging me

for some time to do this because family history has always been important to her so there

is one reader who will not feel it has been a wasted exercise. Perhaps Emma will one day

find it interesting too because she is always asking me to tell her stories about her Mum

and Uncle Martin when they were children. I’m feeling slightly apprehensive about

starting at the beginning because of feelings I have about my childhood but maybe by

writing them down I will lay a few ghosts to rest.

2

I was born in 1933 in the Raploch area of Stirling which was a council housing scheme

for working class families and had a bit of a reputation for housing petty criminals but

nothing like the notoriety it achieved in later years. I was the second oldest of seven

children but sadly my youngest brother who was born after I married and moved away,

died when he was only about eighteen months old. May was the eldest by about two

years then came David about two years after me, followed by Nan who was born on my

birthday about two years after that. Hugh came probably more than three years later and

Flora after another four years when I was thirteen years old and my father had returned

from the war. James completed the family six years after that.

My earliest memory was when I was about four years old going to a little house by the

harbour in Ayr for a holiday with my Granny, my mother, May and David. My father

went to Paris much to my mother’s annoyance!! He was a coal miner working

underground in the most difficult, dangerous conditions, digging for coal by hand in a

height of three feet surrounded by water. I was always afraid when there was an accident

at the mine (and there were many of them) in case he would be killed. He used to come

home covered in coal dust because there were no facilities for bathing then. He was an

intelligent proud man who wanted to do better than his miner father before him but in

those days there were no opportunities to do so. My mother who was not very intelligent

or ambitious was content to have her life dictated to her by my father. This was to cause

many unhappy memories for us growing up in a home where there were constant rows

usually about money. My mother was unable to challenge my father’s unrealistic belief

that the housekeeping money he allowed her was sufficient with the result that she got

into debt and when he found out there were violent rows. On one occasion my mother

ended up with a bad cut above her eye which left a scar because she never got it stitched.

She ran out of the house late that night and said she wasn’t coming back. We were all

hysterical and I remember screaming at my father that I knew what he had done. We

could always tell when there would be a row because my father’s bad mood always

showed on his face and I was always afraid of him when he raised his voice.

3

At this point I should talk about my grandparents. My mother’s parents lived in a first

floor flat in Baker Street, Stirling which had a toilet on the landing shared by all the other

tenants. They had four children the eldest being Aunt Nan who was a very dour person,

then my mother, followed by Uncle Robert an unpleasant character then Aunt Babs who

was kind and my favourite. My grandfather Hugh was the kindest, gentlest person but

my granny was the nastiest, bad tempered old lady who dressed in long black skirts and

looked like Queen Victoria!! We used to go and visit them every Saturday but it was not

an enjoyable time especially after my grandfather died. When we arrived my granny

would be having her forty winks in a high lugged chair. She would open her eyes briefly

when we arrived and then barked “be quiet” and we had to sit and wait until she decided

to wake up. She never showed the slightest interest in us or looked pleased to see us.

My father’s parents lived in a ground floor flat at Borestone Crescent St Ninians and we

used to walk through the King’s Park to visit them every Sunday dressed in our best

clothes. My grandfather, a small thin man was a bad tempered, intolerant bigot who

hated catholics and the Royal Family. He threw the radio out of the window one day just

because a royal occasion was being broadcast!! My granny was the warmest, kindest

person who was about six feet tall and very fat and she always gave us such a warm

welcome. She was always anxious if my grandfather was in a bad mood. We used to

love to visit her after she was on her own. She worried hysterically if we went across the

road to the swing park and insisted that my father saw us across the road each time. There

were seven sons and two daughters in the family but the only one I was close to was

Uncle Sandy who died when I was about twelve years old and I was very upset because I

was his favourite and he let everyone know it. At the funeral everyone got angry with me

because I couldn’t stop crying.

I was six years old when war was declared and I remember my father who was by now in

the Territorial Army being brought up from the mine to enlist as a regular soldier

although it would be a few months before he was posted to Aldershot to train for combat

The street was agog with the news and worried families wondered what would happen

4

next Air raid shelters sprung up in the back gardens of the tenements which were blocks

of four houses and we lived on the first floor. We were issued with gas masks in boxes

which we had to carry with us at all times. When a siren sounded we had to make for the

nearest shelter and put on our masks which were uncomfortable and made it difficult to

breathe. Hugh was just a baby and he had to lie in a special mask but my biggest worry

was that my mother had to keep pumping air into it all the time or Hugh would have

suffocated..

Hugh’s birth was a difficult one for my mother because he weighed 13 pounds and was

born at home as we all were with the help of the same midwife who had delivered us all.

My father who was as bigotted as his father about catholics was worried that the catholic

midwife would, if there was a risk to mother and baby, save the child as directed by

catholic principles. However Hugh was born without any risk but my mother was quite

ill for two weeks. May, David, Nan and I were sent to our grandparents who by now had

moved to a modern first floor flat in nearby Morris Terrace. What a miserable time we

had. We were afraid that our mother might die and there was no kindly granny to

reassure us. Her discipline was harsh and on Sundays we were not allowed to leave our

room except for meals and were not allowed to speak. We had to amuse ourselves as best

we could. We were so happy when we went back home.

My father’s departure from home during the war caused many changes in our lives

mainly because my mother found it difficult to manage without his support. The army

pension was very small and she was not able to budget for food, heating by coal, clothes

and pay the rent. The result was we were often in rent arrears. By now I was seven years

old and I was aware of the mess we were in and I used to look at the rent book to see if

she had been paying it and I was worried we would be evicted. We had to cope with

ration books for food and clothing coupons for clothes. Again because of my mother’s

inability to manage we had lots of food on a Monday but hardly anything to eat by

Sunday. I remember going to the Co-op one Monday morning to get the week’s supply

and I hadn’t had anything to eat. I fainted in the long queue!! A lady took me home and

5

I wasn’t allowed to go again. Things got a bit better when my father came home on leave

regularly at first but when he was posted to Germany we only saw him once before the

end of the war. This meant he was away for about three years.

It must have been a nightmare for my mother coping with five children in a small flat

which had a living room with a kitchen range for burning coal, heating the house and for

some cooking because we only had a small stove in the kitchen. There was a bed recess

in the living room where my parents slept, a small bedroom for David and Hugh and a

slightly larger one for May, Nan and I. At one point we had a soldier, his wife and baby

daughter renting our big room to give us some extra cash so the girls moved into the

boys’ room and they slept with my mother while my father was away. This arrangement

lasted for a few months and it was chaos!! It was difficult to refuse an opportunity to

have some extra cash because there was no help for families except from the Red Cross

which invited families every so often to visit their premises to see if any secondhand

clothes which had been donated were of any use. This is the reason why I will never

wear secondhand clothes. The other nightmare for me was that my mother insisted when

buying my sisters and I shoes that she bought boys ones because they lasted longer!!. I

was so embarrassed to wear them. My mother was a french polisher before she married

and she managed to earn a little extra by going to people’s houses to repolish furniture

but it almost ended in tragedy because she kept a bottle of polish stripper which was a

kind of acid for removing old polish in a lemonade bottle on a shelf in the kitchen and

one day when my father was at home I was feeling thirsty, saw the lemonade bottle and

reached up to the shelf for it. My father happened to come into the kitchen and grabbed

it. There was a terrible row and no one in our family ever stored any thing but lemonade

in bottles after that!!

I was really jealous of May because being the oldest she got everything new and I had to

wear her castoffs. She got a new bike for her birthday when she was about eight and

wouldn’t share it with me. She always insisted on her sixpence pocket money each week

even though she knew my mother was short of money. I had to go without since I was

the one who didn’t make a fuss because I knew how precarious our money situation was.

6

I resented the fact that May never cared or thought about the struggle my mother was

having. The resentment because of her selfishness continued throughout my life at home.

We were never really friends and she never acted like a big sister. One Saturday

afternoon we went as usual to the Allanpark cinema matinee with some other children.

The film was a glamourous Hollywood musical which I loved. When the film ended I

wanted to stay and see the beginning again but May decided to leave and never left me

my bus fare. I left soon after and quickly discovered I had no bus fare home. It must

have been Xmas time because I remember all the shops lit up and lots of people

shopping. I was panicking and running crying all the way through town to the Back o’

Hill and through the Shell Park which is where the Sainsbury store is now. It was dark

and I was so frightened that by the time I got home I was almost hysterical and I expected

May to get a row for leaving her six year old sister to walk home on her own. She

didn’t!! I got the row for not going with her and of course I can now admit it was my

own fault!! It was only when we were in our late thirties that we became close.

Christmases as a result of our hand to mouth existence were always difficult for my

mother to manage. Earlier ones when my father was at home always provided us with

some nice presents. I vividly remember probably when I was just five the year that May

and I got a doll with a chinalike face. We excitedly ran down the stone stairs outside our

flat to show off to our friends. I tripped, fell down the stairs and my doll’s face was

smashed to pieces!! I was utterly heartbroken especially since May was still able to

enjoy hers! My mother’s way of dealing with the Xmas present problem when she was

on her own was to give to the ones who demanded presents and give me what little was

left. In fact one Xmas I got nothing and I was only nine or ten then! The one treat we

had each Xmas was a visit to the Regal cinema for a special morning’s showing of films

and then on the way out we were given a paper bag with some sweets, a cake and a

sixpence. This was paid for by the local Miners Welfare Union for miners’ children. It

was a real treat and something we looked forward to.

I was doing well at Raploch Primary despite the lack of interest by my mother and my

father’s absence. I like to think he would have encouraged me to do well if he had been

7

there. In my last year I was top of the class and my teacher’s name was Miss Gordon

whom I saw many years later at a reception in Edinburgh. I never forgot her face!! I was

so tempted to tell her what a vindictive uncaring teacher she had been. She obviously

had no understanding of the situation that children in an deprived area like the Raploch

survived in. She was furious that I had not turned up at school on prize-giving day and

when I attended next day she threw my prize which was a book down on my desk and

said I didn’t deserve it!! She never bothered to find out the reason for my absence. I was

so ashamed of my shabby clothes that I could not bear to go up on the stage with all the

school seeing me. The anger, hurt and humiliation remains with me to this day.

I must have been ten years old when I went to the Territorial School in Cowane Street

which was quite a walk to and from home to school each morning and afternoon. There

was no money for bus fares. The headmaster was much feared by the pupils especially in

the line up going into school each morning. He would stand at the door and see if we

were looking tidy and that our shoes were well polished. Those who weren’t were pulled

out of the line to explain themselves and receive the belt if he wasn’t satisfied with the

explanation. I did well at that school too but was scared of the teachers who were very

strict. One teacher who had taught May two years before kept telling me I was a better

pupil than my sister and that pleased me! She was very encouraging to me and I was

determined to do well. One day she said “There is one thing about Margaret Orr she

always has a nice smile” Compliments and kind remarks were few and far between in my

life at that time so it is easy to see why I remember them with such pleasure. Many years

later I told George that story and he always teased me when I was looking gloomy

“where is that Margaret Orr smile” It worked I did smile!! I was fortunate enough with

one other pupil to win a bursary to Stirling High School which was fee-paying instead of

going to Riverside School which was the only alternative. I went there when I was

twelve.

Going back to when I was eleven two friends ( one called Jean who many years later

became David’s sister-in-law) and I decided to have backgreen concert to raise some

money for the Soldiers Welfare fund since two of us had fathers fighting in the war. We

8

were rehearsing one evening while my father was home on leave and my parents had

both gone out for a while. Hugh was playing with friends outside then came in and asked

for a bandage because he had cut his finger. I ignored him and he found some cotton

wool which he wound round his hand and went back to his friends. Unknown to me they

were playing with matches and the cotton wool on his hand caught fire. He came

screaming up the stairs with his hand alight. I met him halfway up and snatched the

burning cotton wool off his hand and took him into the house. I put him to bed and I

think I put something on the hand which by now was just red and raw and waited for my

parents to return. I don’t think my parents appreciated the seriousness of the burn

because it was the next morning before my father decided to take him to the Infirmary. I

don’t remember them blaming me but maybe they realized they should not have left us

on our own. It was feared that Hugh would be scarred for life and he might not be able to

use his hand again. My father had to leave that day to rejoin his unit but was allowed

home on compassionate grounds the next day. Hugh was transferred to the Infectious

Diseases Hospital at Kildean because he developed scarlet fever from the shock of the

burns. He was in the isolation hospital for one month and we were not allowed in to visit

him so we had to talk to him at the window. Fortunately he made a complete recovery

and he only has a slight scar on his hand.

