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After ten years as headteacher of All Saints Primary, Coatdyke, Jim found himself in 1958 taking charge of the brand new school of St Edward's, serving a postwar housing scheme at the east end of Airdrie. (I say 'found himself' because he was not too happy about the transfer, The roll at All Saints had dropped because of population shifts, and he could reasonably have expected re-instatement in a school of comparable size.) I felt proud of him as he spoke at the school opening, saying in fairly strong terms what he thought a Catholic primary school should be about, and was happy that he bucked the trend to put primary children in uniform, maintaining that mothers should use their own dress sense and that children should be seen as much as possible as individuals.

Those final ten years of his teaching life were blessed with a lot of happiness. He brought his now extensive experience to bear on building up St Edward's from scratch, and in terms of results for Secondary school entrance and good relationships with staff, parents, and pupils he seemed to me to have admirable success.

Of course he had 'his own way of going' and it was maybe a bit old- fashioned in some people's eyes. Certainly when the school expanded enough to qualify for its own secretary the bright young thing whom Jim welcomed into his office one morning had to hide her feelings of dismay at the friendly litter of papers covering all the available surfaces. As she told the story in later years, she was quite relieved when he went off to take up the primary head's burden - covering a class for an absent teacher - which gave her the chance to fold and file and produce order out of chaos. It was his turn to look dismayed when he came back at lunchtime. He sat down and asked her a very odd question. 'Mary, did you ever come across a poem called 'Josephine'?... No? Well, it's an old parish priest in Australia who's speaking, and his housekeeper has died, and he gets a new one in, and this is what he says:

         My study was my sanctum once, a castle all my own,
         But this one with her natty ways can't leave the place alone.
         Her fingers ache to tidy up, and when she's extra clean,
         I sit a stranger in my room and sigh for Josephine.

         She says the table's 'awful' and it drives her to despair;
         Perhaps it does, but method's in what seems confusion there -
         I know where every paper is, each book and magazine:
         That jumbled pile was sacred in the eyes of Josephine."'

She must have thought she had landed with the oddest boss in Christendom. But as you'd expect, they proceeded to get on famously together in St Edward's and a quarter of a century later, as a member of a teaching order of Sisters, she visited my son John, a Rector in Rome at the time, and was full of happy memories of Mr McIntyre.

I carried on my own teaching, first as I have said in St Andrew's Junior Secondary Coatbridge and then in St Margaret's Airdrie, in the period before the next policy change came in and St Margaret's was upgraded to a Comprehensive. For me they were happy years too. Pupils liked what they were doing in the art-room and the fact that they were not pursuing academic goals did not seem to limit their enthusiasm; indeed it gave me opportunity to try a lot of different things. Not all pupils were perfect of course, but even in those days of constant corporal punishment I could generally avoid using the belt; only on one occasion had I to convince an irate parent that his son had been insolent in a way that demanded strong action. A high moment I do remember was a Jubilee celebration for the Burgh of Airdrie when the St Margaret's float on the theme of our patron saint won first prize against a lot of opposition. All the work I and my assistant Margaret McAteer and other staff departments put into preparing the float and dressing up our pupils was worth it to have the wee boys (who had had a chilly day of it in tabards and tights) chanting 'We Won, We Won!' when we got back to the school.

It was a busy life, getting our sons off for their buses or trains in the morning, then rushing the uphill half-mile to the old school building beside St Margaret's even older church; then shopping on the way home and cooking something up for the returning members. The constant frustration of never being up with housework apart, my memories of this period are jumbled enough: the sound of Children's Hour (Tammy Troot and Pigeon Post) and the Six O'clock news in the background while I cooked and the boys tramped in after their journey from school; later the long hours of homework (relieved by permitted breaks for things like Dick Barton and - much later -The Goon Show) before suppertime and family chats which I'm afraid often kept our young ones from their reasonable bedtime. Jim and I were auxiliary (non-active) associates of the lay- apostolate Legion of Mary, and so the last thing was a Rosary together with certain other appointed prayers. It was not always too devout a recitation: Jim would often be shaving while we worked our way through the Joyful or Sorrowful mysteries; and it was not quite the last thing, because Jim's private devotions included prayers for a long off-by-heart list of the dear departed that went back fifty years.

