The Evening of Ascension Day

Paisley Abbey was sun-kissed this evening, as we passed by on the way to dinner, just as it was at the end of my mother’s funeral service held within, this morning, at 11am.

Everything passed off very well, with supporters from all over Scotland and all the different areas of her life in attendance. I was very touched to see how everyone, without exception, was moved to tears as they arrived for the service and I had to retreat into the depths of the east wing to gather myself.

The Abbey minister, Revd. Jim Gibson, was a warm, steady and heartfelt presence, hand gently resting on Mum’s coffin, saying just the right things about both her and my Dad’s lives to bring us up as best they could in sometimes trying circumstances. He also took some time immediately after my eulogy to appreciate its content and delivery, acknowledging how difficult these things can be.

Mum was a contemporary of the Queen and someone remarked, later, how today was as close as she could have got to a mini-State funeral. Mum would have been both pleased and honoured, as we did our best to honour her today.

The Eulogy follows for those interested . . . 1,600 words, 12 minutes delivery time, 8 years of life per minute approx. Delivering it was the biggest emotional rollercoaster of my life.

Eulogy for Jean McMillan McFarlane (née Murray)
19th December 1925 – 12th May 2025

Delivered at Her Funeral at Paisley Abbey
on 29th May 2025 by her son, Alan McFarlane

On behalf of our family, welcome, and thank you very much for coming to pay your respects to Mum
and support us in our loss. It’s lovely to see familiar faces, including some Old Grammarians and, at
least one, Old Neilsonian – well, nobody’s perfect!

Mum was born a week before Christmas, nearly 100 years ago, in a tiny garret at the bottom of New
Street, a stone’s throw from Paisley Cross. The room was too small for the now enlarged family, so
her parents wrapped her in swaddling clothes, loaded her onto a horse and cart with all their worldly
possessions and, in a driving blizzard, travelled a gruelling mile up Causeyside Street to the south end. Mum was already a survivor in her first week!

She went on to have a very happy childhood, first in Alice Street and then Barterholm Road, with loving
parents – John and Helen – her dear sister, Ella, and many generous spinster aunts. Her energy and
enterprise showed when a police constable arrived at the family flat holding a rosy-cheeked Mum in
one hand and a bag of stolen apples in the other! ‘There will be consequences for this, young lady’, he
said sternly. Mum immediately went off to look up ‘consequences’ in the dictionary!

She was the first ever intake at Lochfield Primary School in 1930, and left school at 14 in 1939, with a
gas mask over her shoulder – I strongly believe that given other times and educational opportunities,
Mum would’ve gone on to be a very effective CEO! As it was, she did run two businesses very successfully,
later in life.

Mum’s first job was in Coats Mill in Paisley, running errands to and from many different departments.
Her initiative and intelligence were quickly spotted, and she was offered a job in the laboratory, where
she met her lifelong friend May Gledhill.

May and other girlfriends went on to become Mum’s youth hostelling buddies. In 1947, they found
themselves making custard in Brodick Youth Hostel on Arran. It was not going well, and lumps began
to appear. A handsome young man, a certain Alexander McFarlane, came to the rescue and showed them how it should be done – he and Mum hit it off right away and, so, there are seven people here today and one in Hong Kong who owe their existence to lumpy custard!

Mum and Dad’s youth hostelling adventures covered the length and breadth of Scotland bringing
lifelong friends, including May and David Ramsay. In 1949, it also took them to Zermatt, and the
Matterhorn, where Mum purchased a beautiful ruby ring with a lovely woven gold setting. Later in
life, she would go to extraordinary lengths to have replicas made for all the ladies in the family,
involving jewellers in Scotland and Vietnam and Hong Kong!

Mum and Dad married in 1953 at St James Church and her grandfather, who had provided the horse
and cart in 1925, played a key role in securing their first home, even after his death. He had started
as yard boy and then became foreman of the Clark Hunter Cooperage. Mum saw a ‘room and kitchen’
flat for sale in a standalone tenement at 225 Neilston Road, owned by the Clark Hunter family. She
wrote to the matriarch, Mary Williamson, who, on discovering she was Johnny’s granddaughter,
immediately took it off the market and let it to them for 10/- a month for the next 13 years! Mum
often recalled how she and Dad danced down School Wynd after picking up the keys!

In 225, Mum created a perfect world for us to grow up in, secure in our near-private back green, where
we would happily play. And she, always looking ahead, prepared us for the Paisley Grammar School
admission test, including drilling us in animal recognition! Not many five-year-olds could recognise
an okapi, as we could!

Mum was also behind the purchase, in the late fifties, of Tom Campbell’s butcher’s business in
Lochwinnoch, where Dad worked. They borrowed the thousand pounds needed and secured the
family’s income for the next thirty years.

By the time she was 52 years old, Mum was well settled and doing a great job as a housewife;
managing the home, polishing our school shoes every night and feeding us around the clock – Dad
worked long hours, so she took the day-to-day weight of bringing us up, including the disciplining!!