I was sitting my important exam for entrance to the High School the day after the burning

accident and I really did not expect to pass but I did!! Maybe it would have been a good

thing if I had not won the bursary because I was not happy in my three years at that

school. There were only three pupils in the class who were not fee-paying and we were

also the only pupils without the school uniform so we were always different. The work

was hard and while most of the pupils had parents to support their efforts I had none and

had no one to talk to about the difficulties I was having. I had a very good, kind French

teacher who was very encouraging and I did well as a result. The gym teacher was a

sadistic bully and I was terrified of her with the result I was clumsy when she was

teaching us Scottish country dancing and I’ve hated it ever since. She also humiliated

anyone who was no good at gymnastics and I used to sit throughout the class before hers

absolutely terrified and having no one to tell how I felt meant that things never got better

9

throughout my years at the school. I so envied my friend Eileen whose father was an

Army Captain because her family were so close and supportive. I was upset when they

moved to Glasgow because they were kind to me. Then I had another friend Fiona whose

mother died when she was young and her father was a headmaster but I never wanted to

take my school friends home because of where we lived and the poor state of the house. I

once took Fiona home when everyone was out but I had spent the morning cleaning the

house to make it look better.

When I was fourteen Flora was born and I tried to show her the love and affection that I

had not experienced with the result that we became very close and she wanted to go

everywhere with me which became a bit difficult when I wanted to go out with friends.

She was made a fuss of by my parents too at times but mainly when they liked to show

her off because she was so pretty with her fair curly hair. My father by this time was

demobbed from the army but not before he had covered himself with glory winning the

Military Medal for bravery which he was to receive later from the Queen. He had single

handedly knocked out a German anti-tank gun. I don’t remember much fuss being made

about his actions but I was enormously proud of him. He was in Belgium when the war

ended and he made friends with a family in Avelgem so he decided when Flora was 10

months old that he would take her and my mother to visit these people. May was by this

time working in Deanston Mill much to my father’s disgust because he had hopes that

she would put her secretarial skill from school to good use but to be fair to May there

were no office jobs to be had and she wanted to earn some money. I was left in charge of

the house, the dog, David, Nan and Hugh and I was only fourteen years old! Fortunately

it was the school holidays so I didn’t have to go to school.

I was happy to leave school at fifteen with only a lower leaving certificate to show for my

efforts. How different it could have been if I could have done what I really wanted to do

– to be a primary school teacher but I knew it was impossible because of my family’s

financial situation and anyway I hated that school! My life had been pretty boring up till

then with the only interest outside home being church on Sundays when I became too old

for Sunday School and Bible Class on Sunday evenings. My mother was a devout church

10

goer so there was no escape. However I met my first boyfriend at Bible Class. Charlie

was a tall handsome lad who worked in a local garage and was a keen athlete with much

success as a sprinter in amateur athletics. This introduced me to a different world

meeting other athletes usually from wealthy backgrounds. Charlie used to walk me home

from school in his lunchtime but I soon lost interest because he became too serious for

me at fifteen and I got tired of him. Then for a while I went to Salvation Army meetings

with my cousins who were true Salvationists but I never was interested in joining them.

I was more interested in another boy called Charlie who was learning to play in the band.

He was an apprentice butcher in a shop in town who was more keen to learn a musical

instrument than become a Salvationist!! But the Captain thought he would make a good

officer and were anxious that he would not be distracted by me. We used to sneak off to

the cinema which was against the rules and he never became an officer and they blamed

it on me so I wasn’t exactly welcomed at their meetings anymore. That little romance

didn’t last long but I don’t remember why because I was quite keen on him.

The war didn’t cause much disruption in Stirling apart from a bomb that demolished

some buildings at the bottom of the Craigs. We could get rid of the dreaded gas masks

and the shelters in the gardens were used for other purposes before they were demolished

many years later. My father was back home and we were getting back to some normality.

I had left school and I didn’t have to go my grumpy old granny’s for a snack at

lunchtime. Looking back over my childhood if it ever began and ended with my leaving

school I could not think of a time when I had been really happy and carefree or had felt

part of a close caring family. I suppose less sensitive people would not be so affected by

this but I think I was the sort of person who needed more reassurance than others. I had

meet children at school who had such a secure family background and were obviously

happy and carefree. Perhaps if I had not mixed with a different class of pupils I might

not at that time have felt so aware that there was another kind of life outside mine. The

families in the area where I grew up probably had the same lifestyle with no show of

affection because that really wasn’t what was expected of working class families. After

all the parents had been brought up in exactly the same way. People were struggling to

survive and I think playing happy families was not on the agenda. I wasn’t aware of

11

feeling bitter at the time but later when I heard others talking about their happy

childhoods I realised what I had missed.

Finding work when I left school was difficult even though I had done a commercial

course giving me shorthand, typing and book-keeping skills. My father was anxious that

I did not follow in May’s footsteps and go to work in a factory. At that time his Colonel

in the Territorial Army was looking for someone to help look after his ten month old

daughter Janet on a temporary basis and I agreed to do it while I looked for something

else. His wife was nice if a bit scatty and they lived in a nice terraced house in

Cambusbarron. Most days I walked there through the King’s Park which might not be

such a good idea nowadays. I enjoyed looking after Janet in this posh house, feeding her,

doing her washing, taking her out in her pram and putting her to bed. They had a nice

housekeeper who was also very kind to me. I stayed for about six months and left when I

told my father about Mrs Boyle leaving crisp new pound notes in the nursery. He

thought she was testing my honesty and was very offended.

Later he was to do another favour for Colonel Boyle who by this time had moved to a

farm in Comrie. Hugh had just left school and with no prospects of work my father

arranged for him to go and work as a farmhand without considering if it was right for

Hugh to leave home and live on an isolated farm with other workers. Hugh was a shy

withdrawn boy lacking in confidence mainly because of my father’s domineering ,

bullying manner towards him. I think this was caused by the lack of contact between the

two of them during the war and my mother trying to protect Hugh only irritated him

more. In the end Hugh returned home and this did not endear him to my father who felt

he had let Boyle down and Hugh had failed him.

My first real job was on the cash desk in a big restaurant in the centre of Stirling and I

was delighted when I went for the interview to see that a neighbour was the manageress.

I got the job but I wasn’t long there when I discovered she was embezzling money. She

would send me for my lunch in the kitchen then instead of putting customers bills

through the till she tore them up. When the till was emptied at the end of the day she

12

pocketed the excess. When I saw this I told my father who insisted I went in next day

and resigned straight away. Everyone was mystified about my leaving but I couldn’t say

anything to the management because I had no proof. I heard later that she was dismissed

for dishonesty.

I then found a job as a clerkess in a butcher’s shop in Bridge of Allan opposite the café. I

worked in a little office in the shop where the customer came to pay bills or place orders.

I hated seeing the rabbits being skinned and the manager was a strange person. It was a

bit of a dead end job and I stayed for about a year and then at seventeen I found a job in

the Stirling Journal weekly newspaper office in King Street as a telephonist and this job

was to change my life!!

The Journal was one of three weekly papers in Stirling, The Observer is still going strong

and the Sentinel was the third one. The offices were above the shop which sold

stationery items and had a travel agency. The print works were behind the shop and were

kept very busy besides printing the weekly paper and government leaflets and papers.

There was a spiral staircase to the offices and mine was at the top of the stairs. I shared it

with two nice gentlemen, one was the travel agent and the other the advertising manager.

I operated the small switchboard and typed letters for the others. On my first day I was

taken on a tour of the offices and in the Editorial I met Jimmy Keir and George Saunders

two of the reporters. I liked Jimmy instantly but my first impression of George was of a

small bespectacled guy who was just a bit too full of himself. He later told me that when

I walked into the Editorial and he saw my nice legs he decided that’s the girl I’m going to

marry!! So I was right about him!!!!! He flirted with me all the time even though he

knew I had a boyfriend called Vic. He was a handsome lad who was a postman and we

had been going together for about a year. My family really liked Vic whose family were

friends and were very annoyed when I decided to stop seeing him. My reason was

nothing to do with George although he knew he had rival. Vic confessed to me one night

that he was stealing mail because he needed money. He had been spoiled by his

widowed mother because he was the youngest and he felt he should always be able to

spend money. The minute I told my father he was pleased that I had decided to stop

13

seeing him. My mother always said he never married because I broke his heart which I

doubt!!

This left the way clear for George and we were absolutely angry when my parents

decided that he was too old for me being ten years older. I suppose in these days that was

a big difference in our ages. I went with him in secret for a while and we used to visit

Jimmy and his wife Janet in their little flat. Janet was a reporter on the Sentinel our rival

paper. They were full of fun and we used to play football in their empty spare room with

a ball of newspaper. Jimmy was a real tease and Janet was so pleased that George had

found someone who was a good influence and would make him reform his wild ways.

He had had a few girlfriends and was always involved in wild boozy nights. We became

lifelong friends and later when our children arrived we made a pact that if anything

happened that left any of our children without parents the other family would assume

parental responsibility. Looking back on it now it might not have been a good decision

because Jimmy and Janet’s idea of parenting was quite different from ours. They were

very strict and I felt that their lifestyle was very restricted.

My parents opposition to George ended when he came to our house to report on the

terrible damp state of the new house we had moved to from our tenement home. All the

houses on the estate had been built with flat roofs which seemed to cause most of the

trouble and the rain would come in through the skirting boards. When I told George he

thought a bit of pressure publishing the story might have some effect because we had got

nowhere with our complaints. He came to see my folks, printed the story and hey presto

the houses were fixed!! Were they impressed? You bet they were and from then there

was no opposition to us going out together but only twice a week and back in the house

by 10.30 on the dot or my father would lean out of the window and bark “it’s time you

were in” The move to Craigforth Crescent had been a welcome one because there were

more bedrooms, a living room, a nice big kitchen and a garden all to ourselves My father

quickly became a keen gardener growing his own vegetables and flowers which was

something he enjoyed after a hard day digging coal. He had gone back to his old job in

the coalmine when he was demobbed from the army.

14

My life became full of new experiences because of George’s job because I was able to go

with him to amateur dramatic festivals, agricultural shows and the best occasion of all the

Press Ball which was held in the Golden Lion Hotel which was in those days famous for

its important events and luxurious surroundings. The grand staircase which led to the

beautiful ballroom was something special. I borrowed an evening dress and felt

fantastic!!! George taught me to dance and was infinitely patient with me because I had

to overcome my shyness on the dance floor and I was sadly lacking in self confidence.

He was a good dancer despite being small and I later learned that his brother Dave had

won quite a few medals at dancing competitions. They must have inherited it from their

parents who were keen old time dancing fans never missing their Saturday evenings at

the dancehall.

In these days it was not usual to introduce your girlfriend to your family or friends until

you were sure she was the right one. I don’t remember girls feeling like this. Eventually

I met George’s gang at the Press Ball and what a great lot they were. They had been

friends since schooldays and they all had the most ridiculous nicknames. George had

been called Soko for some years after a character in a comic but that ended one day in

Bannockburn when his mother was referred to as Soko’s mother!!! He then became Doc

because he was the physiotherapist for the local football team and that name stayed with

him permanently. George Paterson who used to play saxophone in a local dance band

and had been in the navy was Bosun, Alex Cochrane who was a housepainter was

Rembrant and Bill Rankin who was always sick after a boosy night out was Spew.

A few months later I was invited by George to Maitland Avenue but he forgot to tell his

folks!! They were very welcoming despite their surprise because it was the first time he

had brought a girl home. His mother was a bustling little woman with a kitchen which

was absolutely sparkling clean, his father was such a kindly person with an infectious

chuckle, Dave was quite reserved and Bert was full of good humour. His mother was

wary of me because she obviously adored her son and always called him Georgie. She

totally spoiled her sons making sure their meals were always ready and that their shoes

15

were cleaned ready for the morning. She made the most delicious soups and the

atmosphere in her home was so different from my own one. I soon became accepted and

was always there at weekends when all the gang seemed to drop in to listen to jazz

records and Pop enjoyed the music too. There was always a buzz about the place and

great debates about everything but never nasty differences of opinion. I found that

difficult because raised voices in my home always ended up in violence and to this day

I’m always a bit anxious when I hear people arguing good naturedly or not.

By this time May and Robert who had been going out for some time decided to get

engaged. Robert was a very moody person and didn’t make friends very easily. We had

known each other for some time through our church activities. My father insisted that no

daughter of his would marry until they were 21 year old and there was no argument about

that

I enjoyed my job at the Journal office and made many good friends there but our boss

was an eccentric obsessed with the local lawn tennis association who was so dominated

by his mother even though he was a middleaged man with a very nice wife. He used to

have terrible temper tantrums and throw things around the room if he thought a story had

not been reported his way. George and Jimmy Keir were quite unconcerned but I used to

feel quite upset. When we decided to get engaged a year later I thought it would be better

if I found another job because of the boss’s attitude to my fiancée!! I always wanted to

defend the boys but realised I would probably get the sack!

