Memorial

Today was Mum's memorial service. Below is the tribute I just about managed to read (as today is a backblip, I will note that this is actually slightly amended to include what was said at the Memorial service on 27 Sept, and at the crematorium on 28 Sept, almost identical, but one or two minor changes because of who was there). This photo was her passport photo when she want to South Africa in in 1975. They don't do them like that anymore!

Mum was born in Glasgow in 1946, to Gordon and Isabel Whiteford. She had an older brother Hamish, and was followed along by a younger sister Foy and another brother, Kerr. Her Mum’s family were from Arran, so she spent a lot of her holidays here from when she was tiny. She trained as a PE teacher at Dunfermline College of Physical Education, initially in Aberdeen, then in Edinburgh when the college moved to Cramond. Once graduated, she taught in East Ren, splitting her week between Wood Farm and Williamwood schools. She married George Bain in July 1971, and they moved to South Africa in 1975 for Dad’s work. Kerri and I were both born there, and we stayed until 1982, when she and Dad split up and Mum, Kerri and I came back to Scotland to stay with her parents, as she was ill at the time. After Grandpa died the next year, we stayed on with Gran, and Mum started teaching on Arran. She spent a good few years part-time on year contracts, but eventually got a permanent full time position, with most of her work at Arran High, but some at various primaries, which she really loved doing. She also did the primary swimming for years. She loved teaching, though not in a classroom. In her words, a classroom full of kids sitting behind desks scared her, though she had no problem with a class in the gym, or, it being the old Arran High, outside in all weathers! In 2006, she turned 60 on Thursday, retired on Friday and got Ranza, her dog on Sunday, which was supposed to have been Saturday, but the boat didn’t sail! She spent a lot of time caring for her Mum, until she died in 2008, and Mum moved out of Daisyknowe, down to Catacol and really enjoyed having her own house at last. The experience of caring for her Mum, along with her diabetes and some serious problems with her back over the last few years, she knew what it was like to live with pain and discomfort, and didn’t want to hang on and be a burden, so simply not waking up in the morning would have been exactly how she would have chosen to go, even if far too soon for those of us left behind.

We have all very much appreciated the cards and messages which we have received over the last two weeks. It has been great to read how other people remember Mum. ‘Lovely’ is the word most often used, along with ‘kind’, ‘helpful’ and ‘generous’. Other ones we liked were: ‘valued member of the community and a great help at the Sales of Work over the years’, ‘a fount of information’, ‘Sheila was always my big cousin, when I was little. And I looked on her with wonder’, ‘a good and respected colleague for many years but more importantly your mum was a friend’, 'she bought wonderful books as presents for our kids', ‘a very proud granny’ and ‘In the wee staffroom Sheila always had a pertinent and humorous comment to make – and not just about pupils!’.

So what will we remember about Mum?
Hospitality. Friends and family from all over the world came to visit Arran. Mum always had good food, home baking and a warm welcome for them, which they really appreciated. She really enjoyed cooking with Abi, and was very proud of her Home Economics prize.
Woolly jumpers – Mum made most of our clothes when we were tiny, and as we grew, she still knitted a lot of jumpers, the more complicated the better. I remember feeling guilty as a teenager the first time I bought a jumper in a shop! She won first prize at the Show one year for a jumper – entered as hand knitted as everything she did was, but moved to machine knitted class as it was so even the judge thought it had accidentally been entered in the wrong category. Given that Mum was also known for her sarcasm, you can imagine the comments about the expertise of the judges! I think my favourite thing she ever knitted was for Ross and Abi – a Noah’s Ark, with a big ark to keep all the animals in, all hand knitted.
Good manners and speaking properly – Mum worked hard to raise us as polite kids, with good table manners and well pronounced vowels!
Mum always enjoyed finding out new things. All our holidays we went to museums and galleries, she watched a lot of documentaries, read all the time, and loved puzzles, especially crosswords. It was only when I was in secondary school that I realised that not every family listened to the news on the radio in the morning, read the newspaper, then watched the news at 6pm and 10pm.
As a young woman she did various evening classes, including dancing classes with my father (I remember my friends’ faces in Sixth Year when we were invited to the leaving do for one of the teachers, and they saw Mum jiving, it was very impressive. Also impressive was the ability as a kid to walk upstairs on her hands!). She knew all the family stories, and who lived where, and who was related to whom.

Mum put a lot of value on working hard and doing your best, far more than on doing well. Arran High School will have a new prize in her memory for next year’s Prize Giving after she was there a few weeks ago and commented that it was a shame that almost all the prizes were for academic success. She wanted her kids (and grandkids) to be happy rather than successful. That was very much the way she had been raised, but it made her a very supportive and encouraging Mum. I think she was far prouder when told that we were polite and nice than getting great school results, and of things like the Good Citizenship Quaich that Ross won at Pirnmill Primary and when Mrs Jackson told her Kerri was the politest child she had ever taught. She really was an incredibly proud grannie, and loved spending time with Ross, Abi and Callum. The older two will have their own fond memories of their gran, and we will make sure that Callum hears plenty of stories!

Thanks everyone for coming along today to give thanks for Mum’s life. She was a wonderful Mum, sister, aunt, cousin and friend, and will be very much missed.