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Margaret Harvison of Pirnmill celebrated her 90th birthday last Sunday.
The family had organised a party at Kinloch Hotel which was attended by some of Margaret’s contemporaries such as Flora Currie and Anna Blair.
On Monday Margaret called into the Banner office with some of her family. She said: ‘I was born in the front room of the family home at Seaholme, Pirnmill and I had a happy and wonderful childhood; much better than today’s children.
‘Bread was four old pence a loaf and milk tuppence a pint.’
She was born Margaret McBride and met her husband Cliff while serving in the Royal Navy as a WREN. They lived in Leicester for 30 years before retiring back to the island to her mother’s house at Seaholme in the early 1970s.
Her father Willie McBride was one of the last commercial herring fishermen working out of Lochranza, sharing two fishing boats with the Currie family. There were no cars on the island through Margaret’s childhood. ‘Everything came by boat. The ferry stopped at Pirnmill and a wee tender came ashore,’ she said. ‘We had a good village shop and we still have that.’
Margaret remains quite independent. She said: ‘I have a wonderful home help at lunch times and at night time. It keeps me in my own home.’
Margaret has two sons, Bill and Andrew and four granddaughters, Sarah, Joanna, Lauren and Ashley.
