I was out for a ride on the bike on Sunday. I found myself passing Holytown in Lanarkshire and decided to stop off to spend a moment or two at the grave of my great grandparents, Sarah Shaw and John Henry, who were originally from Carrowlustia, Calry, Carbury, County Sligo in Ireland, and came over to Scotland, via a stay in Liverpool, some time before 1906.Their grave is the one bottom centre of the photo at rather a jaunty angle.
I never knew John Henry, he died 8 years before I was born, but I well remember my Gran Henry, who died in February 1975, when I was 13. She was a formidable woman who, despite having been away from Ireland for 70 years never lost her broad, lovely, Irish accent.
All her days she was a member of the Orange Order, and I believe that in her latter years and confined to a wheelchair she was pushed along in various annual processions in Lanarkshire. I make no apologies for her in that regard. She was an adult and clearly had decided that this was something right for her and despite my opinions on this I have no right to say she shouldn't have been involved in it.
Anyway, as I was standing by their grave, I took the photo above and somehow it seemed right that people were marching past behind the Union Flag. OK, it wasn't the Orange Lodge, but a group of Boys' Brigade members, but I still can't help feeling that Gran Henry would have been happy to have that flag borne past her final resting place.
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