She was also fully engaged in many other activities, including the 33rd Gleniffer Scout Group
Committee, learning how to drive (a godsend, as it would turn out) and taking cookery courses with
Helen Tannahill.

Then it happened, the great tumult in our lives, when Dad died prematurely at 53-years old in 1977.
It was Mum’s moment of truth, and there are few better examples of the expression, ‘When the going
gets tough, the tough get going!’

Suddenly, the full weight of running the family business, and managing the men, fell on her shoulders. Now, it was she (with her youngest still in primary school) who drove at 6am every morning from Paisley to the abattoir in Glasgow, and then all the way through hail, rain and snow to Lochwinnoch. They were long hours, including half days on Saturdays and doing the books on Sundays.

Mum still kept her strategic business head and bought out the only other butcher shop in the village,
reducing competition and moving to a more central location, in one fell swoop.

And if Mum was a pillar of her immediate family, she was also the matriarch of the wider family. She
looked after her aunts as they had looked after her. Aunt Elsie was a frequent visitor, sometimes
accompanied by one of the many aunts who had emigrated to the States before the war. She would
also deliver packages of butcher meat in the dark evenings, once a week, to Aunt Nancy and others,
and members of several generations would come to our house seeking her advice, often behind closed
doors.

There was, of course, a much lighter side to her life! The soirees at the Tannahills, the after-dinner
gatherings in our now much-larger home at 183 Neilston Rd (complete with Mum’s famous tuna and
sweet corn quiche), the New Year’s Day lunches at the Smiths (how she enjoyed being with Betty, who
was such a font of knowledge!), the rounders on the beaches of Troon and Prestwick with the
Ramsays, our family weekends away exploring nearly every castle, cathedral and abbey in the land,
with longer trips to Macrihanish and Orkney.

Pride of place, however, were our summer holidays in Arran, shared, cheek by jowl, every year for
over a quarter of a century with the Hunters – 3 kids on our side, 4 on theirs. Mum recently recounted
being all alone at the double-family encampment on Brodick beach with two beach huts, a huge circle
of windbreaks and a mass of deckchairs, when a lady stopped, looked in amazement at the camp, and
asked, ‘How many kids do you have?’ Mum, in the flash, replied, ‘Seven!’ And that’s really how it was!

Aunt Irene Hunter was Mum’s soulmate, with shared views on every topic under the sun from politics
to education and the Royal family – both were loyal supporters of the Queen! And there was nothing
finer than when they dissolved in hysterical laughter, as if every screw had come loose!

When all of us kids had decided our independent paths, Mum, then 60 years old, sold up to establish
a B&B in Pitlochry. She made a great circle of friends there, with whom she went to country dance
and woodwork classes, as well as the Festival Theatre. She loved welcoming her guests, kept an
immaculate house and provided wonderful Scottish breakfasts with just-in-time hot toast delivery, all
without any help, and only retiring when she was 76 years old!

It was then to Largs, 23 years ago, and her Castlebay Court flat with its peerless views of Cumbrae,
with Arran and Goatfell beyond, and many dear neighbours. She took advantage of her time to
explore the world: Canada, the US, Colombia, Vietnam, Brazil, Spain (in depth with us, including one
memorable night getting a little tiddly on brandy in Seville long past midnight) and many, many
European cities including London, Paris, Venice and Budapest. When Catherine and I took her to New
York for her 80th birthday, we managed to miss our connecting flight from Hungary but Mum, not
knowing what had happened, nevertheless, boldly boarded the transatlantic flight from Heathrow.
She spent her time in the galley regaling fellow passengers about her ‘James Bond’ adventure!

Her travels also included many long, happy and memorable Christmas and New Year stays with Alexis and all the Warhursts, where Mum became a well-loved fixture on the High Wycombe festive scene.

Family was very important to Mum, and she took a very keen interest and pride in the progress of all
four of her grandchildren, Kirstin, Layton, Siubhan and Murray. She was also delighted to know that
Bjorn arrived in April, making her a great grandmother for the first time!

After long years of independent living, enabled by the close support, care and attention of Alastair in
later years, Mum moved into Hutton Park Care Home in Largs last November with her many traits fully
present. The Hutton Park managers described her as the most determined resident they have ever
had, as well as being the leader of her ‘gang’! She also established a special place in the hearts of her
carers.

To close, Mum was ambitious for the progress of her family, and faced challenges with energy and
dedication. She was unstintingly generous with her time in helping others, and she also had great fun
and many adventures on her near century-long path.

Now, let’s send her our love and gratitude.

Far from resting in peace, I’m sure Mum is very much in the thick of the action, as always!

Thank you.

Alan McFarlane

PS
Prof. George MacPhee on the organ was magnificent. Here is an LP that we have at home which gives a feel for the place…Sacred Songs At Paisley Abbey with Kenneth McKellar. Our hymns, today, were The King of Love My Shepherd Is and Praise My soul the King of Heaven, with the reading from Corinthian’s 13.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IZsBawmlPSg&pp=ygUfU2FjcmVkIHNvbmdzIGZyb20gcGFpc2xleSBhYmJleQ%3D%3D