CWGC
1901
rest born Cumnock
On Cumnock Connections tree
This is his record on CWGC | |||
When his Dad died in March 1917 Jim's paternal grandmother, Jane Nicol, took young Jim off his Mum and brought him up herself in the family home at Glengyron Row with Grandad Terry, until her death in 1919. I attach her death certificate with a few details. Apparently the notion of young Jim not being brought up a Catholic was too much for the Nicol family.
After Jane died according to my Dad he left Grandad Terry, who was a miner, and he was passed from auntie to auntie and various homes around Cumnock/Auchinleck. They were mining families, and another mouth to feed was not easy to accommodate. He remembered late in his life, after he had married and had a son ( me), a lady who used to come up and chat to him on his way home from school some days, and pass him the occasional bag of sweets which was a huge treat at the time. The penny eventually dropped who she was, forty years too late. He never, ever looked for his Mum.
He was a bright youngster however, did well at primary school and ended up at St Aloysius in Garnet Hill, Glasgow travelling up every day on the train. He did well academically, spent a few years training to be a Jesuit before giving up ideas of the priesthood, moving to England in the mid 1930's, working in Fleet Street, serving in 5 Black Watch in WW2 and eventually having a post war career as a Fleet Street journalist and Parliamentary lobby correspondent to retirement in 1979. He lived on to 1998.
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