by Ann Jackson
Welcome to my blog about an ordinary life….
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Welcome
I started writing other peoples’ stories when I moved to the New Edinburgh Square retirement residence. Since then I have started reflecting on my own life of nearly a century for my family and friends. My recollections reflect the ups and downs of an ordinary life, and I am happy to share them with you.
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Going Shopping!
When I sit down at my computer to send off an order to Amazon I really do not consider much about my mode of ordering. But if we think about it, in my lifetime a lot has changed in the way we shop. I was born just before the Second World War so as a…
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Experiencing Project Dare
At some time in the early eighties I had been working as an intake worker at the Children’s Aid Society for a number of years. It seems that the Agency received an invitation from Camp Dare to visit their facility and spend some time there. No doubt this was to boost our referral rate and…
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Remembering War
Very recently we marked the one hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War .My memories are a bit more recent, as I was only a child in the middle of the Second World War. My understanding of what war meant was limited , both by my age ,and by my relative safely…
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Places I Read as a Child and Adolescent
I have always read anywhere and everywhere. Today I usually carry a book with me where ever I go. If I have to wait for something or someone I can always rely on the distraction of an interesting book. My favourite places to read at our first farm were the broad windowsills in the nursery.…
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Sixty Years of Protests
Recently my sister sent me pictures of her daughters at a Rally in Glasgow for the Climate Summit. It made me think of all the protests over the years, and the few I have actually attended. Like most people my age (84) the preoccupation for us as young people post war was the threat of…
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St. Marie’s School for Girls
I think I must have been just turning nine, that August in 1946,and I was getting ready for the fall term at the village school. Then came the bombshell! My mother said, “You are going to boarding school at the end of the month.” Maybe there had been discussion prior to this but I do…
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Stratford Summer Festival
One of my favorite things to do every summer was go to the theatre in Stratford. By the time I was going there, in the 70’s and 80’s, it was well established. Prior to the theatre, Stratford had been a railway hub where steam engines were repaired and turned around. In the early 1950’s, with…
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Summer Holidays at Elie. (late 1940’s)
I think I remember that in the late 1940’s we went on holiday to Elie each summer for a couple of weeks. It says much for the unchanging nature of this village that when my sister had her memorial holiday there for the family when she turned 70, my brother was able to find the…
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Summer Work in Edinburgh
By the second summer of my time at Edinburgh University I again found I did not want to spend it on the farm. Neither of my roommates wanted to leave the city either. So we decided to get a job and make some money to tide us over until school began again. Because we were…
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