My mum, Helen Young Anderson was born on the 27th of June 1915, the second eldest daughter of John Anderson and Margaret Keir Adams. Her father John had originally worked as a tinsmith and was a steelworker at the time of my mum's birth, an occupation that had exempted him from serving in WW1. John and Margaret had only married four months before my mum was born and their ceremony, conducted at Hope Street Registry Office in Glasgow was an 'irregular marriage', one not conducted by a church minister (and therefore not approved by the Church) but one the Church accepted as alternative to a couple 'living in sin'. The reason for this probably being that Margaret was already pregnant with my mum and had already had another child by John, my aunt Meg, who by this time was six years old, being brought up by Margaret's parents, my great grandparents, James Adams and Margaret Keir. John and Margaret went on to have three more children over the next eight years - Anne, David and James. James sadly died as a baby from a heart defect.
My mum lived with her family at 17 Netherton Road until she married in 1940. Her elder sister Meg came to live with her mum and dad at some point after they married. The house at Netherton Road was typical for its time, with a shared washhouse out the back plus an outside toilet. Downstairs there were two rooms and a small kitchen, with the back room having a bed recess. My mum didn't talk much about her childhood, but it seems to have been a happy one. She got on well with her siblings and she loved the West Highland terriers that were part of the family too. Her mother was a great baker and seamstress - she made wedding dresses - and she taught my mum both of those skills.
My mum attended Wishaw Public School and then went on to Wishaw Central School. She left school at 14, without any qualifications. In the following years she worked locally in a baker's and a fruit and vegetable shop. I remember her telling me how excited the girls in the shop got when they received crates of bananas in for the first time! I expect she worked really hard at her jobs as she always worked hard at anything she put her mind to.
She married my dad in October 1940, during WW2 in her home at Netherton Road. My dad, John McAra, was a civil engineer, so also a reserved occupation. However, they didn't have the luxury of staying on one place during the war - they had to go where my dad's job took them and they spent a few years in Hayes, Middlesex, England and in Wrexham in Wales. After the war they settled back in Wishaw and they had their first child, my sister Margaret, in April 1944. My mum never had a job again, devoting all her time to being a full time housewife, like so many of her generation, looking after my dad, my sister and, eventually, me!
I didn't arrive until 1957 - a gap of 13 years between my sister and me. It was never talked about so I'm not sure if I was just a happy 'accident' (my mum was 41 when I was born) or if they had tried for or lost children in between. What it did mean was that just as my sister was going through her teens, my mum had a new baby to contend with. That can't have been easy. And shortly after I was born they had to move to Newcastle upon Tyne, again because of my dad's job, where Margaret had to finish off her education and where I had to start mine.
This move cannot have been easy. My mum had to leave her widowed 73 year old mother and her siblings behind and move to a new city with no support network for her new baby. Her teenage daughter Margaret can't have been happy to leave her friends behind either. I can imagine there would have been a lot of tension in the household.
I mentioned before that my mum was a hard worker. She took great pride in her home and in her garden. She was a skilled baker, baking not only for the family, but for 'teas' at my dad's bowling club throughout the years and for church meetings and fetes. She was not an adventurous cook as my dad and I were quite fussy eaters, but she loved making mince pies and steak pies and various soups.
We moved back to Wishaw when I was seven years old and Margaret was twenty. As soon as Margaret was twenty-one, she left home and moved to London. Mum and dad now only had me to look after. They were both very caring parents, but mum bore the brunt of raising me. My dad worked long hours as he was employed as a civil engineer on projects in Ayrshire and Edinburgh as well as locally. When he got home he quickly ate his dinner, prepared of course by my mum, and then he'd be off to play bowls - indoor in winter, outdoor in summer. I spent a lot of time around bowling as I grew up as my mum was always there to support him when he was playing for his club or for Lanarkshire, as well as making teas for the visiting teams.
It can't have been easy for my mum when I turned into a stroppy teenager, probably when she was going through the menopause. We used to argue a lot. She was left to be the disciplinarian in the household.
My dad first took ill in the summer of 1979, when he had his first heart attack. Five years later my mum became a widow. In those five years she selflessly tended to my dad. He had always been an active man and as he got less so, he can't have been easy to deal with. In his last few months when he was hospitalised, she dutifully visited him in hospital twice a day, a journey requiring two buses as she had never learned to drive. This all put a massive strain on her.
But she was a survivor. After my dad died, she continued to put time and effort into the things she loved - her house, her garden, her church meetings - and then, from 1991 onwards into her Scottish grandchildren, my children, Iain and Katie.
She was a lovely gran to them. Helpful and supportive to me, loving and kind to them. They saw her every week, they stayed overnight with her, she came on holiday with us and stayed over at Christmas. She took great joy and pride in them, spoiling them but not going overboard. I don't think I'd really appreciated her until then.
My mum died suddenly in 2003 at the age of 88. She had been in hospital, had had gallstones removed and, while recuperating, took a stroke, followed by pneumonia. This was a shock to us all. Until she had been hospitalised, she had been fit and healthy for her age, walking from her home in Cambusnethan over a mile to the town almost every day.
My children, now adults (and Iain a parent himself), have fond memories of their gran. We have lots of photos, cine film and videos of her too. She was a woman, who, while not openly over affectionate, really cared for her family throughout her long life. As I look back, the ancestor I admire is my mother, Helen Young Anderson (1915-2003).
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