Category: Young Adulthood
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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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The Edinburgh Festival
The first summer after I started at Edinburgh University I did not go home for the holidays. This was partly due to my feeling it might be rather boring, but also due to failing two of my subjects. At first I was rather devastated by this, but when I became aware that I could retry…
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The Shoestring
The Shoestring must have been one of the least appealing cafes in Edinburgh when I knew it in the 1950’s. I have since tried to find its location along the Royal Mile but that whole area has been so gentrified I have been totally unsuccessful. I was introduced to the Shoestring by a friend from…
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Visiting Sweden
When Birgit, my eldest daughter, was about a year old I decided to go to Sweden for a short time with my husband. He was being sent by his work to explore some of the institutions for adolescent delinquents run by the Swedish Government. I planned to leave our daughter in the care of my…
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Experiencing Motherhood
Recently, in my eightieth decade I began to think even more than usual about my past!. Is that not what we all do, as we contemplate the trajectory of our lives .Perhaps it was time to take stock of the universal experience of motherhood as I remember it. My daughters are in their late fifties…
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Living in the West Bow. Edinburgh 1959
The West Bow is one of the oldest parts of Edinburgh. Although it is not part of the Royal Mile ,the buildings are from the same era. Before the city fathers drained the loch that is now Princes Street Gardens, ways to expand the city were very limited, The Old Town was built on the…
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Honeymoon in Arasaig
I have no recollection of why we decided to go to Arisaig on our honeymoon. I think it had something to do with it being beautiful and on the railway north, so we would not have to drive. After the ceremony on a day in June 1959 we had to go to Glasgow in order…
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Harmeny House
We went to work at Harmeny House in the fall of 1959. We had been married in June, after Stephen had done his exams. Then we found out that he was not going to be able to graduate as his supervisor had decided that he needed a further period of supervision. While she continued to…
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Emigration to Canada 1962
Ever since we planned to be married my husband had been determined that we should emigrate to Canada. In 1958 I had actually visited relatives there in British Colombia. It is a beautiful, if enormous, country, and British Colombia had been in the background of my family’s history since the mid nineteenth century. After my…
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A Very Peculiar Finishing School
Adelboden Switzerland, I have a very good friend who finds the thought of me going to Finishing School very amusing! She rightly feels that there could not be a more unlikely candidate. She is probably right, finishing was hardly the point, when I had hardly started anything! I think my mother’s motivation was very practical.…