This is a photo from my own family album. It’s my Great Aunt Margaret Duncan and was taken in 1918, just after the end of WW1. She’s standing in the back garden of her home in Broompark Road, High Blantyre. She was one of four children being the youngest of older sisters Jenny (who died as a child) and Chrissie, as well as my grandfather, John Duncan. Jenny Bowie Duncan was only 7 when she passed away the previous summer on 28th June 1917 at Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow, a tragedy that would clearly have affected the whole family deeply. Little Margaret lost her big sister.
Margaret is pictured in 1918 in her summer sun hat and good quality boots, which is no surprise given her father was a boot salesman for the Co-op. Margaret became a nurse and lived with Chrissie, the sisters remaining spinsters all their lives. They certainly looked out for one another and all our family were very fond of them. My father spent some time renovating the house in the early 90s and installed new heating for them at his cost (he was a heating engineer) and started to convert the attic, something they were grateful for. Incredibly little Margaret lived in the same house for almost 9 decades and following a short spell in hospital, she passed away in 1997. I have nice memories of her. She was a kind lady and I remember how fond she was of my mother and all the connected children of the Veverka, Glen, Duncan and MacFarlane families.
With thanks to Scotland Colourised for bringing a new dimension to this picture.
I, of course, remember my cousins Margaret and Chrissie very well but your grandfather John died all too young and I have little memory of him.
In their later years my spinster aunt Christina moved from our home, where she had helped look after my grandmother until she died, to ‘housekeep’ for ‘the girls’ at Broompark Road. I have many happy memories of visiting at Broompark Road