OUR ADOPTED GRANDMA

Some people adopt children. In the 1970s we "adopted" a Grandma. Aged nearly 90 years old, she died this week leaving a gap in our lives.

Many people in Scotland had offspring abroad - lots in Canada, of course - and we found ourselves in the opposite situation. When the children were small (mid 1970s) our other Grandma (Iain's mother) died the year our first child was born. My mother was still alive but lived a long way away in Canada.

A couple of months after Alastair was born I put an advert in our local newsagent shop asking for a Grandma-Grandpa who would baby-sit to let us out once a week, namely, pub night on a Tuesday.

Margaret holding Mairi's first-born, Ishbel Margaret (my mother's name).

Margaret got in touch. She lived around the corner from us (with her husband and son and daughter) and she became part of our family. We used her over the years just as one would a real Grandma, i.e. phone her at short notice if there was a crisis say at dinner time when a child had to be taken to hospital or whatever.

She was originally from Ayrshire and eventually moved back to where her relatives still lived. We always kept in touch over the years. Our most recent visit was with Mairi taking the children to see her.

So the funeral was held on Friday and Mairi and I drove down to Ayrshire (both of us using our iPhones (GPS) to navigate ... and not making a very good job of it!)

On our way back we paid a visit to a farm in the Stewarton Dunlop area that makes cheese. The story goes that a woman from Ireland started making cheese - Dunlop cheese - here and cheese-making continues to this day.