THE STORY TELLERS.....

[nelmit]

I lost my much loved Father on Boxing Day. At his funeral today I was able to share so much with his relatives. I am the story teller and I was so happy to be able to do that for them. I have had help from this forum and am indebted. If I didn't have the input from my friends here I would not have so much to tell.
Slainte to you all
much love,
Merlot

I've just seen your post Merlot - being the story teller really does help.

Kind regards,
Annette M

[reporter]

Inspiring sentiments David. Been story-telling for a living all my life and getting handsomely paid for it. This stuff is genuinely different though. Reading the new early Victorian medical officer of health for Lanarkshire's damning report on infant mortality, cholera, alcoholism, illigitimacy, lack of santitation and massive overcrowding in Industrial Revolution Scotland has made modern newspaper gripes about the NHS and social ills look pathetically small beer. One glimpse at the 1,200 plus names of desperate inmates- lunatics, widowed mothers, orphaned children etc in Barony Poor House alone or at the thousand gravestones in Kirk o' Shotts cemetery with almost 80 per cent having perished before toddling age, makes you humbly realise that the stories have already been recorded. It falls upon us to rediscover them, bring them back to life, put them in context and tell future generations of the heroic struggle working class Scots had to endure to mould the sound economic and healthy lifestyle we now enjoy.

[joette]

Couldn't have put it better myself Reporter.Just going through my own Family there are so many tales of struggle,heartbreak,loss & unfairness & injustice.
Sometimes I wonder how they managed to keep their humanity intact & they did big time.Just think of the fights they had to get the vote,decent housing,education,fair wages & against discrimination.
I may not have anything but working people in my lineage but to me they are all Kings& Queens & herioc soldiers in a lifelong struggle to survive & to see their off-spring do better.To see that those around them did too.
I know one of my Great-Uncles was in George's Square when the then Home Secretary Winston Churchill set the Troops onto the protesters.
I have Covenanters who fought to keep their worship seperate from the interference of the state.Those that Died in War & from insanitary conditions. A Grandfather with horrific war-wounds who struggled every day to work to provide for his wife & son.
Great-Grandparents who educated their sons &Daughters to the best of their abilities by giving them all good trades.Not easy when there are nine of them.
To all the little ones who died of Whooping Cough & Measles.Those whom society called "bastard" & the shame & secrecy surrounding it.
Those who cared not what society thought but got on with living their lives the best they knew how.Those who ventured far from these shores & never returned.Those that did & came home.Those whose stories I know & those still to be unturned. I salute them one &all & am proud to "one of their's"

[paddyscar]

We all have it so easy in comparison to even the generation before us, and it boggles the mind to think of the changes in 100 years!

Nice writing Joette! Thanks,

Frances