Family Heirloom

I recently promised to blip a family heirloom, so here it is. I've had today off as I'm working Saturday, so haven't been into town, and the most interesting thing from what I've done today would be a nice shiny grill pan and cooker, so I thought I'd try and limit the boredom for all of you who choose to take time to read my blips. I've not done the promised research (have a long talk to my mother, whose memory for family history is incredible,) but I think this topic will well serve repeated blips. The subject is my great grandmother, whose name was Florence.

For the more historically minded, you will already have recognised a WSPU sash, better known as a suffragette sash. The Women's Social and Political Union was a militant organisation set up to fight for women's suffrage, by a group of women including the Pankhursts, who you may have read about in history lessons at school. My great grandmother was not involved in any of the high profile stuff, and was never arrested (to our knowledge anyway!) though her sister, Dora, was infamous in the family for having once hit a bobby over the head with her brolly at a rally.

They came from a family of 2 elder brothers, who rather fade from the family stories and 7 younger sisters, who don't. My great grandmother was the tallest of the rather short sisters, a fact of which she was very proud. Her son Gordon, my maternal grandpa, would respond to such boasts with the beautiful phrase 'you mean 'the least small' mother'. In their younger days they were known as the girls on bicycles, as they rode around Glasgow on the bicycles their father sold. In later times, their more mature days they would wander round town on foot in fur coats like a collection of teddy bears, and grandpa would hide up a close if he saw them coming.

A rather progressive family as I understand it, with some interesting connections. Her father founded the Christian Spiritualist church in Glasgow, and was acquainted with Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame. My great grandmother travelled widely, and spent time in Europe, I think Switzerland, working as a governess, and spoke German and French fluently. She did her best to encourage her grandchildren to learn too, without any real success, though she'd have been proud of my uncle, who now speaks fluent French, and probably me for my Russian, though she did love French.

She married a nice young man of Ayrshire farming stock, most of whose relatives had already emigrated to Canada, my great grandfather having (as was the practice in those days) walked around a large plot of land in Saskatchewan to lay claim to it, and they lived there for some time. I can only imagine how hard it must have been for her, moving from the great European cultures to living in the middle of the prairies. Their nearest neighbour was a bachelor who cooked porridge once a week, ate one portion fresh and poured the rest of the pot into a drawer, from which he would then cut out a cold portion for breakfast the next six mornings. They returned to Scotland before my grandpa was born, so around the end of WW1, sadly his older brother died of something he caught on the boat back. They settled in Glasgow and my great grandfather got into wholesale radio retail.

The family went to Arran on holiday, taking a house in Lochranza each summer, which was where my grandparents met, as my grandmother came from Arran stock, although was raised in Cardonald, (but that side of the family has a whole other set of stories, which I might tell one day). She spent all her holidays in Lochranza too. My gran lost her father when she was a few years old and her mother when she was about 19, and she was very close to her mother in law. She used to joke that she couldn't leave her husband as the only person she would run to was her mother in law.

Sadly my great grandmother died before I was born, and I never met her, but so much wish I had, if only a fraction of the stories are true she must have been a fascinating woman! For any family members who read this I hope that I've remembered the details correctly (if not, please correct me within 5 days to I can edit the blip), and I apologise for the lack of dates. I will get them from mum at some point and blip some more family stories one day.