Welcome to John & Isobel Smart

My parents, John Stewart Smart, and Isobel Locke Crossan, were married in Paisley 75 years to the day this commemorative website dedicated lives was first published. Born three years apart in the mid 1920,'s into working class households, my father went on to become the very last Provost of the Burgh of Paisley  - abolished in local government reorganisation in 1975.  My father died in 1976, my mother three years later, both at the early age of 53.  I am the middle of their three sons, Ian, Alan and David, and all three of us were relative late arrivals, born a decade or more after their 1948 marriage.  i was 16 when my dad died, 19 when my mum followed him.  And though we were a close loving family, I never got to know them as an adult.  Now i am one, indeed approaching retirement , and having outlived both my parents by a decade, I think i can apprecite them even better than i did when they were alive.  And they were amazing people. People I am sure i would have liked and admired. Being Provost and Lady Provost of what in their time was the fifth largest place in Scotland was amongst the least of their achievements. 

This website is a work in progress , and more information, photographs and documents of my parents lives and those of their parents and family, will be added as they become available and time permits. It is open to everyone to contribute to and to read. But above all else it is here for the grandchildren they never knew  Scott. Laura, Jessica Ewan and  Jack. And their great grandchildren, with the exception on Maeva, born this year, still to be born. They all will have great grandparents to be proud of.