FRIENDS TOGETHER
It is a long- forgotten story of a village where the water tasted like whisky but the faded, treasured cutting from the Sunday Post captures the beginnings of a remarkable friendship.
It was August 1934 and Margaret Burns, then a little girl, is collecting water from a barrel; in her mother’s arms, Sheila Mcgown is just a baby.
But the women would soon become the firmest friends, best pals for life, by each other’s side for almost 90 years of joy and sadness.
They have marked milestone birthdays together, travelled the globe in tandem, supported each other through the loss of loved ones and toasted the births of new bundles of joy.
But the bedrock of the pensioners’ long- lasting friendship is a weekly blether on the blower. “We always make sure we are free at 6.30pm on the dot every Sunday for a catch up on the phone,” said Margaret, 89. “Who calls who depends on which one of us gets to the phone first. We just have a wee blether about what we’ve been up to and what we’re doing the following week. It’s lovely and we both really look forward to it.
“After all these years we have had our own lives, but we still make time for each other.”
Sheila, 86, added: “We used to say when we were younger that we would be friends forever. I suppose you could say 80- odd years is forever!”
The pair first met in 1934, months after Sheila was born. Margaret was three at the time and lived next door in the village of Cardross, Dunbartonshire. The families were close, with the girls’ fathers both serving in the Merchant Navy.
“T h e re wa s an age gap between us, but we played together a lot, went to the
The inseparable friends at Cardross Tennis Club
Sheila is bridesmaid as Margaret