Sibling Love

 My Father at the start of WW2

 My father had a big red book of Scottish songs and music in his possession for years and it was eventually passed to me. 

 

It was just a fixture when I was growing up and I never had a proper look at it. My oldest son, Christopher, looked after it for me when I lived in Tenerife.  It was only after I moved back to Scotland in 2017 did I take the time to have a proper look at it and I must confess it was an 'eye-opener'.

My father was 23 when this book was bought for him in 1941 by his youngest sister, my Aunt Minnie (16yrs old, nearly 17 yrs old then). She must have had a deep love for my Dad.

At that time my father and his brother Charlie, both of the 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were in a german stalag having been captured at St Valery-en-Caux. 

My father is at the end, bottom left, and my Uncle Charlie is bottom, 2nd from the right.
 

Now she wouldn't have known at the time whether she would see either of them alive again and given her age and in the midst of a war, even buying it 2nd hand (it is a large and beautiful book) must have been an enormous commitment for her and she must have had a deep love and faith that they would return.

 She sent them a photograph (above) of her to the POW camp probably with a message that I don't have.

 

She had inscribed the book saying it was the property of Bertie Gibson, (my father's family called him Bertie and my mum's family called him Bob. My mum and dad were married in 1949)

 
 and if you look closely, whilst very faint, she drew an outline of her head and my father's head.

And also inside the book there is a pressed flower.

My Aunt Minnie then lied about her age and joined the women's army in England.

 

 My Aunt Minnie is 2nd from the right.

 

  And my father was the best man when she married before eventually emigrating to Australia where she is survived by her daughter Heather and her two sons Euan and Clyde and their families.