Honouring my grandmother

And why you haven't heard from me in a while

Kathleen Scott, 1929-2024

This is an off-theme post for me here on Ælfgif-who?, not about my usual medieval subjects, but about a woman who was important to me in a different way. Please stick with it. I’d like to explain why you haven’t heard from me in a little while.

Firstly, my PhD thesis, titled ‘Christian Queenship and Inauguration Rites in Early Medieval England’, is due to be submitted at the end of this month. Huzzah! After a long six years of research interrupted by chronic illness, a pandemic, and starting my own business to make ends meet (this very newsletter no less), the finish line is finally in sight. The last few months have been quite intense in terms of shaping my thesis into something that makes a genuine contribution, and preparing to submit. Apologies for neglecting the newsletter, but I promise it’s almost done!

But also during these last few months my grandma received a diagnosis of dementia, moved into a care home, and then became suddenly very ill. She passed away in June, age 94, and since then my life has been juggling the never-ending bureaucracy of a bereavement, funeral planning, and thesis writing. And trying to fit in processing this immense loss when I get the chance.

I willingly took on the job of writing my grandma’s eulogy and preparing the order of service for her funeral, considering myself highly qualified to do both as someone who writes life stories for a living, and whose research niche is the orders of service for royal ceremonies.

I am trained to piece together a glimmer of a life long ago, from often contradictory sources that are few and far between. I had all the necessary facts and dates of my grandma’s life, those that are so often frustratingly missing from the historical record for the women I research - birth date, marriage date, occupation, addresses, will, death certificate. Due to assisting with the bereavement admin, I had a whole documentary archive at my fingertips - bank accounts, national insurance number, pensions, utilities.

And yet, what has any of that stuff got to do with my grandma? My grandma hated dealing with forms and documents - ‘all stuff and nonsense’, she would have said.

There are indications of who she was, of course, and the decisions she made - who she married, where she lived. But no letter from the bank is ever going to reveal that her kitchen always inexplicably smelled of treacle and frying butter, even years after she stopped cooking. That she loved cracking jokes with a twinkle in her eye, right until the last days of her life. That she gesticulated with her hands whenever she described an object, as if she were touching it. That she pronounced poem like ‘poym’, and breakfast like ‘braykfust’.

How can the paper trail left behind someone ever reflect the intricacies, the richness, of a human life? When we think of our loved ones, it’s usually the small idiosyncrasies that come to mind. What makes a person themselves is so difficult to capture. To me, my grandma’s life is more represented by a tartan shortbread tin full of buttons than her death certificate.

Eulogising someone close to you as a historian is a humbling experience. I can no longer pretend that even with the most expansive archives (and as an early medieval historian, one can only dream about such things!), that we can get close to capturing the essence of real people.

And yet, this process has also highlighted how important it is to reflect on someone’s life, truthfully, and generously. To collect various people’s impressions of them. To write memories down, share them, record them, talk about them. Being a good historian is not just about tracing the past, that’s only half the job - it is also about preserving it, and acting as a responsible custodian.

I promise I will be back to writing about women who lived a thousand years ago shortly. But for now, it is an immense privilege to be tasked with commemorating 94 years of my grandmother’s life, and to be able to share glimmers of her life with thousands of you:

Today we say goodbye to Kathleen Scott, known to her many close friends as Kath. She was born in 1929 into a maritime family. Her father was a sailor, and she used to meet his boat as it arrived in the dock from France each week. Kath was educated at Grammar School where she enjoyed art and took part in the school’s production of Iolanthe. By all accounts she and her brother were a mischievous pair, once making gunpowder on their mother’s kitchen table!

Kath spent many idyllic childhood summers staying with her cousins at the railway station. On leaving school she worked as a telephone operator. Later she began courting her future husband, a bank clerk, and would travel up to Scotland to see him when he was in the Fleet Air Arm for National Service. They married at Parish Church in 1954 and moved into a new house near the river, where she lived for the next seventy years. Kath and Scottie often travelled around together to go dancing. Kath enjoyed art, ballet, theatre and music. She saw Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fontaine dance together in London and flung herself across the bonnet of Nureyev’s car when he left the theatre.

Kath trained to be a primary teacher in 1970, specialising in art, and flew to Paris and Amsterdam to visit the galleries with college. She taught in several schools where she had a post of responsibility for art, and is fondly remembered by her former pupils. When she was still in her forties, her husband sadly passed away. Kath continued to teach until she took retirement.

Kath spent her retirement painting, knitting, gardening and doing embroidery. Her work featured in several public exhibitions. She designed and painted Christmas cards for a local performing arts charity for disabled people. She enjoyed reading novels and poetry, especially W. B. Yeats. Kath was known by her family and friends as being fiercely independent. She took evening classes in pottery, woodwork, and car maintenance, and joined local groups dedicated to literature and music. She travelled the world, visiting New Zealand, South Africa, Norway, Switzerland, Croatia, Italy, Greece, and Majorca. She went on a cruise around the Mediterranean on the Oriana. She loved walking in the Yorkshire Dales, Wolds and in the Lake district, and went hiking in the Welsh mountains aged 60.

Kath was a gregarious person and maintained many close friendships over the years, and for many decades she acted as the heart of her family, bringing us all together around her. Her house was often full of visitors, none of whom would be allowed to leave without having at least a cup of tea and several snacks. She was a loving grandmother and enjoyed nothing more than doting on her grandchildren. Her scones, flapjacks and apple pies shall never be surpassed. She adored cats and gave a loving home to many over the years.

Kath’s house was filled with many beautiful objects, paintings, and books, that reflected her varied interests and hobbies. On the shelf in her living room she had a beautiful bronze paperweight on display, inscribed with a quote from the absurdist philosopher Albert Camus – ‘In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer’. Though she faced many hardships including the premature losses of her husband and son, and a long battle with dementia, Kath retained an inspiring strength and self-determination until the end. She will be remembered by all who knew her for her devotion to a life well-lived.