Many thanks for this wonderful story which was shared via our Instagram page.

Corby during my time was full of such wonderful stories, there was a lot of wonderful characters all bought together.

One of my families friends was a Navajos Soldier, he was in a mixed relationship, his wife was white American but because of the racism on the base he had to live on the Lincoln estate … this was the time of the civil rights movement in the USA and here in Britain, there were the great speeches of Martin Luther King on the TV and he could not live with his family on an American base … he was a man dispossessed… I recall how when the film “Whisky Galore” was shown on the telly, the whole town came to a complete stand still absolutely everyone was watching telly, it was normally on a Saturday afternoon matinee on BBC 2 you could hear a pin drop it would be later in the evening that the town would explode, people drinking and singing until the early hours of the morning, normally very drunken renditions of “Flower of Scotland” anyone who had bag pipes would play them, even if they couldn’t play a tune, the whisky flowed freely and little sleep was had. I longed to grow up to be just like the character “Maggie” I dreamed of meeting my very own future idealistic Socialist hero to fall in love with ♥️

I grew up in a very left wing politically active family. Oddly when I became a young women, through an incredible act of serendipity I had the incredible good fortune to work with Joan Greenwood for a period of time, that opportunity would have been so completely beyond my ambition as a Corby Girl. Oh I have such tremendous memories 💛

Back in the 60s the sexes lived in two completely different worlds. I recall one day not long after the film had been shown, all the womenfolk of all ages and children were in my mothers house talking of their past lives in Scotland, most of them had come from fishing communities, they talked of the women singing in the film talking of how they missed those times when all of a sudden they started singing together in Gaelic, they sounded just like the film’s mesmerising sound, their voice was tinged with a haunting melancholy for lost times. I knew of people who only spoke the Gaelic when they were at home, an act of defiance against the oppression of that ancient language. In the school playground we would all try to learn little tiny snippets of the olde language like it was a poetical pearl to treasure filled full of mythical magic 🌟

I can tell you stories of when the troubles in Northern Ireland exploded and how the whole estate was a tinder box of pain with women rushing into school to grabbing their children crying x wailing, when I left for the short walk home women were screaming a throttled Yawl whilst hitting kitchen pans with wooden spoons, thumping tin dust bin lids on the floor it felt like the world had been ripped open, the woman’s collective haunting screams of pain travelled through the night and proceeding days. We stayed quiet in the house, not joining in but bearing witness to a community in pain, it was a while after this that we moved back to SE London which had its own issues with “The Troubles” because of my red hair x Scottish accent I became a target of a lot of bigotry and racism which was difficult to cope with because I was just a girl .. oh I have such lovely rich stories to tell how the Glaswegian women I grew up with left me in utter awe x taught me so much … like how to FIGHT … and I have been fighting ever since totally inspired by those amazing incredible strong working class (mainly Glaswegian) women I will always be forever thankful to them ♥️