Janet McDougall (née Russell) is 13 years younger than my Dad, so she is 87. She is the youngest of all of her siblings and cousins, and is the only one left in her generation of the Russell family. She is absolutely amazing. She is very pleasant and intelligent and extremely smartly turned out. She had even visited Coatbridge last weekend with her son Bob to plan the tour and to make sure that she knew the best places to park the car.
Suzy very kindly was the chauffeur for the day, and we went first to Old Monklands Cemetery where we visited the graves of my great-grandfather James Russell and of Janet McD’s father Andrew Russell. I have never been there before and it was very moving. Then we had coffee before going for a really fascinating walk around the streets in Whifflet where the Russell family lived from the mid 19th century to the late 20th century. Janet showed us the house above the shops where my Grandpa William Russell had been brought up with his Mum, Dad and four brothers in only two rooms. We saw where my Grandpa’s beloved Bowling Club had been, where he had worked at the Coop Grocery in School Street, and the site of the tenement where he had lived with my Grandma and my Dad and Aunt Margaret. The tenement has been demolished and the site is now the grounds of a primary school, but I can clearly remember visiting it in the 1960s. I remember going out to play in the back green and seeing the children who lived there climbing up dangerously on the wash house. It’s strange to think that it has gone. Then we went back to Bothwell where Janet lives and she insisted on treating us to lunch in the lovely Chapterhouse Café near her house. The whole trip and especially the company of Janet and Suzy was wonderful.
No comments:
Post a Comment