Family’s bravery
Jean remembers
A Prestwick woman fondly recalls the bravery of her family this month which marks the 100th anniversary since the Battle of the Somme.
A two- minute silence was held on Friday, July 1, across the UK to honour British and French soldiers who fell on the day that became the bloodiest in British military history with almost 20,000 dead.
Jean Main, who recently turned 91 remembers the stories of her father, William Graham and her uncles, Wallace and James returning home unhurt to Prestwick Toll after serving in the First World War between 19141918.
Jean, who was born shortly after her father returned from fighting on the Western Front told the Post: “I find it so fascinating to look back on their bravery, my father never spoke much about his time during the war although when I was little he used to joke that the reason he was bald was because a shell flew over the trenches and took his hair off.
“My two uncles and father where three of nine siblings and I can only imagine the relief the whole family that all three boys returned home safely.
“They fought between Belgium and France following the outbreak of war in August 1914. The German Army invaded Luxembourg and Belgium, gaining military control of important industrial regions in France.
“He met my mother shortly after returning home, it is funny at the age of 91 to go back all that time, growing up in Prestwick during the war was certainly a really interesting time.
“As a teenager, I worked in Nile Court next to the Ayrshire Post in the Royal Observer Corps, plotting aircraft movements of planes coming in and out of the country and went on to work as a sales woman in the former Scottish Gas showroom in Newmarket Street.”
Her uncle Wallace served in the Royal Artillery, her father, William served in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and the pair went on to work as Greenkeepers at Prestwick St. Nicholas Golf Club. Her uncle James who served in the Royal Scots Fusiliers became the Janitor at Newtonhead School. Jean met her husband Tommy at the Locarno tearooms in Ayr’s Sandgate back in 1945 and romance sparked over a cuppa. The couple who where both 20 when they met and tied the knot four years later at Kingcase Parish Church and have a son, Jim, three grandchildren and four greatgrandchildren.