Son: She did seem to enjoy thumbing her nose at her critics
They say that life imitates art and, in the case of the life of playwright Ena Lamont Stewart, it could not be more true.
Daughter of a minister, Lamont Stewart was thrust into the world on her own when both her parents died by the time she turned 16. In the years before the war she lived in Aberdeen and worked as a librarian, where she met her future husband, the actor Jack Stewart.
Lamont Stewart’s son, Bill Stewart, 78, who now lives in Prestwick, spoke to The Sunday Post about his mother. He said: “She said the happiest days of her life were when she was with Jack. That must have been in the beginning when they had a common interest in theatre, and he was working as a customs officer.
“Jack was a bomber flight engineer during the war, but the plane crashed during training in Wales and he was invalided out, and he was never the same. He had an affair with Ena’s brother David’s wife, and that, as they say, was the end of that.
“The divorce process was not handled well and took a lot out of her. She was on her own with a child and trying to make ends meet in post-war Glasgow.
“I remember she was always typing away, but, it appeared to me then, to be a necessary chore rather than an outpouring of thoughts. I’ve seen Men Should Weep many times and at many levels, and overall I am left with the impression of humour rather than pathos from the play.
“I was not fully aware of the significance of Men Should Weep and the recognition for my mother for her work did not arrive until she was in the respite home.
“In 2006, my mother passed away due to dementia, and unfortunately, she was not really aware of the huge success on being a millennium playwright, or of the huge productions of the play by National Theatre and National Theatre Scotland.
“When the play was restaged in 1982, and others were being shown at The Edinburgh Festival, she got a new lease of life. I get the feeling she was at last able to thumb her nose at the male chauvinist pigs who had dismissed her in the past!
“My mother said that when she was a child, she didn’t get many cuddles, but cuddles were de rigueur when I was growing up. She was a daughter of the manse who decided to be spiritual in her own way.”