Tressa McGuigan

“Tressa McGuigan” by James Cornfield (2005)

She was a child of her time,
she was born in that year of 1894,
she was the youngest daughter of James and Margaret
she was born and resided at 72 Spittal Rows, Bardykes,
She was the 9^th child in the family of ten

She walked every Schoolday up to Blantyre
she went to St Josephs School aged 5,
she went with her siblings until the age of 12
She left to work at the pithead of Bardykes colliery
She was a brasspicker along with her sisters.

She could remember the Boer and the 1914 war,
she married John Cornfield after that war in 1919,
she bore him three sons and three daughters.
she endured the poverty of the 1921/1926 strikes,
she suffered the hunger of the hungry 1930s.

She survived the horror of the 1939/1945 war,
she was a woman amongst woman of her time,
she neither drank nor smoked and abhorred alcohol,
she had never been in a public house or outside Scotland!
she was Tress McGuigan, mother of the Cornfield family.
She still lives in the hearts of those
she loved and left behind…..

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