I went to work in a small office in Causewayhead for a coal merchant mainly doing

accounts but it was a boring job after the bustle of a newspaper office. The boss was

quite nice but he was cross when he realised I was engaged and thought I would not stay

long in the job. He was quite right as it turned out.

May and Robert got married and I was a bridesmaid. May was still working in the

factory at Deanston and Robert worked in the McGrouther sausage factory at Cornton as

a butcher I think. Finding a home for a young couple was impossible with the only

16

possibility being a council house since buying was unheard of in those days for young

working class people. The waiting list for council housing was horrendous so they had to

live with us. It caused overcrowding although we had four bedrooms but it meant that

Nan, Flora and I had to share a small room and bed!!! I was still expected to do all the

cleaning of the house and hand over my wages only to get a small sum of pocket money

and still be expected to go out only two or three nights a week.. This caused a lot of

arguments between May and I especially when she became pregnant and stopped work

I felt she should have done more of her share of the housework but I didn’t get any

support from my parents.

The only thing that spoiled my visits to Maitland Avenue was the fact that Dave had a

girlfriend who was very snobbish and moody. She was very glamorous because she had

a good job and parents who spoiled her so she had plenty of money to spend on clothes

and I was very conscious of my cheap ones. I think everyone thought Dave was attracted

to having a glamorous girlfriend because she was so different in personality to him. She

was a good ice skater and took part in quite a few shows at Falkirk Ice Rink. Her parents

were strict teatotal and this made Nan the same so she did not approve when the boys had

a wild night out.

By this time George was thinking about moving on from The Journal and got a job with

the Derby Evening Telegraph. I was absolutely devastated when he left and he was

miserable living in very cheap accommodation in Derby. He had asked my father if we

could marry because of this and instead of waiting until I was twenty-one we planned to

marry four months after my nineteenth birthday. May was really angry that I didn’t have

to wait till I was the same age as her but it was nice to have my way for a change! We

wrote to each other nearly every day and the postman always joked about the parcel he

delivered because George wrote on many sheets of thick copy paper which contained

very few words because he had such a scrawly handwriting.

We were married on Friday 12th September 1952 in St Mark’s Church Drip Road at 6pm

to avoid people having to take time off work. We couldn’t have it on a Saturday

17

afternoon because my father said everyone would miss the football match!! We had the

reception in the huge Drill Hall in Princes Street where my father was the sergeant in the

Territorial Army and we got the hall free. Over 100 guests attended but the place looked

half empty which meant there was plenty of room for dancing. George’s gang were up to

their usual tricks secretly trying to open our suitcase but all they succeeded in doing was

ruining the lock. We were travelling to Edinburgh that night by train and we were lifted

on to a station wagon and escorted to the train and all I was worried about was if my light

coloured coat would be dirty!! When we arrived at the Caley Station at the West end of

Princes Street we could not get a taxi to take us to our hotel at Waterloo Place because

the Festival was in full swing so we had to walk the length of Princes Street through the

crowds with our heavy suitcase. We soon realised that the lock on our suitcase was

damaged and we could not get it opened. We had to wait until we got to Scarborough the

next day before we forced it open then had to buy another suitcase for our journey to

Derby a week later.

Scarborough was cold at that time of year but we had a nice small hotel and there was a

nice theatre and ballroom for dancing to the big bands. I felt so free for the first time in

my life and nobody to tell me what I could do or no chores to do for everyone else. I felt

confident about the future and looked forward to starting my new life in Derby.

We travelled to Derby by train a week later and fortunately the old lady who had rented

us the rooms was away on holiday so I was looking forward to settling in on our own. I

was not prepared for the dreary house on a council estate and I don’t suppose it occurred

to George that he should have described the place to me. We had a small sitting room

and bedroom which were shabbily furnished. The bathroom only had a bath and toilet.

We had to fill a pitcher of water for the basin in our bedroom to wash!! In all fairness

George had taken the cheapest accommodation he could find to save money so there was

no point in being too upset. Worse was to come when the old lady came home. She was

the most unpleasant person who seemed to imagine that she could order this young girl

from Scotland around and was going to teach me how to be a housewife. I soon put her

right so there was always a strained atmosphere which didn’t worry George because he

18

was at work all day. I was glad that I had had a week without the old dragon to find my

way around but I have to admit the first morning when George went to work and I was on

my own I was terrified. He gave me instructions about finding the trolley bus stop and

where to get off in the town centre and left me to it. I quickly saw that he had made lots

of nice friends especially a couple who owned the pub round the corner from his office

called the Noah’s Ark. We used to meet his colleagues there and had some lovely

evenings with them. However I decided we would have to find somewhere else to live

especially after I heard the most awful moans coming from the old lady’s bedroom one

morning. When I opened her bedroom door I saw she was in the middle of a very bad

asthma attack and was taking morphine for the pain. She refused my offers of help and

frankly I was really scared because I had never seen anyone in such a state.

We jumped out of the fat into the fire with this move to a more affluent part of the same

area of Alvaston in Derby where the accommodation was more comfortable but the

owner of the house was quite eccentric. The dustbin man rang the bell at Xmas looking

for his Xmas tip and said to her “ Good morning I’m the man who empties your bin” and

she replied “and I’m the one who fills it “ and shut the door!! We had the front half of

the house and when we were in Scotland for Xmas she moved our bedroom to the back of

the house because she wanted that room. It got pretty unpleasant and we decided to

move without telling her so we got up in the middle of the night to get our packing cases

from the outside cellar, phoned for a taxi and were gone before she got out of bed!!

Our next move was a very happy one with an elderly couple who were friends of my boss

at a big department store in Derby where I worked in the accounts office. He was a

retired policeman with a wonderful sense of humour and she was the sweetest person

who was so delighted to have a daughter because she had two sons. They treated us as

their family and Sunday lunches were such a pleasant experience for us because Mrs

Whittaker cooked the dinner and I cleared up afterwards with her husband’s help.

George was always too busy reading the papers and he was thoroughly spoiled as he had

been by his own mother. Their son, his wife and granddaughter came every Sunday for

tea and what a wonderful selection of food was always prepared for them which made me

19

think how wonderful it must be to be welcomed in such a way. To this day I never resent

spending hours in the kitchen like Mrs Whittaker making meals for my family because I

had never felt welcomed like that by our parents.

We had a lovely surprise when we opened our newspaper one morning to see Davie

MacKenzie’s photo with the caption” That £75,000 smile” Davie had been at the Stirling

Albion football match and his team’s win had clinched the fortune for him. He couldn’t

contact us but we soon got in touch with him and celebrated from a distance which was

just as well. That was a breathtaking amount of money in 1954!!

We had been there for about six months when we got the news that James, my youngest

brother had died as a result of a scalding accident at home. While I had left home before

he was born I still felt incredibly sad. My mother much to everyone’s surprise before our

wedding had been told to go home and prepare to have a baby in her mid forties which

meant May’s son Robert who was only a few months old had an uncle younger than him.

We rushed home to find everyone absolutely devastated especially my father because

James was his pride and joy. Apparently he had been playing in the kitchen with the

gadget that lit the cooker, tossed it up in the air and caught a teapot full of tea which

badly scalded him on his chest area. He was rushed to Stirling Royal Infirmary and died

as a result of inhaling vomit and I often wonder if there had been negligence somewhere

but my father was too broken hearted to do anything about it. My mother withdrew into

herself and refused to speak to anyone or do anything. In desperation after the funeral

my father asked me if I would take Flora and her to Derby for a week or so to see if that

would help. The Whittakers were only too happy to help so we all returned to Derby. It

was a nightmare for all of us because even kindly Mrs W could get no response from my

mother. She just sat and stared into space and was obviously traumatised by the whole

tragedy. Poor Flora was just ignored by her but she enjoyed all the attention from

everyone else and the neighbours had a lovely little terrier which she loved to spend time

with. My father came and took them home and we settled down again. I had changed

jobs again and was a wages clerk in a big factory where the staff were very friendly and

one of the girls mentioned that her husband who was a joiner would love to make a doll’s

house but they had no children. I asked if he would make it for Flora and that’s how we

20

had this wonderful Swiss chalet. When it was completed and delivered to us the problem

was how to get it to Stirling. George’s brother Dave was the manager for a Road haulage

firm and he arranged for it to be collected. I never saw Flora’s reaction when it was

delivered but my father insisted on displaying it in the garden for all to see!! Looking

back now I realise that Flora must have felt pretty abandoned when I left home because

of the attention I had given her and then James came along and at five years old she had a

baby brother getting all the attention and then the tragedy of his death which meant no

one had any time to help her through all this sadness.

Dave and Nan had got married a few months after us and had Lynne nine months later

much to Nan’s disgust because she had not planned to have a family. They came for a

holiday with us when the Whittakers were away. I was so amazed when she finished

feeding Lynne who had dribbled on her dress at the way she threw the baby down on the

settee and flounced off in a temper. She never became a caring mother and I dread to

think what sort of life that child had. More about that later.

I went into hospital to have my appendics out soon after and spent a miserable week in a

convalescent hospital away in the country which meant that I had no visitors because we

had no car and George found it difficult to get away from work because of the time it

took to get there. It was the one time I felt homesick but I got a lovely welcome home

from the Whittakers so the misery was soon forgotten.

George after two and a half years in Derby decided we should come back to Scotland. It

was a wrench to say goodbye to our many friends especially the Whittakers who were

very upset at our going. He got a reporter’s job with the Evening Dispatch in Edinburgh

and we left Derby just before Xmas. We arrived off the overnight train in Edinburgh in a

cold rainy day and I had a terrible chest cold. We bought a newspaper to look at

accommodation before we continued our journey to Stirling. We found an advert for a

basement bed sitting room at the West end. We phoned the owner, arranged to view it

and we had a place to stay within hours of arriving in Edinburgh!! The owner, a Jewish

gentleman became our first friend and was to be a great help to us later when we bought

21

our house. My father took one look at the flat and said it was a dreadful place to stay

because it was in the basement of the huge house but we stayed there for six months and

were very happy there. It was a tiny flat but we had our own cooking facilities, shared a

bathroom and it was a great location for getting to work. Flora used to come and stay and

we spent practically a whole week visiting the Botanic Gardens which were within

walking distance and she was delighted that I was back near her again.

We started househunting and one day as we were crossing the Dean Bridge near our flat

we saw a bus showing its destination “Silverknowes” and we thought it was a lovely

name and wondered where it was and what it was like. Then we found in the property

guide an advert for the new estate in Silverknowes with a showhouse so we set out to see

it and we loved the house and the area but a new house there was too expensive for us

and we were so disappointed. However we saw a house for sale in Silverknowes Grove

soon after and went to see it. It had been occupied by a Welsh family with five children

who had lived in it for two years. Because of the state of this new house where the

children had run amok with pen knives ruining the woodwork and the state of the garden

the family had been unable to sell it. They were desperate to move because of the

husband’s job and they had to accept our offer of 2,100 pounds although they had paid

2,500 pounds two years before. We were absolutely delighted! We arranged to meet in

Princes Street one lunch time to go to the solicitor’s office with our £100 deposit and

George was standing there clutching the inside pocket of his jacket to make sure his

money was safe. It made me laugh.

Our landlord of our tiny flat had become very fond of us and while he was sorry to see us

go he was a great help in helping us to equip our house. He arranged for us to have

tradesmen to help with various jobs and got us our first carpet and vacuum cleaner at

huge discounts. He was always ready to help in any way he could and we appreciated it

because we were strangers in Edinburgh. We kept in touch and he was to provide a flat

for Flora a few years later.

22

Having bought the house we could only afford to buy bedroom and dining room suites so

for a few months we had to put up with the discomfort of sitting on hard dining room

chairs in the evenings and we had no television only a radio and a pack of cards for

entertainment!! The bliss when we got our first carpet and our three piece suite was

indescribable!! I found a good job in the wages department of a bookbinding firm and

we were gradually able to buy more furniture. One Saturday when we were about to go

and buy paint to do some decorating there was a knock on the door and I was so angry to

find my mother and father on the door step. A few minutes more and we would have

been out because they hadn’t told us they were coming. I went to the kitchen to make

them a cup of tea and was furious when my father shouted “I don’t think much of your

housekeeping Look at the dust on your sideboard” That was the last straw I thought and

dashed through to the dining room to give him a piece of my mind. I stopped in my

tracks because there spread out on the sideboard were crisp new pound notes, 25 of them

which was a small fortune then. My father had had a win on the football pools and

decided it would pay for our stair carpet!! What a wonderful surprise and so generous

because it was a large part of his win. I felt so guilty that I had been annoyed with them

for turning up unexpectedly.

