Thanks to Betty McLean in Canada for kindly providing this story, extracted from the Hamilton Advertiser in 1922. It tells of a (then) well known Blantyre couple celebrating 50 years of marriage. Betty has shown me so much kindness by providing Blantyre related material in recent months, much of it being sentimental and I wish to publicly thank her again for sharing.
As William and Mary Scott became elderly, the newspapers recorded their happy 50th wedding anniversary, with a nice story in 1922,
“Last night Mr and Mrs William Scott, stationers and newsagents, Blantyre celebrated their golden wedding anniversary and in honour of the occasion, they entertained 140 guests in Stonefield Masonic hall. At the supper, the Rev Thomas. A. Hugh of Livingstone Memorial Church, presided and paid a well deserved compliment to the worthy couple and on behalf of the family and many friends, presented them with a pocket book and purse containing Treasury notes.”
The story tells of how it was Mary who came from a family of newsagents herself. The report concludes with “In 1877 William and Mary came to Blantyre and started the business on their own account in the shop which they still occupy in Stonefield. They are the oldest shopkeepers in Blantyre”.
The Scott family would go on to have their own Shop in High Blantyre, before descendants of theirs would own McLeans Newsagents on High Blantyre Main Street. You can read their full story here:
https://blantyreproject.com/2014/08/21/oldest-stationers-in-blantyre-part-1/
