You don't mention the year Granny and Granda were married which was 1913.
I
think the baby in the photo' with them would have been Elsie. She was the
only one of the girls who was fair. Also Granda seems to be in army
rather
than police uniform.
see
photo at the foot of the Buchans' page
(next links will hopefully take you to the maps on www.streetmap.co.uk where these places can be found)
According to my mother Granny was born in Alford [24.11.03 KJH
Isabella Buchan born in Aberdeen, 11 Mounthooly, on 8th January 1889] (so not near Kintore
where Granda was) , then her father moved to farm at Gillahill on the outskirts of
Aberdeen before retiring to the croft at Monymusk where the three girls
spent their summers. Granny used to go to the croft to springclean her
father's house, make his jam etc. every summer. Granda Stephen would visit
them all when he had his days off.
Being the only girl with an invalid mother in the days before women's lib.
Granny had a hard time. She had to help her father every morning to
deliver
milk off a cart in Aberdeen and often arrived at school soaking wet. She
had a kind dominie who would let her dry her clothes on the classroom stove.
She had to do the outside work and envied the "kitchie deem" who did
the
housework but was warm inside. When her mother was dying she told her to
get away because these men would just make a skivvy out of her. After her
mother died she went off to nursing and met Granda. She always wanted to
be
a doctor but her father did not believe in education for girls. At some
point she was a suffragette but how or when I don't know but I feel very
proud of her. I was baptised at her funeral so have always
felt a link
with her. (My parents had taken me down to Falkirk to be baptised by Dr.
Grant of the West Church who was a friend of Granda and married or
baptised
all the family. Granny told my mother that whatever happened they had to
go
ahead with my baptism so they did but no-one could remember anything about it
and I've never even known who my godmother is!)
The Sicilian was on Granny's side. As I understand it she was Isabella,
had
one daughter Elizabeth who had inter alia Elsie Wilson who had our Granny
also Isabella. Auntie Joan's version was that Isabella was the
daughter of
a Sicilian nobleman, and eloped with a Scottish sea captain who'd berthed at
Sicily and caught sight of the beautiful daughter while being dined by the
nobleman. The captain and Isabella settled on a farm in Aberdeenshire but
their daughter (Elizabeth) disgraced herself by marrying a ploughman (there
was a great gulf between farm owners and farm workers in those days) and
having ten children - all poor but happy.
The photo' of the Blacks and Millers with Granda and Aunt Mary must, I
think, have been in Lybster. I don't remember a shed that size in
Brightons. Also Granda is wearing his hat and if he'd just stepped
out to
his own garden I don't think he'd have bothered to put it on.
My mother used to talk about the first time she saw my father. He had very noisy shoes (or boots) and arrived late for
their
very first class. Everyone was sitting there and looked up as they heard
him come in. She was intrigued to say the least!
picture of young Deirdre