About this time Bert who was an electrician decided to emigrate to Canada with two

friends. It was hard for the family especially his mother and father because they were

always so close but they accepted that he felt that there were better prospects for him

there. He was such a miss in the house because he was such a cheery goodnatured

person with a lovely sense of humour. We had an endless round of send off parties with

so many people and I think we all knew that this was a permanent move to Canada.

After a year at Silverknowes we decided that our lives would be complete with a family.

We spent a lot of time with George Paton, a fellow journalist and his family and felt we

were missing out not having our own children. It was to be over two years later before I

became pregnant. We had sought medical advice privately and discovered that my womb

was retroverted and when this was corrected there were no further problems. I had

23

decided to stop work and stop being obsessed about a family and magically before I

completed my notice I discovered that I was pregnant.

I became aware the George was having increasing problems with his eyesight just before

I stopped work. I used to meet him for lunch some days and I would help him to read

some notices on the walls in his office. He had never wanted to draw attention to his

eyes right from the first time we met. I quickly became aware that he needed to focus

very closely on anything he wanted to read but he always managed. I worried that I

would not be able to help him so much when I was at home looking after a baby and one

day when I was making my routine doctor’s visit I dissolved in to tears and explained

why I was so upset. Fortunately my doctor had a good friend who was the chief eye

specialist at the Royal Infirmary and he arranged an appointment. It was difficult to

persuade George to go and see him because he had been told that nothing could be done

until the cataract in his remaining good eye was removed in his old age! He had been

born with cataracts in both eyes probably as a result of his mother having german measles

when she was pregnant and a series of botched operations on his left eye had left him

with no prospects of improving it ever. In the end he went and Professor Scott felt he

could operate on his right eye but it would be risky and he could be worse off. He

arranged for us to go to his retired senior at his home for a second opinion and his advice

was that we should take the risk. It seemed the worse possible time to have such a worry

now that I was six months into my pregnancy but arrangements were made for the

operation in January 1958 three months before Jill was born. George went into the Royal

Infirmary but it quickly became evident that it would not be straight forward. It was not

possible to remove the cataract because of George’s age. In these days it was only

possible when someone was old and it had stopped growing. In the end he was in

hospital for twelve weeks having a process of needling operations every two weeks to

gradually remove the film. It was difficult for him because in between the treatment he

had to stay upright moving his face as little as possible and eating slops so that there was

no disturbance in the eye area. He was worrying about me travelling to the hospital every

day especially because the weather was bad and I had fallen in the snow. It was getting

nearer the day for Jill to be born and two weeks before George came home but was not

24

able to see very much. The doctor assured us that the eye was settling down and we

should continue to hope that things would be better when he had his new glasses. I had

gone privately to the doctor who delivered Jill and he was a tremendous support and

arranged that George would be escorted at the Simpson Maternity Unit when I was

admitted but by good fortune he got his glasses the day before Jill was born and we were

ecstatic because he could see so well. He went into the garden and was so thrilled that he

could see every blade of grass on the lawn where before it was all a haze to him.

Jill was born on the day she was due in the evening two hours after I arrived at the

maternity unit. Everyone who came into my tiny ward talked about my beautiful

daughter with the huge mop of black hair. Because of our anxiety about eyes the doctor

had an eye specialist confirm that there was no problem. George had a great time with

his friends forever wetting the baby’s head. George Paterson and Davy McKenzie

practically lived at our house for about a week!! Jill was a good weight just over eight

pounds so I left hospital after ten days confident that all would be well. It soon became

apparent that things were going wrong when she was feeding. She would be violently

sick with the sickness shooting across the room. My doctor advised me to wait to see if

things settled down but I knew there was something wrong because she was losing

weight rapidly. I phoned the doctor who had delivered her and he told me to bring her

back to the maternity unit straight away. Of course we had no car in those days and

George was at work so a neighbour took me and when the doctor heard my description of

the vomiting he watched Jill feeding and saw that as the milk was going down a small

pocket was gathering and then it shot out of her mouth. He quickly diagnosed that it was

pyloric stenosis which is a blockage of the stomach to the bowel and she would need an

operation!! I was beside myself with worry having waited so long to have her and with

George’s eye problems it was all too much. The doctor was very reassuring and said that

if any child of his had an abnormality he would pray it was this one because it was so

easy to put right. We were taken straight to the Sick Children’s Hospital and then I went

home without her. I hadn’t been able to contact George at work so when he came home

and looked in the pram and saw she wasn’t there he got so upset too. The next day Jill

had her operation and we were horrified when we went to see this little baby with tubes

25

all around her and looking so fragile and ill. George couldn’t handle it and left the ward

and never went back until the day before Jill was discharged a week later. The ward

sister kept asking where my husband was and the night before she came home the sister

told me to go downstairs and bring him up to see how well she was now. A week later

we had to return to have her stitches out and the doctor was right that the problem had

been sorted. It was difficult for a time because she was still quite sickly and had to be fed

little and often which meant through the night as well as day but gradually she made up

her birth weight and we began to relax. George and Davy were her godfathers and they

were so proud and insisted the first time they pushed the pram they put L plates on it.

Having Jill put paid to the many prying questions about why after being married for five

years we had no children. In these days it was expected that when you married that the

children would follow and if they didn’t it was because you didn’t want them. It was an

emotional subject for me and I felt a bit of a failure that what I wanted most had not

happened. To this day I never question anyone who does not have children in case it

upsets them as it did me.

The only time I ever left Jill with my parents was when she was one year old and we

were going to Prestwick Airport with George’s parents, Dave and Nan, George and Davy

to welcome Bert with his Canadian bride on her first visit. We left her early in the

morning and picked her up later. I must say the whole family made a great fuss of her

and enjoyed looking after her. I worried all the time I was away but she survived without

me!! Shirley was the exact opposite to Bert, very quiet and not very sociable and didn’t

seem to enjoy the endless parties and I think that is why Bert changed so much over the

later years.

I can’t say I was very relaxed with Jill when she was so small because of our bad start. I

was always afraid something would happen to her because she was so precious to us.

George just enjoyed being a Dad with such a lovely little daughter still with masses of

black hair. We decided that we wanted her to have a brother or sister as soon as possible

which meant dealing with the reverted womb again and we were delighted that eighteen

months after Jill was born I became pregnant again. Martin’s birth was not as quick as

26

Jill’s but we were relieved that after twenty-four hours labour this healthy little boy

arrived. Again an eye specialist checked for eye problems and George was so happy that

none of his children would face the difficulties he had had.

We were happy because our family was complete which was just as well because I was

advised to have a hysterectomy because of the constant backache which meant looking

after two young children became increasingly difficult and at times I could hardly push

the pram. The decision to have the operation was not a difficult one to make but I had to

postpone it until the children were a little older because I didn’t have anyone who could

look after them and it seemed a drastic step in a woman so young. It would have been

nice to have relatives to help but Stirling was two hours away by bus and no one had a

car in these days. Visiting grandparents was such a hassle that I’m afraid we didn’t make

the journey too often in these days and it meant that Jill and Martin didn’t see much of

their cousins either. Eventually I had the operation when I was 33 years old and Pop and

Grandma Saunders came and stayed. George decided to buy Jill and Martin a budgie so

that they wouldn’t miss me too much and they called it Cheeky!!!

By this time Dave, George’s second brother, and Nan had two girls Lynne and Carol and

were living in Barnet where Dave was manager of a road haulage firm. During a medical

examination for his firm’s superannuation scheme it was discovered that Dave had a

faulty aorta heart valve which had been there from birth and had prevented him from

being accepted for national service in his late teens even though the reason for this had

never been disclosed to him. He was totally devastated and his health rapidly

deteriorated and he became very depressed. He went into hospital to regain some

strength in the hope that they could operate. When George got the news he was informed

that his brother was very ill so he immediately made plans to go south. In these days

flights only ran from Glasgow to London. He left Edinburgh and before he took the

flight to London phoned the hospital hoping for better news to be told that his brother had

died. I was at home with a two and four year old and had to make phone calls to Canada

and to Bannockburn to tell them this terrible news. Bert booked a flight and George’s

mother and father were on their way to Edinburgh to catch the first train in the morning.

27

About 3 o’clock that afternoon George Paterson phoned to say he had phoned my sister-

in-law to say how sorry he was and Nan didn’t know what he was talking about because

she had just been in to see Dave and he was certainly not dead! She was very upset of

course and I was in a panic. George phoned when he arrived in London to see if there

was any more news before he made his way to the hospital and when I told him of the

terrible mistake he said he was off for a stiff whisky before he went to face my sister-in-

law. It was terrible to tell his parents when they arrived about the mistake but they

decided to carry on with their plans to go south. Bert cancelled his flight and we all tried

to recover from this terrible mistake. The newspapers got hold of the story probably from

George’s colleagues when he explained his absence. The result was a reporter hounding

me and it was a strange situation being on the receiving end of press attention. George

decided to tell Dave because he didn’t want him reading about it in a newspaper and he

found it all very amusing. Apparently the mistake was made when another Mr Saunders

in the next ward had died and they had not checked the first name of the patient. The

hospital was very apologetic and reimbursed everyone for the expenses involved. Sadly

Dave died the following week so we had to go through it all again. It was such a tragedy

at forty years and to leave two little girls whose mother was hardly likely to show them

much affection because she had never wanted children.

Flora was increasingly unhappy at home and on a Friday as soon as school finished she

came to Edinburgh every weekend until she was fifteen and could leave. It seemed there

were rumours at the school about Flora’s relationship with the music teacher in her last

year which were reported to the police. Arrangements were made for Flora to be

medically examined to determine if there was any evidence of an improper relationship.

My parents were handling it all very badly and instead of supporting Flora they were

ready to condemn her. When I heard about the medical examination I went berserk and

told them that if they allowed it to go ahead I would never speak to them again. My

father immediately cancelled it! Flora told me of the terrible ordeal it had all been for her

with the teacher’s wife accosting her in the street and shouting abuse at a fourteen year

old girl. I don’t know if an offence had been committed because Flora never told me and

I never asked her. My only concern was to support her. Immediately after she finished

28

school she did a year’s secretarial course which was only bearable because she escaped at

the weekends and holidays. When she was sixteen she knew my parents couldn’t stop

her leaving home and she came to Edinburgh to live. It was important that George was

supportive and didn’t mind that he had to provide for her financially. Shortly after she

came to live with us the music teacher arrived at our door and asked to speak to Flora. I

didn’t invite him in but I thought it was probably better to let her speak to him. It would

have been no surprise to me if she thought she loved the man because he probably gave

her the affection she never had at home and he encouraged her in her interest in music

which has continued throughout her adult life. I do not know if they had any further

contact at that time. Flora got a secretarial job in an office and then we all felt she should

become more independent of us so our old friend who had rented us our flat in Edinburgh

found one for Flora in town. She was there about a month when Mr Stoller phoned to ask

if Flora had left the flat because it was empty. I was angry because she had never told me

she was going and I didn’t know where she was. I decided not to tell my parents to alarm

them in the hope that she would get in touch which she did about two weeks later to say

she was working in London and I knew she had followed the man Bramwell Cook there.

I simply told them she was working in London. The breach between us never healed

because I felt all the help we had given her counted for nothing. She stayed in London

working as the secretary to the Banqueting manager at the Russell Hotel and there she

met Martin Dalby who married her when his wife divorced him. Years later the only

reference she made to Bramwell Cook was to say that this man ruined her life and I could

not bring myself to ask her what she meant.

About 1964 a friend asked us to join an organization called THE EXPERIMENT IN

INTERNATIONAL LIVING which involved welcoming a visitor from overseas into

your home to experience the British family life. We thought it a good idea and soon

welcomed our first visitor who was a school teacher from Tanzania and wife of a civil

servant in the government . Hadija was a very tall black lady and I was extremely

nervous that Jill and Martin being only six and four would be frightened of her. We met

her off the train from London at the old Caley station and within minutes of getting into

the car Jill was sitting on her knee in the back chatting away full of questions. She stayed

29

one month with us and was a delightful person full of stories about life in her country.

