Jun 13th, 2009

The wee shop on Waverley Street

I never saw this picture of my dad’s mother, Martha, until about 10 years ago.  She died, aged only 54,  thirteen years before I was born and I’m glad to say at the time of writing,  I’ve outlived her. She and a friend went to have their photograph taken in their best hats and furs in the early years of the 1920s. She wasn’t to know that before long, her world would collapse around her.

Martha Robertson Higgins (I’m fairly sure she would have been known as Matty, Matt or even Oor Matt) was born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, the middle child of 12 children.  Her father Joseph was an underground fireman down the pit and he and mother Martha both came from Lanarkshire. It’s possible, though, that the Higginses hailed originally from Ireland.

In 1912, she married a coal miner (more…)