The last few years before our retirement at 65 were a bit more serene, the house quieter and our circumstances such that I could afford to have someone in to do housework. There were some adventures too. In 1959 Fr John, now Vicar-General of the diocese of Paisley, took us on a trip to Lourdes as a Silver Wedding present, and I had a glorious time sketching strange and colourful scenes and people in the bright Pyrenean sunshine. We would count as real innocents abroad nowadays, when everyone goes off on foreign holidays as a matter of course, but I think our delight was something special: every second place-name on the long train-journey through France brought up some memory for Jim from his wide reading of history, and every new scene made my fingers itch for my sketch-book. The priests with the group were all very cheery and kind to us, but I felt sorry for one or two pilgrims who found their first time abroad too much for them. One lady from the Western Isles kept wailing: 'O why did I ever leave the croft!' More about my Silver Wedding

If either of us kept a diary of that trip it exists no longer. But on our next trip abroad, two years later, I thought it worthwhile to jot thuings down, and young Jim later typed up my notes. So it is much easier to recall what happened when the family with a few additions, Aunt Susan and John's godmother Magdalene Flynn (a cousin of Jim's on his mother's side), Aunt Rosemary and her husband John McFadyen, and of course Tom's new wife Mairi, set off to attend John's ordination to the priesthood in Rome. It was a Christmas-time ordination, 23rd December to be exact, and again we went by train. Mgr John would have been one of the party had not his untimely death in April of that year intervened. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

One of the things that does not appear in my notes is that my husband was quite ill when we went to Rome. I really believe he had been worn down by months of worry following his brother's death. Like many busy and business-like people Fr John had omitted to make a will, and it fell to Jim to help make a fair disposal of his modest savings and possessions. There were endless discussions and letters to and fro during the year, and in December he contracted a heavy feverish 'flu. Though dear old Dr Pollok gave him some kind of blockbuster tonic which made it possible for him to go to Italy, it was with obvious misgiving, and indeed Jim wasn't himself till well into the following year, when he helped matters considerably by giving up his heavy cigarette-smoking in favour of a pipe.

Britain was in the grip of a particularly hard winter when we left Airdrie. The fog was so heavy that our taxi called off, so we had to struggle with our luggage on to the Blue Train and take a later overnight train to London. We began to feel the fates were against us when we found four of our party missing at Victoria and no sign of Aunt Susan's case with her passport in it. In fact case and over-anxious relatives (not knowing where the Airdrie party had got to) had gone by an earlier train to Dover and it was there that we had a very relieved reunion. The pleasant crossing and the journey that followed delighted Jim and me especially - not being such seasoned travellers as some of the others. Mind you, it was not too easy to sleep on the continental 'couchettes', and we found it outrageous to be charged 5fr for water to make a very welcome cup of tea. My notes record the journey through the evening and night - 'Lille, Sedan, Armentieres, Charleville, St Omar, Metz, Strasbourg - all were now asleep'. The early morning saw a scenery change as we passed through Switzerland to the border at Chiasso, and after Milan it was possible to get a dining car meal. I tried not too successfully to imitate the Italian way with strands of pasta, but enjoyed the Frascati wine and the chicken with artichokes, though not the very black coffee.

'Fra Angelico backgrounds all the way....From Florence through the Umbrian scenery to the valley of the Tiber.. Hilltop villages and vineyards in evidence all the way; Orvieto was the most remarkable.. The lights of Rome are to be seen, now that darkness is falling, and the Tiber is shining in the half light.' And then Termini station, and the Scots voice of John's friend Robert Hendrie welcoming us and helping us in the scramble for taxis. We proved to be staying in a 'pensione' run by a Missionary order of nuns in the Via Giusti not far from the wide street which links the two great Basilicas of St Mary Major and St John Lateran. There we met up with Mrs Bernardo, better known to us as Lena Franchetti, whose family had been next-door neighbours and great friends of my family in Shettleston, and who was herself a next-door neighbour of my sister Rosemary. She had arranged to fit in our son's ordination as part of a visit to Italy. John had been making his pre-ordination retreat at the Redemptorist house a few blocks away and was able to spend an hour with us talking about arrangements.