She had to wear shoes for the first time because in her country everyone went around in

bare feet and when she asked if she could take them off I was horrified to see her toes

were covered in corns!! I got corn remover from the chemist and it did the trick and

Hadija raised her arms and said “Margaret you are magic” She told us how the children

couldn’t be educated because they were so poor so we arranged to send £30 after she left

to sponsor one child but sadly it never reached the authorities so somewhere between our

bank and the Tanzanian one it disappeared. We never heard from her until many years

later but with her letter there was one from her husband who was now in fruit growing

industry and demanding that we set up contacts here to help his business. We decided to

ignore the letters so we don’t know if she was under pressure from her husband to use our

friendship.

Our next foreign visitor was Ulla a Finish student studying to be a doctor and she was

quite charming and so interested in our way of life and was a real fan of Robert Burns.

There were outings arranged by the Scottish organiser and leader of the group of about

eight students living with families around Edinburgh. We had a welcome party for

everyone to get to know the group and they organised a farewell party to thank their

hosts. They had to provide food typical of their country and we were sorry to see them

go. Most of our families had teenagers who went on a week’s hostelling holiday with the

group at their expense as a thank you gesture but Jill and Martin were too young to join

them.

The next year we had a Japanese boy called Nabuya who was also a medical student and

was again so eager to learn about Scotland. If we had visitors he always managed to

produce a little gift from his country for them. The leader of their group was a successful

kimono maker and was very strict about their behaviour but organised a fabulous

farewell party giving all the families lovely little gifts to remember them by. One of the

young reporters at the Scotman fell in love with one of the girls and followed her to Japan

but I think the romance was shortlived.

30

I was asked to organise the groups but did so only for another two years because it was a

lot of work especially since the American and Moroccan groups proved very difficult and

host families were complaining about them. No payment was involved in the

arrangement so if there were problems with the behaviour of the groups people lost

enthusiasm for it.

Martin was born with eczema so his skin always needed attention and when he was about

four years old he developed asthma which often goes with the eczema. It was very

distressing to see him having difficulty breathing and George always found it difficult to

cope with this. It usually ended up with Martin reassuring George that he would be

alright as soon as the medication kicked in. About that time he had to go to hospital to be

circumcised for medical reasons. When I left him in the ward he said “if you go out that

door don’t bother coming back” He was only in for three days and forgave me!!

Another occasion he decided he was leaving home because of some disagreement with

me and I found him sitting at the bottom of the stairs ready to leave with only a shoe box

full of his favourite cars!!!!

We were fortunate to have a little nursery school run by a kindly neighbour in the next

street where Jill first then Martin went before attending Davidson’s Mains School. It was

a good way of introducing Jill to school because she was a very nervous child probably

because she had a nervous mother!! She had to follow the instructions of the teacher to

the letter and one day she had been told to bring a shilling and because I only had two

sixpences she got all upset and could not be convinced it was the same thing. She had a

good teacher though who handled her very well. I had to take another teacher to task

one day for terrorising her into remembering that the beefeaters in the Tower of London

were the same as the yeomen of the guard. This teacher was a holy terror at the school

but to be fair she saw my point of view much to my surprise.

The only other times Jill and Martin were in hospital at such an early age were to have

their tonsils out because they kept having throat infections. Jill was first to go and she

found it very traumatic because at that time parents were not encouraged to spend much

31

time in the ward. Fortunately it was for a short time and Shirley Howitt who lived in the

street was in at the same time.

George discovered on a routine checkup that his eyesight was good enough for him to

drive so we could think about owning a car. He decided to have an intensive course of

driving lessons in the spring when Martin was two years old and he was so certain that he

would pass his test that we decided to book a holiday in a lovely hotel on the outskirts of

Nairn. We would hire a car which would make life easier with two young children.

George was devastated when he failed the test and we had to book seats on a train

instead. Unfortunately the taxi we ordered to take us to the station never turned up and a

neighbour rushed us there, We just had time to get on the train with pushchair, children

and luggage when it moved off and it was a nightmare traveling through the train to find

our seats. When we arrived at Nairn we were faced with climbing up stairs to get to the

other side of the track to exit the station. The hotel was really nice but with no car it was

quite difficult to do very much. We had chosen it so that George and I could put the

children to bed and when they were asleep we could go for dinner and enjoy a drink in

the lounge which was at the bottom of the stairs to the bedrooms. We were just

beginning to relax when we saw a lady coming downstairs with two pyjama clad children

looking for their mummy! It was not the best of holidays.

For the next two years we went to a lovely old hotel in Banff and we enjoyed exploring

the various small villages and fishing towns around the area and there were good shops

for Jill and Martin to spend their pocket money and there was a huge garden to play in.

One evening Jill and I travelled about 25 miles to Keith to see a film in the local cinema!!

I decided it would be a good idea if I learned to drive too. George had found a very good

driving instructor Bob Mathews, for his next test which he passed. It took me so long

and many lessons to pass my test that Bob became a great family friend and always

enjoyed making things for Martin like the garage, still in the attic, with a road layout.

What a thrill it was when we bought our first car, a little Hillman Imp made in Scotland.

32

The Kendrews next door had a little mongrel dog very like a Yorkshire terrier and when

she had pups they promised one to Martin without asking us first. We had never thought

about having a dog at this stage but we had to take this puppy and we called it Pepe. One

evening a year or so later when George went to the garage to get something Pepe got out

without us knowing. We got a phone call shortly after from someone asking if we were

the owners of the little dog which had been run over on the dual carriageway near the

house. We called a vet who had to put Pepe to sleep because he was so badly injured.

Everyone was very upset and Martin declared he did not believe in God if he could let

this happen. We felt we had to have another dog and along came Rosie a pedigree

Yorkshire terrier whose father was a Cruft champion. The breeder thought we should let

her have at least one litter so when Rosie was two years old we took her back and she

was mated with one of her dogs. We weren’t very sure when the pups would arrive but

one night Rosie jumped up on the bed and was obviously distressed. We put the light on

and this little puppy emerged but it looked dead. I had been told that the mother would

look after her puppies but Rosie just ignored it so I got a towel and removed the skin

surrounding it and it started to breathe. The next pup arrived soon after and we thought

that was the end of it but some time later this little scrap of a dog arrived so we had three

puppies all different sizes. Jill and Martin were amazed when they got up in the morning

and found them and we decided to call them Maxi, Midi and Mini. We had such a lovely

time looking after them all until Maxi and Midi went to their new owners when they were

eight weeks old. Sadly Mini died when she was just two years old because of a defect

from birth and she had always been a delicate little dog. This had been one of the

reasons that we decided to keep her with us.

Jill was chosen to be a lady in waiting to the Queen at the local Gala and it was a very

exciting affair with a horse drawn carriage arriving at our house which was decorated

with bunting, to escort her to the park for the crowning ceremony. She wore a lovely

dress and we were very proud of her.

I decided at this stage to find an interest outside the home and was asked to run a girl

guide company at the school which I did for about nine years. It was great fun and I had

33

an enthusiastic group of girls who were willing to have a go at anything. We marched in

the parade at the gala, helped to give out the bun bags, arranged food parcels and visits to

old people in the village and in hospital, we went on weekends to converted stables but

never camping because I hated the thought of creepy crawlies when I was asleep. The

converted stables were no picnic though because they were overrun with mice and when I

was lying in my camp bed listening to them and the noise of the girls I often asked myself

what I was doing. When Jill and her friends were old enough to move up from brownies

it was tough for her because I showed her no favours. The girls were a great bunch

always ready to do something new and very entertaining. Jill and her friends had to be

told to leave by the commissioner when they were fifteen and were expected to go to

Rangers but they never did go!! I left myself after an irate parent turned up at my door

complaining that I had not been at the school when she arrived to enroll her daughter

from brownies. I pointed out that my deputy was there and I was looking after my sick

son. Another parent one evening asked me to make up my mind if guides finished at 9

o’clock or not because he had a programme he liked to watch on TV and he kept missing

it if we were late. I told him he was lucky because I hadn’t seen TV on Friday evening

for nearly 9 years!! It was the right time to look for another challenge!!

George by this time had lost his job with the Evening Dispatch when it merged with the

Evening News which was bought by the owners of the Scotsman. He had been news

editor on the paper after doing general reporting work for a few years concentrating

mainly on court work. This turned out to be to his advantage because the Scotsman was

looking for some one to replace their court reporter who was involved in some scandal

with one of the High Court judges. George was to be Chief Law Reporter for the

Scotsman for the rest of his working life and quickly established a reputation for the

accuracy of his reporting and the respect of everyone in the Court of Session together

with his good friend George Watt of the Glasgow Herald, Their reputation was such that

whatever information they asked for was given to them I was told by one lawyer. George

Watt whose wife had died and had no children became a close friend of our family and

we all admired him for the way he coped with disabilities that made it difficult for him to

get around.

34

In 1972 we had a phone call from Pop one day to say that Lynne, Dave’s oldest daughter

had turned up on their doorstep looking desperate because she had no home and no

money. We immediately went through to Bannockburn because we knew they couldn’t

handle the situation and they had no spare room because by this time they were in a little

sheltered housing flat with only one bedroom. We were horrified when we say Lynne.

She looked ill and frightened. We took her back to Edinburgh and she told us she had

been living rough somewhere. I took her to town and bought her new clothes and even a

handbag to put in the pocket money I gave her. I began to suspect she might have been

on drugs. She moved into Martin’s bedroom and he shared with Jill. She spent the time

smoking in her room and I decided she had to get a job or something. I made an

appointment with a careers officer who saw her on her own and I don’t know what was

said but afterwards the lady spoke to me on my own and her words to me were “get that

girl out of your house as soon as possible” She got a job in a shoe shop in Princes Street

and I got her a place in a hostel at the Westend because she had stolen Martin’s pocket

money despite the fact that I had given her an allowance. She was only a few days in the

hostel when they asked her to leave because she had stolen money from her roommate.

She went to work and asked if she could have her week’s wages in advance despite

having only worked three days because she would have to go to London where her

mother had been badly injured in a car crash. All lies of course and I’ve never heard

anything of her since.

Our holidays had been spent at Banff for two years and then we decided to try the

Aviemore Centre which had just opened and we all loved it. We stayed at the Cairngorm

Hotel just outside the centre and returned there every year for five or six years. It was the

idyll place because Jill and Martin could go to the centre without us whenever they

wanted to and they quickly became friends with Rona and Caroline, the children of the

manager at the hotel, Anne and Calum who also became close friends. Managing the

hotel left Anne and Calum little time to do things with their children so they were

delighted that we included Rona and Caroline in all our activities. We spent days at

Loch Morlich much to the delight of our dog Rosie who loved to run in the sand. We

35

walked in the Glenmore Forest and picnicked around Loch An Eilan. We loved our visits

to Tomintoul and shopping trips to Grantown on Spey and the other small towns provided

the opportunity to spend the pocket money. During the year they had to save for their

spending money about half of their weekly pocket money and the rest they could spend

on small penny chews and other small sweets that were kept in a box and they were

allowed to take one item each day after tea!! I think they quite enjoyed their shopping

expedition and choosing what they would buy. We were able to relax at the bar in the

evening after dinner while the children all played together in the family flat. Eventually

Rosie’s middle pup (midi who became Chotah because her owner had lived in India)

came back to us because his owner was emigrating. He had been kicked around by people

in the bed and breakfast where he lived probably because he was a yappy wee dog and he

was very aggressive and used to attack people’s heels as they walked by. Two dogs in

the hotel presented some problems for us especially when they wanted out about six

o’clock in the morning and no prizes for guessing who got that job. I had to go to the

reception and take the keys to open the door and I would be standing in the garden in my

coat over my nightie with the traffic roaring past on the busy main road!! We found so

much to do in that area and our visits to Tomintoul were always quite special.

Jill was always inclined to be car sick on the journeys to Aviemore so we had to have

some stops on the way but on one of our journeys home when Martin was 11 years old it

was Martin who was sick. Jill went off on a school trip with her Geography teacher to

Shetland I think and George went on a cruise to Norway to report for the Scotsman.

