Memorial Bench

A couple of years ago I enquired about sponsoring a bench in Douglas Park, in memory of my Mum and Dad. This came about because a friend, Susan, lived opposite the wee park until recently and was a member of the Douglas Park committee. Jennifer and I have a strong connection with this tiny park, which is actually just a couple of terraces of grass with a path, at the corner of Douglas Drive and Stewarton Drive. 

Our Mum used to stop there for a rest on her way up the steep hill from the Main Street to our house in Grenville Drive. As was her lifelong habit, she also took the opportunity to have a couple of cigarettes! We had a big, old-fashioned pram, in which I remember Jennifer lying, a small baby, and there was a piece of wood sitting across the pram near the back, which had been fashioned by Dad into a seat for toddler me. This must indeed have been a heavy load, especially including her grocery shopping slung underneath, for Mum to push all the way up the hill. She told us that on days when it was raining, the space between her glasses and where they rested against her cheeks used to fill up with rain water, and she had to lift her glasses up with one hand to let the water escape down her face! 

I only remember stopping there on sunny days, when I loved to lie down on my side and roll down the grassy banks, which seemed very steep to me, although when I see them now they are very small. 

The tiny park had fallen into disrepair over the years; the council must have stopped cutting the grass and the hedges due to financial cuts. So a few years ago a group of people who lived nearby formed a committee and did some fund-raising as well as persuading the council to maintain parts of it. It’s still a work in progress but is looking much better, and my offer to pay for a bench was accepted by the committee. In fact James very kindly paid for it. 

However first they had to get permission from the council, and then Covid happened, and I had almost forgotten all about it when I got a message from them last week to invite me to the installation of the bench, one of two for people walking up the hill to rest on. *

I couldn’t be there because we were in Ullapool at the time. Instead I went there by myself on Friday morning to check that the spelling was correct on the inscription, and to sit on the bench. I was surprised at how emotional I felt and I have to admit that I had a little cry. This was ironic because although they might have been mildly pleased, neither my Mum nor my Dad was particularly sentimental about memorials and didn’t really see the need for them! They would have been happy just to be remembered fondly by their children and grandchildren. But I do like memorials and I look forward to sitting on the bench with Jennifer soon, whom I haven’t seen since last summer in Ullapool, before we were all locked down again over the winter. 

For anyone who is interested, the inscription is as follows:

“For Jimmy and Maureen Russell

And beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise”

It will surprise no one who knew them that this is a quote from their favourite book which my Dad bought for my Mum in the 1950s, as soon as each volume was published: The Lord of the Rings.

* The other bench is inscribed “For all of the victims of Covid 19”