Extract from a letter written by Douglas Scott to Robert Macpherson. The short biography of Emily was intended to be included in "A Short History of a Cresser Family".

Reproduced by kind permission of Liz Ferguson (Scott)

 

 

"You asked me for a few snippets of my life!  Impossible but I will try to give a resume of my mother Emily and family".

 

"I don't know details of her schooling and early life but as a teenager she contracted TB, and had a lung removed.  She spent an extended time in a sanatorium and subsequent convalesence, part of which she spent with her sister Joan (Daisy).  On the Doctors advice she was advised to live in the country - so she moved to Kelso and joined Laing and Mather Seedsmen as a shorthand typist.  She met my father John Scott who had been invalided out of the Royal Engineers having been gassed during the 1914/1918 War.  They were married in 1919 and she helped in the grocery store my Grandfather Scott had founded, working there until my sister Margaret and myself were born.  But on the death of my Grandmother (Scott) the shop ceased trading and my father became an agent for wholesale groceries.  Unfortunately he died a perature death in 1941.  During his illness and for about a year thereafter my mother carried on the business until rationing made the job obselete.  She joined the LNER railway in 1942 as a temporary goods clerk and rose to chief clerk.  In 194(?)  She was the sole temporary staff member left in the South Scottish region who wasn't a member of a union.  She steadfastly refused to join so she was summarily dismissed.  After six weeks of chaos she was reinstated with special dispensation!"

 

"She was the most wonderful mother and much loved by all the Cresser and Scott families".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An extract from "A Short history of a Cresser Family" by Robert Cresser Macpherson.

 

"Aunty Emily was educated at George Square School, Edinburgh and was a great favourite with our family.  She took Harry my brother and I on our first visit to a theatre.  The show was Peter Pan and we did enjoy it".

 

"She went to work in Kelso as a secretary an married John Warrington Scott who had been badly gassed in the war.  He was a keen motor cyclist and motorist.  I remember him visiting us at Shandon Place with a two seater car.  It was a long thin one and the passenger sat behind the driver".

 

"We always got a great welcome when we visited Kelso.  Marjorie and I went down there just for the day.  Aunty Emily insisted that we stayed the night and we were not even engaged.  Marjorie's father was furious but he was faced with a 'fait accompli' and we all survived.  Uncle John Scott died during the early part of World War 2 and Aunty Emily took on the job as Station Master at Kelso.  She had a very busy time as lots of soldiers were stationed in the vicinity including large numbers of Polish Troops.  It was not only the movement of soldiers but the goods traffic was very heavy too".