Martin had a great thirst and was always desperate for the loo and by the time I had made

the appointment with the doctor I suspected he would diagnose diabetes because I had

seen a programme on TV a few weeks earlier called “Your life in their hands” The

doctor who was a diabetic himself was describing the symptoms. We went to hospital

where it was confirmed by the pediatrician who made the biggest mistake by trying to

treat Martin when he obviously was no expert on diabetes instead of referring to the

specialist. As a result instead of Martin improving he was getting worse. I had to

educate myself on the condition and was sent home to practice injecting on an orange!! I

began to challenge the doctor on his treatment and blew my top so many times in the

36

ward because poor Martin would be in for a few days, home for a few days and back in

again all the time getting weaker. Eventually the doctor realised he was out of his depth

and consulted the specialist who immediately removed Martin from his care and within

four days Martin’s diabetes was under control. The specialist was appalled and dismayed

especially when Martin greeted her with “I wish I was dead” She said it might not be any

consolation but as a result of Martin’s experience every child would immediately be

referred to her. Because he felt so miserable she decided not to admit him and we went

morning, afternoon and evening for four days to the Diabetic clinic and there were no

further problems. The diet in those days was a very strict one but I was determined that

we would all eat the same meals and Martin quickly learned which foods he had to cut

down on. The only thing he really missed was Coca Cola but at that time diet coke was

introduced so it was a good substitute. He coped very well with the regime and never

grumbled about the daily injections which he quickly wanted to do himself. About that

time we noticed patches of alopecia which we were assured had no connection to his

diabetes. When he was eight years old the barber had pointed to a small patch just

behind his ear one day when he was having his hair cut but it was hardly noticeable. It

became more noticeable now and we visited a specialist who arranged weekly sessions of

ultra-violet treatment at the infirmary. When this proved ineffective a course of

injections in his scalp was tried and this too proved unsuccessful. George and I felt so

miserable that Martin was having to cope with so many problems in his young life and

there was nothing we could do to help. Thankfully Martin seemed to be such a strong

character and was just getting on with his life.

I quickly learned a great deal about diabetes and the specialist used to ask me to speak to

other mothers learning to cope and this is where I met Pat Armstrong who was a

pharmacist and whose little girl had just been diagnosed and who has been a friend ever

since. It was quite obvious that parents needed support at this difficult time so I decided

with the encouragement of Dr Baird that I should start a parents’group because it was felt

that the adult groups were not appropriate for us. George wrote an article for the

Scotsman to publicise the group and there was immediately a hostile reaction from a

pediatrician at the Sick Children’s Hospital warning of the dangers of meddling in

37

medical matters. Fortunately Dr Baird immediately sprang to our defence pointing out

the benefits of parents supporting each other and making it clear that his reaction was

quite ridiculous. We arranged regular support meetings with experts on any particular

problem parents raised and held Xmas parties where the parents brought the children’s

insulin and we took care of the injections. Because the parents knew we were parents

ourselves they could go away confident that everything would be fine. The group still

exists, I believe, to a lesser degree because of the opposition of the adult group who

somehow saw us as a threat and did their best to force us to give up.

I was very grateful to my local chemist who asked me if I would like to speak to another

parent in the village when I handed in the first prescription for Martin’s insulin. He

contacted Bubbles Douglas whose daughter was now in her late teens and a radiographer

at one of the hospitals and she readily agreed to meet me. We became lifelong friends

and she helped with the parent’s group. Ruth came and spoke to us about living with

diabetes and when she married George took a cine film of the wedding.

In 1973 we had a lovely golden wedding celebration for Pop and Granma Saunders at the

Station Hotel in Stirling. Bert, Shirley, Nancy and Elaine came over and so many old

friends were there. We all stayed in the hotel overnight and next day we and the

Canadians went to Aviemore for a few days.

I started a cycling proficiency class at Davidson’s Mains school when we finally relented

and let Jill and Martin have a bike. I had to chalk out the road junctions before the pupils

arrived and had little encouragement from the school. The children were very keen to do

well and when they were ready to sit the test the traffic police sent one of the officers to

put them through their paces. He praised them for their clear hand signals and boasted at

further tests to other officers how good they were at this school! I didn’t like to point out

that because I lived locally the children never knew when I would be driving behind them

so they were always determined to act correctly on the road. I gave up after two years

because of lack of support from parents or school and the practice stopped.

38

I started to do some market research work then some government social research which

fitted in quite well with school times and the occasional evening work when George was

at home because in these days when he worked for the Evening Dispatch latterly he

started work at six in the morning and was home sometimes late afternoon. One day I

think Jill must have been about fourteen years old and when I think about it it was

irresponsible of me to go out for half an hour to contact a client. George was at a meeting

at the Press Club where he was the secretary. I was turning right making my way home

when a mini came speeding round a corner at Meadowbank and when I was halfway

across the road I knew I couldn’t get out of the way. Fortunately my seat belt saved me

from serious injury but I had struck my head on the handle of the passenger door which

knocked me out. An ambulance took me to the infirmary and a policeman called at the

house. Poor Jill must have got a terrible fright. George was informed and asked a

neighbour to stay with Jill and Martin. I had injured my ankle and the wound on my head

was stitched by the time George arrived and he was so relieved that it was not too

serious. I remember when he bent down to kiss me while I was still on the trolley in

accident and emergency that he was wearing old spice after shave and I can never stand

the smell of it till this day. I was kept in until the next day to make sure there was no

concussion. The door of the car had to be replaced and we changed the car soon after. I

was charged with careless driving which hurt my pride while the other driver had no

action taken against him when he had obviously been speeding round a corner.

Because George was the secretary at the Press Club he was responsible for organising

various functions like Royal visits and parties for members children. I got the job of

arranging the Xmas parties with the help of Dennis Straun’s wife. We had a lovely time

choosing gifts for about fifty children with no restrictions on the cost, we wrapped them

and labelled them making sure we had appropriate gifts for each age group from two to

ten years, arranged a magician’s show and of course a visit from Santa to give out the

gifts. They were very special parties mainly because of the lovely gifts and it was good

fun arranging them.

39

Martin followed Jill to Broughton School but by this time it was a comprehensive school

and we never felt it was as good as when Jill went on the selective system. Jill was a

hard worker who shone at French and her teacher asked us to persuade her to follow a

language course but it didn’t appeal to Jill. Martin as far as we were concerned never

worked as hard and just did what he could get away with but did shine at maths. Jill

worked in the local chemist shop on Saturdays to earn some pocket money. She left

school at the end of her fifth year and took a year out to work in an office before going to

university.

Around 1975 George had begun to have some health problems. Two toes in each foot

became numb which affected his balance at times and he was admitted to hospital for

some tests. I knew from the tests that the doctor was thinking it might be the early

symtoms of multiple sclerosis but it turned out to be spondilitis, a form of arthritis of the

spine which wasn’t helped by his constant bending over his notebook for hours in court

every day. There was no treatment available then and he never regained feeling in his

toes. He was often away from home for weeks on end covering big murder trials only

coming home at weekends and eventually his shoulder was affected and was very painful.

I by this time had found a really worthwhile challenge in the new legal Children’s

Hearings where lay people would meet parents and children in an informal setting to look

at problems instead of going through the court system. I joined the year after it was

introduced and while I found it very demanding with hours of training sometimes at

weekends I felt it was the least I could do to try and help some of the troubled young

people who came before the children’s panel. A group of three people sat with the family

to discuss the difficulties which ranged from petty thieving, truanting from school, in

need of protection or more serious crimes. On the crime side George and I had many an

argument since he saw young people in court on serious charges who had gone through

the hearing system and he felt we were too soft with some of them. I was a panel

member for nine years, three of them as chairman of Edinburgh West Panel, and then had

to leave because it was felt that after that amount of time we were becoming too

professional so I joined the advisory panel but I missed the contact with the families and

40

only stayed two years. One hearing I remember so well concerned a young girl of nine

years who arrived with her elderly grandparents because her parents had abandoned her

years earlier. She had robbed an old gentleman on the stairs of the tenement block where

they lived and stolen his pension which he had just collected at the post office. She

seemed totally out of the control of these elderly people and was wearing a guide

uniform. Since I had been a guide captain I felt particularly sad and asked her what she

thought her guide captain would say if she knew what she had done. Granny let me rave

on then eventually said wearily “she’s no in the guides – Ah bought her that at a jumble

sale!! Undeterred I tried another approach and asked what she had done to show the old

gentleman that she was sorry for what she had done. Granny again wearily replied “he’s

deid the man’s deid. So much for trying the retribution tactic. I often wonder what

became of this girl who seemed so vulnerable with little prospect of an opportunity to

make a worthwhile future for herself.

In 1975 we decided to go on a Mediterranian Cruise. Jill and Martin had been abroad to

Norway and Denmark with the School and George had gone on a National Trust cruise

reporting for the Scotsman so the only who had never been abroad was me! I thought a

cruise a good idea in case Martin was affected by the heat and it turned out that he was

the only one who didn’t have to pay a visit to the ship’s hospital. We were seasick!!

George had been in Leeds for about twelve weeks covering a big corruption trial and we

were having the extension built at the back of the house so the cruise provided the much

needed break. It was a lovely holiday with one day at sea and the next in port. We

visited Gibralter, Majorca, Ajaccio, Naples and Lisbon. George was excited about

visiting Naples because he had been there about thirty years previously during the war

and he took us to a café to see if the building opposite with it’s blue shutter, where he had

been billeted was still there and sure enough it was just as he remembered it! Martin

liked the fact that he could go to the cinema after dinner and if he didn’t like the film he

could leave because he didn’t pay anything!! There was always a good cabaret and

dancing each evening and the food was superb served by Greek waiters on a Greek liner

with entertainment provided by Australians!

41

The following year we had our last family holiday in the Abruzzo region in Italy in a

little resort Silvi Marina. The hotel was right on the beach with wonderful golden sand

with umbrellas if we wanted shade. An Italian couple sat near us most days and George

was able to try out his Italian. The husband was a stern person who was a commander in

the European forces but his wife was a very warm, friendly person who had a soft spot

for Jill. We kept in touch for a while after the holiday. I remember it was very, very

warm and it was impossible to be too energetic by mid day. George got friendly with

quite a few of the locals and when he heard that the shops were having a holiday he asked

the tobacconist if he would close too and the reply was “for a soldier in the 8th army we

never close” It was always embarrassing in the shop because the shopkeeper was more

interested in talking to George than serving his customers who complained loudly as

Italians do!

In that same year Pop Saunders ‘s health began to worry us and our worse fears were

confirmed at Stirling Royal Infirmary when we learned that a swelling on his neck was

cancerous and further investigation revealed that it was a secondary and his lungs were

affected. He was to be referred to the Western General in Edinburgh and we brought him

and Granma to Edinburgh because he was so unwell to await the appointment. After a

month I phoned to ask when someone would see him only to discover that no referral had

been made. He was admitted very quickly but Pop seemed to give up and he missed his

pipe which had been a part of him for so many years He hated being in hospital and his

condition deteriorated rapidly. Granma didn’t seem to realise how ill Pop was and was

urging him to hurry up and get better so that they could return to Bannockburn. We

decided to take her home and bring her at weekends to visit Pop and it was easier all

round because we had been sleeping on a futon on the floor in the dining room for a

month.

At this time Jill and Karen decided to have their first foreign holiday on their own in

Spain. I took them to the airport and they were so excited even though their flight was

delayed and I had to leave them there. A few days into the holiday Karen’s Mum became

seriously ill and she had to return home leaving Jill who fortunately had made friends

42

with some girls there. We were so worried about her being on her own and when Karen’s

Mum died a few days later she asked us not to tell Jill till she came home. Pop became

steadily worse and on the evening that we were due to pick Jill up at the airport he died

about midnight. Fortunately Jill’s flight had been diverted to Glasgow and the passengers

completed the journey to Edinburgh Airport by bus which gave us time to leave the

hospital and arrive at the airport for Jill. We prayed that she would not ask about Pop or

Karen’s Mum until we were home but no sooner had we got in the car than she asked

about Pop. Then she asked about Karen’s Mum and it was just too much to take in. A

few days later when she was in the St James Centre with Stewart her boyfriend at that

time she hyperventilated which was quite alarming for them but the doctor said it was the

shock of her homecoming to such bad news.

Jill went off to university and within a year she had decided to move into a flat in

Dalkeith Road with four friends. George was unhappy about her leaving home and even

more unhappy when we delivered some of her things at the flat which he decided was

really grotty. He couldn’t see that it was Jill striking out for independence but eventually

got used to the idea. She had decided even before she left school that she wanted to go

into social work and I must say I tried to persuade her against it because of my working

on the fringe of social work and knowing how difficult a job it would be. Nothing would

change her mind and she settled down to student life and the fun of student charity

parades. She decided to take a summer job in Ostend with two friends working in a hotel

for a month. It was always difficult for George to let go when she wanted to do

something independently and he was worried sick when we saw her off at the railway

station with the parents of her two friends. We all adjourned to the Press Club to talk

over our worries and to get used to the idea. When we got the letter saying she was out

on a ledge cleaning first floor windows George went crazy and demanded that I should

tell her to return home but Jill stuck it although I’m not sure that she made much money

out of it!!

