بانابوكرالجديدة

 

 

 

 

 

caring for her mother and, later, her sisters, but this never dimmed her indomitable spirit.

Born in a tenement flat in the shadow of Arthur's Seat, she was the youngest of eight children. The family moved to 9 Seton Place in the Grange when Marjorie was just 12 years old. She spent the next 85 mostly happy years there, many shared with her elder sister Agnes, who was an acclaimed artist.

Marjorie was educated, along with her sisters, at George Watson's Ladies College, Edinburgh. After leaving school, she worked in a law office, and when war broke out she left to become a nurse with the Red Cross, meeting ambulance trains bringing wounded soldiers back home.

She started to write four years later when she was invalided out of nursing because of recurrent back problems, using the money she earned from writing to travel abroad with Agnes.

Shortly after the war, her mother fell ill and Marjorie became a full-time carer. Unable to go out to work, she devoted any free time over the next 20 years to her writing and radio broadcasting.

Following her mother's death in 1963, Marjorie joined Buchan's Pottery in Portobello as a hand decorator of the firm's famed Thistle Pottery. She later joined the Girl Guides Association for Scotland as publicity secretary.

She became a full-time carer again during the 1980s, as she nursed Agnes and another sister, Sally, through long-term illnesses. Agnes and Sally passed away within a year of each other, leaving Marjorie bereft.

Throughout her life Marjorie had a great love of nature, wildlife and the remote corners of the Highlands and Islands. She had a particular love for the Hebrides, which she shared with her sisters, taking many a holiday in a wee, isolated "but and ben". Such escapades often entailed an arduous journey, with a ride in the local post bus followed by a five-mile walk with luggage in tow.

This love of travel and determination to get to her destination lasted a lifetime. In celebration of her 80th birthday Marjorie embarked on a Himalayan trek in Nepal, following a rigorous training programme in the Pentlands under the direction of one of her great-nieces. She slept under canvas for the duration of the trip, which included a rigorous trekking itinerary and riding on the backs of elephants. Although Marjorie was a good 20 years older than most of her party, she allowed no concessions from the Sherpas, insisting she carry her own rucksack, despite the Sherpas' pleas to be allowed to carry her and her luggage.

Never short of a tale to tell, Marjorie wrote her own memoir, numerous features, short stories, children's stories, essays, plays and poems, many of which were broadcast on the BBC Home Service on programmes including Children's Hour or published in anthologies, newspapers, magazines and journals.

Her first short story, Victor Never Came, was published in the Weekly Scotsman in 1944, and she continued to write for The Scotsman, Weekly Scotsman, the Glasgow Herald, the Times, Edinburgh Evening News, Evening Dispatch, Scotland's Magazine, the Writer and Country Fair for the best part of 40 years. She was a prolific contributor on a wide range of subjects to the Scots Magazine until the late 1980s.

Her Nature Notes also featured in a regular column of the same name in The Scotsman during the 1950s and 1960s, and, as recently as 1990, her essay Recompense was shortlisted for the BBC Wildlife Magazine Awards for Nature Writing.

Marjorie adored animals, especially cats. She also had a particular weakness for antique dolls, which she described as "an incurable disease". Her own doll collection was a popular talking point and she delivered many lectures on the subject.

An advocate of the Lowland Scots dialect or "Mither Tongue", she was a popular guest speaker at many a Burns supper.

In 1995, she was assistant editor of Midwinter Music, a Scottish anthology of literature and music "centred round the daft days or festive season". The idea for the book was conceived by one of Marjorie's closest friends, Marjory Greig. It included several of Marjorie's short stories.

Shortly after her 90th birthday, Marjorie joined a writers' group and in 2005 had several of her poems published in an anthology of new writing, Wild on her Blue Days. In 2006, when she was 95, her own poignant memoir, Childhood's Hill was published by The Linen Press to considerable acclaim, even topping Ian Rankin on Blackwells' Scottish bestsellers list for a couple of weeks. In Childhood's Hill Marjorie describes her memories of growing up in Edinburgh and the countryside of Midlothian in a time long since gone.

Latterly, Marjorie suffered from dementia and her travelling became restricted to the confines of an armchair, much to her frustration. Should any visitors dare recount their own travel exploits, she would stop them short, with a resounding: "I've been there!" On one occasion, when one of her great nieces was recounting a recent mountaineering trip, she interrupted with: "That's nothing, 'I've climbed Everest!"

No appreciation of Marjorie's life would be complete without mention of her devoted carers, Alison and "Marjorie's girls", who assured her of an unsurpassed quality of life while allowing her to fulfil her express wish to remain in her own home for as long as possible.

Unfortunately, following a severe stroke, it was no longer feasible for Marjorie to return to Seton Place, and after a spell in hospital she was admitted to the Belleville Lodge Nursing Home, where she spent the last nine months of her life. She passed away on 3 October, in a room within full view of Arthur's Seat, in whose shadow she had been born all those years ago.