Identifier | EERC/DG/DG17/5 |
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Interviewer | Milligan, Caroline |
Dates | interview: 2014-02-07 coverage: 20th century |
Extent | 2 digital audio file(s), 1 digital photograph(s), 1 papers |
Subject | Education, Childhood, Recreation, Working life, Community Life, World War, 1914-1918, Domestic Life, Gender, Religion, Health, Dumfries |
Interview summary | Track 1 of 2 (DG17/5/1/1, 14 February 2014) of a biographical interview with Brenda McIntosh (b.1932, Dumfries). Brenda's parents had moved to an ex-servicemen’s small-holding community after meeting in London, where her father had been recovering from injuries sustained during World War 1. His family was in Bridge of Weir and her mother's family were in Manchester and so Dumfries was a good mid-way point. Brenda's father's physical injuries were severe (he was blind and had lost one leg) and she describes how the serious nature of her home life, and the fact that there were few children playing outside in her local community, made it difficult for her to settle at primary school. She describes the role her mother and father played in supporting those around them and says that she was raised to be self-reliant and to care for others. In her words, she was 'nurtured as a strong carer'. Brenda recalled how her mother (who, along with her mother had been part of the suffragette movement and ran birth control clinics in Manchester) provided birth control support for the local women. If her mother was visiting a Roman Catholic neighbour, Brenda would be told to watch out for a man in a frock. In those days, Brenda recalls, there were more priests and ministers out and about in the community. Brenda felt she came into her own when she went to secondary school and joined the Girl Guides. This led her mother to send her to Barnado's to gain experience of working with small children which resulted in Brenda spending a week away from home when she was only 13. Brenda said this was great training for her and helped her in later life, not least with her own children. In track 2 (of 2) of this interview with Brenda, she talks about her time at Glasgow School of Art and her decision to become a teacher. She married a minister and the couple spent a number of years in different places in both Scotland and Africa. Towards the end of the interview, Brenda talks about how her parents, because they were well educated, took on many responsibilities for their community. Both had attended courses in London when her father was under the care of St Dunstan's: her mother in providing physical care and emotional support for ex-servicemen and her father had learned various skills, including as animal husbandry (at Brighton) and typing. Her father went on to become president of the Small-holders association for the district (not just the ex-servicemen's community). Brenda said that she had absorbed all of this as a child. |
Access | Open |
Usage Statement | We give permission for the re-use of our collections material for non-commercial purposes under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial 4.0 International Licence. |
Audio links and images | |
Transcript |