Cemetery visit is a fitting end to Lulu’s emotional journey
Rut her glen grave yard gives singer closure
Rutherglen Cemetery was the scene for the emotional climax of a popular BBC documentary show last week.
Scottish singer Lulu was featured on Who Do You Think You Are, a show which helps celebrities trace their ancestors.
Lulu was able to find out the back story of her maternal grandmother and her husband, a relationship which crossed Glasgow’s sectarian divide in the 1920s.
And she eventually found herself at the grave of her grandmother and great-grandmother who are buried side by side in Rutherglen.
The show started by explaining that Lulu’s own mother, Elizabeth, was given up by her mum, Helen Kennedy Cairns neé Kennedy.
Elizabeth, who was the middle of seven children, only found this out at the age of 13, six years after her mother died.
Helen was married to Hugh Cairns, Lulu’s grandfather, and the relationship proved controversial with their families. Hugh, who Lulu had actually met without her realising they were related, was a Catholic while Helen’s mother, also Helen, was head of a Ladies Orange Lodge in Bridgeton.
Both families disapproved of the relationship and Hugh’s family even paid for his passage to America to break them up.
But he returned as he missed Helen so much.
They married in 1925, having already had two children.
It later transpired that Hugh was in prison when Elizabeth was given up.
At the time children were often given to other families, with the biological parents supposed to pay for them.
Elizabeth was eventually taken in by a family who gave her a loving home despite receiving no money from Helen or Hugh.
After doing some research, Lulu discovered that her gran, who died aged just 31, and great grandmother are buried in the same grave at Rutherglen, despite their differences.
A note in a Belfast paper noted that Helen snr’s lodge observed a minutes silence when the younger Helen died.
While in the cemetery, Lulu noted: “There are a lot of amazing graves here and it looks like this is the smallest. The fact that they were buried in the same grave does suggest that, despite all the troubles and religious fighting that went on, there is a bond that wasn’t broken.”