The ceremony presided over by Archbishop Traglia - who we were told had ordained more priests than anyone in the history of the Church - in St John Lateran, the Pope's Cathedral, lasted the next day from 8.30a.m till after one o'clock. John's classmates Robert Hendrie and Fr George Gillespie had done a great job getting us front seats, but we still felt quite far away from John and the 23 others from all over the world being ordained to the priesthood in the great apse-chapel. Willie McDade, John's friend all through his time at St Aloysius' and in Rome, was made a deacon at the same ceremony, and when we were receiving John's first blessing his first Rector, Monsgnor Clapperton, came over to meet us. He had retired to be a Canon of the Lateran and had been sub-deacon at the Ordination; John told us that apart from the war years he had been resident, as student, vice-Rector and Rector, in Rome since 1908.

Then it was off for a very late celebration lunch at the "Scoglio di Frisio", a restaurant whose owner's family had once managed the College vineyard at Marino. My sister Susan knew a brother of his who was a priest in Glasgow, so we had plenty to talk about while waiting for John, who had to report to Mgr Flanagan at the college and arrived finally with Mgr McEwan (Vice-rector) and Fr Foley of the College staff. It was a merry gathering, as you may imagine, and Jim senior despite his indisposition gave his usual good speech, about his priest-brother and priest-uncle who would have loved to share that day, and (for my benefit) about how the first five years in a person's life are the most important - as well as embarrassing John by quoting a remark made when he was about seven, that he intended to be Bishop of Edinburgh 'because the Zoo's there'.

John said his first Mass, served by his brother Tom, in the Old Scots College chapel next morning, and from then on we had full days travelling around by bus seeing all the main sights and marvelling at the ability of our driver, Signor Buoncompagni, to negotiate the frenzied Roman traffic. On the ordination evening we had been soaked by torrential rain on our way back from visiting the Rector and students at the Scots College, but it was mostly sunny for the rest of our stay. Particular memories were the midnight Mass in the College Chapel, a bouncing production of The Mikado at the College, a visit to the Russo family who had their other home in Airdrie, and the Papal Audience in one of the halls behind the great facade of St Peter's, with the stout little figure of Pope John XXIII blessing us benignly.

It was certainly one of the great weeks of my life, with all the family around Jim and myself for such a special occasion. There was a moment of drama getting on the train at Termini station, when a couple of Roman pickpockets targeted my husband; luckily Jim smelt a rat when he found himself suddenly jammed between two people in the train corridor, and almost managed to grab the accomplice who was reaching for his wallet. And so we went off back across Europe with no more problems than those than are normal when two or three rather strong-willed people have to be in company together for several days... When we reached home the weather was very severe indeed. Most of the rest of the party, I'm afraid, returned to burst pipes and flooding, but a single electric heater inadvertently left switched on - what a worry if we had remembered about it en route! - kept 38 Cairnhill Road from the same fate.

So the sixties began with Tom's marriage to Mairi McCorquodale in the fine setting of St Charles', the death of the elder Fr John and the ordination of the younger. By the time they ended Rosaleen had married Frank Carr from Fanad, young Jim was a qualifed Chartered Surveyor, and Jim and I were retired and building a new home in Donegal.

But before I leave the time of John's first year as a priest, I should mention a memory of how that summer in Donegal began. He had the chance to spend a few weeks with us at 'Sheila's Cottage' before taking up his first appointment in a parish in Coatbridge. The old 'Derry boat' was no more, so the crossing was by Ardrossan to Belfast with another train-journey before we were picked up by the faithful George O'Donnell at Derry. The road seemed to take longer than usual, and George finally confessed that he had been warned not to reach Fanad before mid-afternoon, since there was a 'wee reception' planned for the new priest.And indeed there was: an entourage of cars followed us through the parish, there were bonfires on the hills and bunting on the roadway outside our little cottage, a pipe-band and an improvised platform from which John had to invent a speech of thanks after the local priest and one or two others had spoken. (I think some of the bunting was signal-flags from the local lighthouse.)

All this was standard procedure, it seemed, and a measure of the regard for the priesthood felt by people of that time and place; but it was touching that they should regard John, a Fanad man at one remove, as one of their own. It took many days for him to return the compliment by visiting the local homes to give his blessing to the bedridden and housebound and the ones too small to have shared in the homecoming celebration. It was quite a beginning to a quiet month's holiday before we went back to our schoolrooms and he to the busy housing-scheme parish to which he had been assigned.

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