John's Parents

 

Isobel's Parents

Tommy Smart came from a large family in Govan.  He was a joiner and trade unionist, and worked in the Clyde shipyard. An admirer of anti war campaigner, southside schoolteacher John Maclean, Tommy was a supporter of the Independent Labout Party . led in the Govan area by Maclean's friend Jimmy Maxton.  A Christain, he became an elder of Lylesland Church of Scotland in Paisley. He died when i was 2 years old, so never knew him in any meannigfull way  This is him holding by brother Ian in the garden of our family home 14 Greenlaw drive in mid 1960.

Holding me is my dad's mum and my grandmother, Isabella Smart ( ne Stewart)   She was born in and lived all her life in Paisley.  I got to know her a little and regularly visited her in her home , and what was my dad;s family home in Lochfield Paisley.  She died in 1967, when i was 7.

Tommy and Isabella married in Govan in April 1916, at the height of World War One, and just before National Conscription was introduced.  As a single man, Tommy would have been eligible for conscription.  One of Isabella brothers was killed in action during WW1. 

They lived in various locations in Renfrewshire and Glasgow  Govan, where my dad was born in 1923.  The family moved to their permanent home, a brand new Council House in Lochfield, Paisley in the early 1930, when my dad would have been about 8.. From that point on he lived in Paisley, with his parents and then my mum and us.

Their only child, Tommy and Isabella doted on my dad -,Jack to them as Tommy's dad was also called John as was one of his brothers.  They ensured he got the best education open to a working class boy in the 1930s,  Lochfield Primary, Camphill High, and then , part time , Glasgow University..  Though solidly working class, as a qualified joiner rarely short of work, Tommy ensured his family were never poor, as many were at the time.  And although both died several years before he became Provost of Paisley, both Tommy and Isabella would have been proud as punch to have seen their son become first citizen of the Burgh. Especially as a Labour Provost. Because Tommy was a Labour guy.  An ILPer who had rubbed shoulders with the best of the Red Clydesiders

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Crossan was a working class Tory. Twice married, he was widowed and it was with his second wife Jane ( ne Cherry) he fathered my mum, the last of 10 Children. The family came from Gallowhilll in Paisley and lived in Marjory Drive, close to the main Paisley to Glasgow train line, Here he brought up my mum and his other children, later with his sister Nell, after Jane his second wife also died at an early age.. As did many of his 10 children. Why my mum, the youngest of them all, and born with a heart problem was not given much change of making adulthood.  

A lithographer, and later a foreman David had a relatively well paid job, and though never in what at the time would have been considered poverty, my mum undoubtedly came from a poorer home than my dad..Maybe simply because my dad was an only child, my mum one of many.

David undoubtedly had a soft spot for my mum, his youngest child. And though he had a traditional view of what women could achieve, he did encourage my mum and ensured she got a good education, and was in a position to get a decent job as a shorthand typist when she left school aged 16.

Grandfather David was a regular visitor to our family home, on the other side of the railtrack on the more affluent Greenlaw Drive.  And he outlived every one of his kids except my mun, and she not by much

As I became older and more politically aware, i became aware of the joke in which grandfather David was jovially known as "the only Tory in the family"  To the best of my knowledge he always got on well enough  with my Labour dad. My dad was a diplomat, and would not want to have fallen out with my mums father. But though my other grandfather Tommy died when I was 2, there would have been over a decade when the two grandfathers co existed.. But how ILPer Tommy and working class Tory David got on, i do no know.  But hard not to speculate.

Another think that may have driven a wedge was their respective war records.  Tommy, an peace activist , avoided service in WW1..  David served on the Western front. Even in WW2, Tommy managed to arrange the relatively safe service for my dad in the Fleet Air Arm, David,s two surviving adult sons. David and Bobby. my mums brothers were squadides in the 8th Army and fought in Normandy. They both survived, but the risks they faced were much greater than my dad.  Both died when my mum was still in her early forties. Indeed near none of Davids 10 kids passed 50,  my mum by only three years.

If there was a battle for my mum's political soul. my dad undoubtedly won it, as my mum ended her life still an active member of the Labour Party...her final vote?   To vote Yes to the Scottish Assembly that never was.  " If they had just called it a Parliament we would have won" my mum said, adding "and we did win  -they cheated:

 

 

My brother Ian's christening, Late 1958 or early 1959...My mum is standing, as is my mums dad, David..Holding Ian is my mum's beloved older sister Maisie.  My mum was the youngest in a family of 10 And it was Maisie who was closest to her.  She died, childless when I was under 5.   Just one of the many deaths that blighted my mums life, outliving by a distance all nine of her siblings.