Margaret Mary McGhee

died 15th April 2015

Margaret Mary McGhee who has died aged 93 in Polmont was a teacher and globetrotter,

as well as a devoted mother.

She was born to John and Sarah Greene in June 1921, the first of six children, 5 girls and a long awaited son, John Gerald (Gerry) who was born 17 years later.

John and Sarah were Irish immigrants to Glasgow. Their passion for education ensured that all their children were given the opportunity to benefit from schooling and higher education.

Margaret and her sisters attended Our Lady and St Francis Secondary School Margaret progressed to the University of Glasgow majoring in English and History. She graduated in 1943 and gained Teacher's Certificate in 1944.

Initially, she taught in primary school before meeting and in 1950 marrying John Costello McGhee, a mathematics teacher who taught at St Mungo's Academy before moving to Holyrood Secondary School.

John had served as a navigator with RAF Costal Command during WWII and, as well as flying convoy escorts and submarine patrols from bases across Scotland, had travelled extensively, spending periods in India and South Africa. His globetrotting experiences may have been the catalyst for John and Margaret's later adventures.

John and Margaret had three children Johnny, Desmond and Sallyanne, born respectively in 1951, 1954 and 1955. Johnny was struck by peritonitis when only months old - which resulted in an extended stay in hospital after a life saving operation. However, rather than settling down to teaching careers and family life in Glasgow, John and Margaret headed off in 1958 with their 3 young children to Africa.

John had accepted a teaching post with the Ethiopian Airforce. They set up home near the airforce base in Bishoftu near Addis Ababa. Once there, Margaret soon returned to her vocation taking an appointment to teach English to the airforce cadets. She also took on responsibility for the cadet school library.

The airforce base in Bishoftu had attracted a small group of expat teachers, mainly British and Swedish, who integrated well with the senior staff of the Ethiopian Air Force. Highlights were visits to the base by the Emperor Haile Selassei and the then young Prince (later King) Hussein of Jordan. Also, there were memorable celebrations marking the arrival of overseas aid from the USA and USSR in the form of helicopters and MIG fighters.

The family returned to the UK in 1960 by boat through the Suez Canal bringing with them John's pride and joy, a German Borgward Isabella saloon, his first ever car which had been purchased from an Ethiopian Airforce officer.

They moved in with Margaret's parents in Fortrose Street in Partick. However, the children were used to sunnier climes and the Glasgow winter smog took its toll on their health. So the family moved south to Basildon in Essex, then within nine months, the McGhees were heading for Australia on the £10 assisted passage scheme, following the trail of Margaret's third sister Frankie and her husband George who were already in Geelong near Melbourne.

Again, the beloved Isabella could not be parted with and it was shipped half way round the world. The four week sail on the P&O ship SS Orion took them through the Suez canal (for the second time) visiting on the way Athens, Port Said , Aden and Columbo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

The family settled in the new town of Elizabeth just north of Adelaide and John and Margaret took up teaching posts in Salisbury High School and Elizabeth High School respectively. Both quickly gained promotions.

As well as teaching English, Margaret also contributed to the teaching of Latin and French, a testament to the breadth and depth of the Glasgow MA Ordinary Degree. She also once again took charge of the school library.

Their four years in Australia were full of travel adventure - camping , caravanning , fishing on the Murray River, and a couple of 900 mile round trip road journeys to visit Frankie and George and their three children in Geelong. This was in days before highways linked Australia's cities, and the now famous Great Ocean Road in Victoria was an unsealed gravel road, so these were somewhat epic journeys.

Concerned for her ageing parents , Margaret persuaded the family to return to Scotland. The beloved car was reluctantly sold but otherwise a complete household was packed into six or seven large crates and the next travel adventure commenced on Christmas Eve 1965 - a six week boat journey back to the UK via New Zealand, Singapore and the Suez Canal again.

After a brief stay in Partick, John and Margaret bought a semi in Giffnock. John took a teaching post in Holyrood Secondary and, after a short spell in the primary sector, Margaret joined him there where she was quickly promoted to Head of Guidance post at Bellarmine Secondary in Pollokl.

The stresses of the job in Bellarmine took its toll on Margaret and in the mid seventies, with her children through university, she resigned her post. But her love of classroom teaching took her back within a year to an unpromoted teaching post alongside John in St Thomas Aquinas in Jordanhill.

There they saw out their careers retiring together in 1981 when Margaret had reached the normal retiral age of 60. Soon after, they moved from Giffnock to a small flat in Polmont.

In retirement, their love of travel took them on regular overseas holidays, often cruises, the most ambitious being around the world to revisit Australia.

John died in 2000, just shy of his 80th birthday and 50th wedding anniversary. Margaret missed him terribly but continued to travel. Her sister Pat and her husband Jack accompanied Margaret on one of her last cruises: up the Norwegian coast to the Arctic Circle.

Margaret stayed in her flat in Polmont beyond her 90th birthday. She liked to live independently but as the need arose, she made her own arrangements for home help and organised herself a personal assistant to take her out for shopping and other requirements.

When living alone had become difficult for her, Margaret moved in November 2012 into Ivybank Care Home in Polmont.

Community living was not really to Margaret's taste and she was happiest sitting in the lounge or in her room reading her book and newspaper or doing cryptic crosswords at which she continued to excell.

Margaret died peacefully in Ivybank Care Home on 15th April 2015. She is survived by her three children, 8 grandchildren and her first great grandchild, the recently born Oscar Winning.

Des McGhee