In 1977 we decided to go with Martin to Canada to celebrate our silver wedding

anniversary. We flew from Prestwick to Toronto and I will never forget the feeling I had

43

as I left the plane that we had made a big mistake I knew that Shirley was not a very

friendly person from visits to us and wasn’t sure what her welcome would be. The first

thing we realised was how much Bert had changed from the good humoured guy always

laughing and such good company. He was morose and didn’t make much effort to make

us feel at home. I stayed out of Shirley’s way until he had gone to work and the children

to school but Shirley seemed to resent me interrupting her quiet smoking time. There

was only one towel for all of us in the bathroom and a small one at that so it looked as if

we should have brought our own!! However we went on a long trip to Boston in the

USA to visit George’s cousin and found her to be a drunk and it was ages before she

produced a meal. The next day we went to visit another cousin and she was the same. I

told Bert we had better get off to a hotel or Martin would become ill because we had gone

for so long without food. We declined their offer of accommodation saying we had

already booked a hotel. We didn’t go far and booked in to a hotel that advertised

entertainment in the evening and we thought that would just be relaxing. However after

dinner Martin went behind our chairs to look at the swimming pool, brushed his hand

against a ledge and suddenly the white table cloth looked as if someone had thrown

tomato ketchup at it. Then we realised that it was blood coming from Martin’s finger!!

He had cut it on a jagged glass beer bottle which someone had put on the ledge probably

to remove later. George quickly got the manager who offered the hotel minibus to take

us to the local hospital but George insisted he came too because he knew the first thing

they would ask was who is paying for the treatment. A plastic surgeon was sent for and

Martin emerged about three hours later with his hand well bandaged with instructions to

keep it dry which put paid to many activities for the rest of the holiday. A local doctor

removed the stitches before we left for home. George promptly put in a claim for

curtailment of the holiday and it was settled almost by return probably because the

amount of £500 was so reasonable. Martin bought his first car a peugot with the money.

Martin left school and we were all delighted when he got the first job he applied for in the

Royal Bank in George Street. One day a man came into the bank and demanded that the

teller hand over money and put a box on the counter saying there was a bomb in it. The

alarm was raised, George Street was sealed off and a bomb disposal squad arrived but

44

they had difficulty getting their equipment into the building because of the steps. I was

on my way to a Children’s hearing and happened to be listening to the news which was

reporting on the incident. I was quite alarmed but soon found out that there were no

casualties because it was a fake bomb. There was a lot of unrest in the bank Martin felt it

would be a bit of a dead end job so he decided to go to college at Sighthill and do a

computer course. He found the course boring and decided computing was not for him.

He didn’t have a job but that quickly changed because Roger Ptolomey who was the

manager at a hospital laundry asked him to help out there. He stayed for about two years

starting at 6 o’ clock in the morning but the work was hard.

Around this time we realised that Jill had a boyfriend called Allan whom we liked

instantly. When he was looking for a job George spoke to our friend who was a pilot on

the Forth and Allan worked for a time with the pilots out in these small boats in the most

dreadful weather sometimes and we wondered if we did Allan any favours. It seemed

such a dangerous job but I think he stayed for a few months. He had worked on the

oilrigs before that working two weeks on and two weeks off. It seemed such an isolated

job but the pay I think was good.

At Jill’s graduation there were only two places for us and George managed to get Allan a

press seat next to Sally Magnusson who was a reporter on the Scotsman. All was well

until Sally asked Allan what paper he worked for. Jill and Allan were working that

summer at the Cairngorm Hotel and had a flying visit for the graduation but we had time

to have a celebration lunch in an Italian restaurant before they dashed away.

Jill went off to Newcastle to do her social work course and Allan eventually joined her to

study too. When Jill qualified as a social worker she decided to stay on there because she

liked the area. We used to spend some time with them when we left on holiday from the

airport and were amused to see so much of her grandparents old furniture in the flat.

By this time Jill and Allan had acquired a beautiful black cat called Angus and they used

to bring him when they came North. When they decided to move to London about two

45

years later they could not have him in their flat so we adopted him. I had never liked cats

before but our dogs had died, Rosie when she was seventeen years old and Chotah a year

later at sixteen years. We had been so broken hearted and vowed we would never have

another pet and here we were with Angus who I think was about five years old and we

had him until he was seventeen and we absolutely loved him!!

Jill had befriended an old lady when she was at Edinburgh University and used to visit

her once week and we continued the contact after Jill left for Newcastle. By this time

Lizzie was a patient at Astley Ainslie Hospital. I used to visit her on a Sunday and she

looked forward to the visits because she was very deaf and felt isolated . She used to

come at Xmas time for a visit to our house an d my Mum and Dad used to keep her

entertained..

George was thrilled when Jill and Allan bought their first flat in London and we went

down to help them organise the garden. We went off to a garden centre and bought loads

of plants and Allan made a garden shed. George loved discussing plants with her and

seeing her become a keen gardener. We loved visiting them because they always

arranged such interesting things for us to do like the Cabinet Rooms at Whitehall and we

always ate in a variety of interesting restaurants and later with their good friends

Androulla and Clive.

About this time we realised that Martin had a girlfriend who was a friend of Colin

Kendrew’s girlfriend Morag but as boys do we didn’t meet her for some time.

Suzanne’s father worked with United Distillers which was to be of some benefit to

Martin later.

I became Family Welfare Organiser for WRVS in Scotland in 1979 setting up playgroups

and organising holidays for children with learning difficulties to give parents a break.

One of our favourite camps was at an old school in Killearn an area with which I was to

become familiar in later years. 1981 was declared the year to focus on physically

disabled children and I decided to arrange a week long holiday at the Trefoil Holiday

46

Centre with two disabled and two other children from each region in Scotland making 40

of them whose ages ranged from 13 to 16 years of age. I had two exnurses and two other

adults to help and we had a wonderful time giving the young people so many choices of

activities which they had never had before. We had a visit from the Queen and the Duke

of Edinburgh on our first day but the children were not impressed by the Queen’s lack of

interest in them, a sports day at Meadowbank with athletes, footballers and rugby players

helping, we canoed on the canal at Ratho, we sailed under the Forth Bridge by curtesy of

the Royal Navy at Rosyth, we went up the ski slope at Hillend, we went to the Dominion

cinema, we had discos every evening and we had a great party on our last evening. The

magic for the young people was that every evening they had to make a choice about their

programme for the next day and this had never happened before. They all enjoyed the

challenge of being independent of their parents for the first time in their lives and were

heard to say that they liked the holiday because they could decide what they wanted to do

for themselves. I arranged this holiday each year for 5 years and then the funding

stopped and after that we had to be content for a few years with a reunion weekend for

those who could travel to the centre. It was a wonderful challenge and it proved that with

the right support the physically disabled can enjoy the same activities as the able-bodied.

My one regret is that no lessons were learned by those responsible for those young people

and no one continued the challenge.

My father’s health was beginning to fail mainly because of a lung condition caused by

coal dust which was finally diagnosed as lung cancer. I was kept informed of his

deteriorating condition by the consultant at Stirling Royal Infirmary in1979 and he did

not expect him to survive more than a few months but decided not to tell Dad or Mum

because he felt they could not handle it. However he lived for almost three more years I

think because he did not know and eventually the cancer spread to his liver. He became

very dependent on me and was always wanting me to be there. He always used to say if

we phone Margaret to say one of us is not well Margaret will arrive with the big pot of

Scotch broth!! He loved to see Martin and Jill to hear how they were getting on at school

and was so amused by Jill when she arrived one day to browbeat him into parting with

some of his possessions for some fund raising thing she was involved in. She bullied him

47

into it and he loved it!! Despite his ill health he was always supportive of Granma

Saunders and he and my mother kept an eye on her but she began to develop Altzeimer

and started to wonder in the village at night. The warden at the sheltered flats where she

lived began to complain about having to keep an eye on her so we decided to bring her to

Edinburgh every Friday and take her home on Monday afternoons because we felt she

was less at risk in Bannockburn where she wanted to be and where everyone knew her.

One Monday I had taken her home and I had gone to pick George up at the office in the

evening when Martin got a phone call from her minister accusing us of not looking after

her because she had been found wandering in the village. Martin got angry and told him

just how much we were looking after her and was worried that I would be annoyed with

him for that. She had to be admitted to Larbert Hospital and with days had fallen and

broke her hip which resulted in an operation from which she never recovered. She died

in June 1981 and my father in February 1982 but not before we had a wonderful golden

wedding celebration for my Mum and Dad in 1980 with about 100 people at McCue’s in

Bannockburn which they both enjoyed with Granma Saunders and all the friends young

and old.

Jill and Allan decided to marry in March 1984 and wanted a low key affair which

disappointed George who had visions of escorting his daughter up the aisle in church. In

the end it became a compromise with the service in the Dragonara Hotel with my

minister friend Bill Brockie performing the wedding ceremony. It turned out to be a very

happy informal occasion with everyone having a great time and as few relatives as we

could get away with being there!! Bert, Shirley, Nancy and Elaine came from Canada

and our house was so crowded with us all looking for space to get ready I ended up in the

bathroom.!! We had a great lunch party the next day while Jill and Allan jetted off to

Crete. George was so happy that he could have reunion with some of his oldest friends.

The next year Martin got a job with United Distillers and one day when he decided to

come home from his office in the West End for lunch he was involved in head on

collision with another car which left him with serious injuries mainly to his eyes.

Thanks to the skill of the eye surgeon and Martin’s determination the outcome was better

48

than we ever thought possible. George was absolutely devastated at first because he had

such bad memories of all his eye problems and had always been happy that his children

had no such difficulties. A year later Martin and Suzanne got married and the

Grosvenor Hotel and again with so many friends on both sides it was a very happy

occasion with good food good music and lots of dancing to suit everyone.

Jill and Allan decided to sell their flat in 1988 and the healthy profit enabled then to

finance a world trip lasting a year. George was horrified although but now he had got

used to them taking off somewhere in Europe for shorter trips. They set off in December

I think and I have to admit their organisation of their year was quite amazing. We knew

at any time roughly where they were because of the post restante addresses and the

timetable they had given us. We wrote every week and we had regular phone calls so we

were always in touch. Their accounts of their adventures were always fascinating and we

plotted their progress on a big map. We did worry about them however and missed them.

They did miss two big events in George’s life. The first being his retirement party at

Lauriston Farm where we had a barbecue on a wonderful summer evening in June. Many

of our friends were there and George thoroughly enjoyed celebrating with them all. He

had had a good send off from colleagues at the office and professional organisations and

was happy to get down to writing his book which would ease him into life away from the

hectic life of court reporting.

Jill and Allan’s wonderful postcards and reports of their holiday made us decide to make

a trip to the Far East ourselves and it was strange standing outside the post office in

Hong Kong where we used to send all our letters for them when they were in China. We

flew to Bangkok, Hong Kong, Bali which was wonderful and flew home from Singapore.

It was an unforgettable holiday.

Then George was awarded the MBE for services to the training of journalists. I can’t say

I was enthusiastic about it because I did not approve of the honours system but he had

been nominated by his colleagues and felt he could not turn it down. He had worked hard

49

over a number of years training young journalists who regarded him as a great journalist

but they were always nervous when asked by their editor to phone him because he

sounded so fearsome on the phone, He expected calls to be brief and not waste his time.

So when they met him they realised that he really was quite nice!! So we went to London

for a few days with Martin and Suzanne and stayed at a hotel in Drury Lane. George

hired a suit for the event and it was quite amusing to get into a taxi and ask to be taken to

Buckingham Palace. It was a very grand affair and the Queen seemed less formal and it

was interesting to see inside the palace. We went to two West end shows and returned

home to write to Jill and Allan who were goodness knows where on their world

adventure about it.

We were delighted when Jill and Allan came home in December just before Xmas flying

on the last leg of their journey from New York just a few days before the flight to New

York crashed at Lockerbie killing almost three hundred people. We hoped they were

ready to settle down and to some extent they did when the bought their next flat at

Nightingale Lane and found jobs again in London. There’s no need for me to recount

their continuing travel since they can do it best themselves. We spent some very nice

Xmases with them and Martin in London.

George settled well into retirement and was kept busy as a volunteer with the Citizens

Advice Bureau at Portobello representing people at industrial tribunals where his

knowledge of legal matters quickly earned him the respect of the chairmen and clients .

He also got down to writing his book on some of the famous trials he had covered in his

years for the Scotsman He bought a computer and worked hard each day on this and

when it was completed he found a publisher and called the book CASEBOOK OF THE

BIZARRE. He was very excited about this and the contract was signed giving him

royalties twice a year on the number of books sold. 3000 copies were printed and they

were selling well. The Evening Times in Glasgow arranged to publish a chapter but

payment was made to the publisher with George getting a percentage. He had to chase

the publisher all the time for the royalties and this took the shine off the success. The

firm went bankrupt and payment stopped. He had planned to write another one, had the

50

title Crimes of Passion and most of the copy but he was so disillusioned that he never had

the heart to write it. Years later after George died I contacted the firm who had bought

the business, demanded a statement on the book sales which had not been paid. At first

the firm denied all liability but I had kept all the information and threatened to sue them.

The result was that years after George died I was paid what was due to him. He put it

behind him and found time to enjoy his garden and greenhouse growing plants for

charity. I was running a domino evening for disabled people and he had time to help and

in the end became more aware of the lack of opportunities for disabled to enjoy an

evening with friends. He became a great campaigner and when our club was in danger of

being closed down he arranged protest groups and involved the press in our protests to no

avail sadly.

We had been enjoying holidays every year since 1978 to Sorrento which was so full of

memories for George because he had spent three years in the country during his national

service. He could speak the language quite fluently and loved to surprise the locals when

he launched into a conversation with them. Our first holiday had been such a success and

Jill and Allan had joined us for a few days on their way to Brindisi. They arrived at the

hotel on our first day and had to share our room because the hotel was full and so were all

the other hotels. They had got a lift from the station and were so surprised by the posh

look of the hotel they hid their rucksacks under a tree until they checked that they were at

the right hotel. They had been travelling for some time and had plenty of dirty clothes so

I arranged for them to use the laundry service and they went on their travels with clothes

that Jill said looked too good to push into a rucksack. I picked up the big bill!!

I decided to learn Italian because I got fed up asking George to translate what he was

saying and joined a class for beginners with George keeping me company. A young

Italian student at Edinburgh University was taking the class to supplement his grant. His

name was Erio and we soon became great friends. He shared a flat in town with some

Iranian students and we had some lovely evenings there. Lots of his friends came over

from the North of Italy and usually they came to us for a typical Scottish dinner and we

had a friend who played the accordion. We became great friends with all of them and

51

spent a lovely holiday in Italy with them and met Erio’s mother and grandmother who

was more than ninety years old and sang us all the lovely Italian songs. Erio’s mother still

tells me how happy she was that he had a family in Edinburgh when he was studying and

he regards himself as my adopted son and always introduces me to his friends as his

Scottish mother!! I used to pick him up every Sunday after I had visited Lizzie at Astley

Ainslie and he would come home for Sunday dinner. He was there too if there was a big

football match on the television or snooker and he always enjoyed the company of

George and Martin on these occasions. He enjoyed being included in Jill And Allan’s

wedding and still talks about his attempts to dance!!

We continued our holidays in Sorrento always celebrating our wedding anniversary with

a big party in the hotel and as the years went on and we made more and more friends with

local people and other hotel guests the parties became famous and everyone looked

forward to them. There was a group of people who went every year at the sane time and

we were known as the September club. George would arrange minibus tours for us all.

George became great friends with Giovanni who runs the bar and if he disappeared I

could be sure he was sitting behind the bar drinking grappa with him and smoking his

cigarettes so that the duty free would last longer and I would think he wasn’t smoking so

much. Giovanni was mainly responsible for arranging the anniversary parties and he

would line up all the asti spumante bottles so that George could see how much he had to

pay and there was usually about twenty-six of them because George insisted that other

hotel guests should be offered a drink!! The hotel arranged the music and an enormous

cake and this arrangement continued with an even bigger party for our 40th anniversary.

Giovanni had arranged forty red roses and little red flowers around the table since it was

our ruby anniversary. What wonderful memories with good friends. George said we

can’t afford to make any more new friends in Sorrento because we don’t have time to see

them!!!

We had many such happy memories in and went sometimes two or three times a year for

weddings, baptisms and New Year celebrations. We went in the summer for a month and

really felt like natives. We felt so comfortable there that when George had problems with

52

his prostrate during the summer of I think about l990 we just saw a specialist who

arranged some treatment and we continued our holiday because our dear friend Michele

took us to the clinic at 7.30 in the morning, he went to work and his wife drove us back to

the hotel and Giovanni collected his medicines!! I felt I had had a crash course in nursing

dealing with catheters and bladder bags!! Everyone was amazed that we continued our

holiday and enjoyed it despite the difficulties. George had a small operation on our

return.

Jill encourage us to be involved in “Share the Care” run by the social work department

around 1990 because she saw how successful it was in her work in London. After checks

we were presented with Nicola a little girl about six years old who had great learning

disabilities. She was a pretty little girl, very strong, stubborn and had no concentration

skills. It was difficult to cope with her except at meal times. As soon as she saw the

table being set she would sit quietly and wait for the food especially pavlova which she

just sat and gazed at with such pleasure. She loved when Martin was there because he

would give her piggybacks and she thought he should play with her all the time. If she

woke at 2a.m. the chances were you would not get back to sleep. We took her for long

drives in the car and that seemed to please her. We had her once a month from Friday

evening until Sunday afternoon and I needed a stiff gin after I returned her home!!. Her

parents were always so happy to have a break but within minutes of her arriving home

she was causing mayhem. We gave up after two years because she was getting too

difficult for us to handle and shortly after she went into residential care.

In 1994 it was arranged that George would have some tests on his return from holiday.

His doctor didn’t seem very concerned about it and neither did we because he really

seemed to be in good form, dancing as usual in the evenings and thoroughly enjoying

himself. Little did we know it would be his last holiday in his beloved Sorrento.

Tests showed that he had cancer in one of his kidneys and there should be no delay in

operating. Jill and Allan were in Symi and Martin was studying for his degree. George

had to cancel a training weekend for journalists, an involvement he always enjoyed and

53

he had to find a replacement tutor. Jill came home immediately although George

protested it was not necessary but when she said it was to support me he agreed. It was

discovered that the remaining kidney was small and may cause problems. When he

became very ill Allan came home and Martin was wishing he had never had the

operation because he seemed so well before he went into hospital but the consultant said

there was really no choice It’s not necessary for me to go into all the details of this

because those who will read my memories are as familiar as I am with the nightmare that

followed which even after fourteen years is too painful for me to talk about. Sufficient to

say how sad it was that George who was always so full of life ended the last few months

robbed of all the things he enjoyed in life mainly communicating and being actively

involved with his family. It’s of some comfort that after his last birthday celebrations on

his 71st birthday with former colleagues and friends in his favourite Chinese restaurant he

told me when he was getting in the car that “whatever happens in the future I’ve had a

good life, done everything I wanted to do and feel so lucky.” He died on 17th May 1995

and as I write this I feel still the great sadness at losing the best friend I could ever have.

He was such a big influence on my life that sometimes I feel he lives on through me. He

was right we had a very happy life together with our ups and downs but I wish it could

have gone on longer.

Jill and Allan decided to return to Scotland to live and in Kippen of all places near

Stirling which was just tremendous news for me and such support at the most difficult

time in my life as I tried to adjust to life without George. Jill encouraged me to continue

with my job at Family Mediation even when George was ill and used to travel through to

look after her Dad so that I could continue a job I enjoyed and one I would never have

applied for without her encouragement. It was a godsend and I continued my work until I

retired just before my 70th birthday. The nurse who attended George suggested I continue

nursing by working for Crossroads who provide care in the home and I enjoyed caring for

people who had had strokes or were housebound for other reasons. I looked after a nice

old gentleman who was a vegetarian and loved to prepare the vegetables for me to cook.

He stayed with his son who was quite eccentric but fortunately he went out when I

arrived and I spent four hours two afternoons a week for about three years there. He

54

loved to chat or play dominoes and my visits ended when he died suddenly. I spent an

afternoon with Mary who used to sing with a musical group until her stroke robbed her of

her speech. She loved to watch musical videos that I used to buy for her but she always

chose “The Sound of Music” so for three years every Tuesday afternoon I had to listen to

the video!! Her husband was able to have some time out. My third client was a little old

lady who lived at Drylaw and there never seemed to be any food for her lunch in the

fridge. I started to make her soup and bake some scones and she certainly enjoyed her

lunch!! She went into care which I thought was a good thing because she was being

neglected by her family but Crossroads weren’t too happy with me feeding the old lady

and I suppose it was setting a precedent. I had to retire at 65 years but it had put the

experience of nursing George to good use and maybe helped me to concentrate on others

who needed care.

My friends in Sorrento insisted that I continue my holidays “because we are your family

here” They even after all those years look after me so well and I feel secure there on my

own. Everyone talks about Mr George and if they had never met him Giovanna tells

them all about him. When we are sitting later at night as we used to do he produces 3

drinks, one for George, because he says we are still in three. I certainly feel his presence

and think he is saying well done Margaret. I enjoy my holidays and will continue to go

as long as I can.

My friends closer to home have been just great and I’ve always got a lunch date in my

diary each week There is one friend though Caroline who is more like a daughter and

who is always there in an emergency usually concerning Micky. We get on so well

together and she knows I’m always there for her too. We sometimes don’t see each

other for a couple of weeks but a long phone call or a long lunch gets us up to date with

the news. We think alike about a lot of things. George was very fond of Caroline too

and to think we only met her when I went into her dress shop!! He liked to come too

because she always liked to hear how his book was coming on. She is one of the few

who has an autographed copy!! She loves being included in family occasions because

she is so fond of Emma and Rory and never tires of hearing of their latest escapades.

55

I’m getting to the end of my story with just one last sad event to record. The death of my

mother in December l997 left me with many regrets that I had not been closer to her and

realised sooner that she was not getting the support from Hugh the son she cared for so

much. How glad I am that Jill and Allan stepped in and did the caring she should have

got from the one she cared for to the exclusion of the rest of her family. Strangely I

think she realised that in the end when he wasn’t around and Jill and Allan were. She

was always wanting to phone them or see them. Now that I’m older myself I feel I

should have done more for her because I’m sure that despite her involvement in the

church she must have been quite lonely. The revelation when I was winding up her

estate showed clearly that my brother had only visited my mother briefly on pension day

to leave her a few bits of food and pocket the rest of her pension and empty her bank

account. When we later learned that he had sold my father’s medals after she died I was

beside myself with rage. With the help of Jill and Allan, May, Nan Flora and I we

bought them back and they are in Stirling Castle which is where they should be I’ll

never forgive him for using my mother to feed his drink habit instead of looking after her

as she had done for him all her life

I can end on the happiest of notes because I have two lovely grandchildren whom I

absolutely adore. Emma came into my life just before I stopped work and our first

meeting was one that gives me so much pleasure to remember. When I arrived in Kippen

to meet her for the first time I opened the back door and heard Allan say “ who is this

coming” and the wee voice saying “it’s Granny” and she jumped into my arms. What a

magical moment!!! Then along came Rory much different calling me Granny Magnet

who thinks it is his duty to look after me because he has the same name as Papa George.

How George would have loved Emma and Rory and I just love the fact that they talk

about him as if they had known him. Then of course there’s Micky Emma’s cat who is

such a good companion even though he wakes me up early in the morning and now there

is Rosy who is such a friendly wee dog. No time to be bored. I love being kept busy

helping out and giving Jill and Allan a break and being involved with them so much

56

The other happy event was the wedding of Martin and Ruth in June. It’s lovely to have

another Mrs Saunders and to feel that Ruth truly belongs in our family officially because

I’ve felt she belonged a long time ago. I love their house in the Spey Valley which holds

many happy holiday memories. I miss their visits though on Sundays but look forward to

the times when they come with dear old Sparky.

What more could I wish for? Like George I feel lucky to have my family and friends

round me. There’s no more to add to my memories because those nearest and dearest

will be there and the whole point of writing my lifetime of memories was to fill in any

gaps in the family history and I’ve more than done that. It’s taken longer than I thought

having started it when I was 72 years old. Now at 76 years I’ll leave it at that. Thanks

Jill for asking me to do it. I’ve enjoyed looking back . I’ve come a long way from the

wee shy lassie from the Raploch who was determined to have a different life one day and

I certainly achieved that. What a lucky day it was for me when I went to work in the

Jourrnal Office in Stirling and met George. I owe so much to him because he made it all

possible. Almost the last word for you George and I know you would have liked that.!!!!

Whatever the future holds who knows? I won’t be writing any more but I can honestly

say so far like George I’ve had a very happy life, I’ve done lots of interesting things and

had a great deal of satisfaction from the many activities I’ve been involved in and of

course I have a few regrets but that’s life.

57

A lifetime of Memories is dedicated to my family who provided most of the happy

memories but especially to Jill who encouraged me to write it and of course to George

who was the greatest influence in my life.

Margaret Saunders

November 2009

58