Saying goodbye to 2023 was poignant for me as it was the last year in which my mother Sandra Kemp was alive. Sandra was 84 and, despite some health problems, still enjoying life when she suffered a sudden hemorrhagic stroke one summer evening. Soon it became clear that she could not recover.
Sandra came home for her last few days. I am not ready to go into detail about that difficult and painful week, except to say that we tackled it as a family in a way she would have been proud of, and that we had great support from the palliative care team from Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and the local medical practice. Nurses from the hospital drove out to East Lothian whenever we called for help, which was almost every night. There was a hospital bed in the living room and my sister Susan made a nurses’ station with a trestle table and a lamp where they could measure out drug doses and write notes. A friend dropped off some lilies still in bud, and the length of time it took for the flowers to open up was the same as it took for Sandra’s life to come to an end.
Newspaper obituary pages tend to skew overwhelmingly male because they are for public figures who, at least in previous generations, tended to be men - so I probably could not have placed one for Sandra. I am grateful to have this space on Substack to write about her.
Sandra Elizabeth Kemp (nee Shand), April 4, 1939 to July 29, 2023
Sandra was a nurse, a health visitor, and for two decades the wife of newspaper editor and journalist Arnold Kemp. In her private life, she was a loving mother, grandmother, and friend.
Sandra’s story started on a wintry night in early April, 1939. She was premature, one of twins - the second baby did not survive. The week before, the doctor had taken another premature baby up to the hospital to put in an incubator but it died on the way. So the doctor decided to leave Sandra at home in the care of her parents Betty and Alec, in a cardboard box in front of the gas fire, literally wrapped in cotton wool. Sandra, their only child, survived and thrived.
But just a few months later Alec had to go away - to World War Two, with the Highland Lights. He became a prisoner of war at St Valery. In the six years Alec was absent, Betty and Sandra grew very close. The part of Aberdeen where they lived was near an army camp and had frequent bombing raids. Sometimes they didn’t go to the shelter - Betty had to weigh up the dangers of bombs against taking a delicate child out on a wild, wet night. Sometimes they would just cuddle up in the same bed and Betty would say “If we go, we go together”. One night, when there was no siren, Betty went to the cot and on impulse picked up the sleeping child - a moment later a bomb dropped and the window shattered, strewing the cot with jagged shards.
The shelter was a tin, green Anderson hut on a back green. Sandra and I went on a trip down memory lane when she was in her 70s - and it was still there, as was the temporary bridge the army had built over the river. Sandra had many stories of those days. One night, they were running across the green in the dark and Betty caught a washing line across her neck and fell back as if dead - a frightening moment. There were two old ladies, sisters, who didn’t like the dark. They would always bring one candle and one match to the shelter. One day they lit their candle and Sandra, who was three, toddled over and blew it out. Laughter made up somewhat for the lack of light.
After the war, Alec returned, in some ways a shadow of the man who went away. As they waited to greet him at the station, Betty jokingly told Sandra “just pick whichever one you want”. But the gaunt figure that emerged from the train was very different from the photos Sandra had seen. For days before Alec returned, neighbours would knock at the door and hand in a wee bag of sugar or an egg and they had a party waiting at the house to welcome him with a banner - but Alec was horrified and wanted the cab to keep driving. The situation was made worse for six-year-old Sandra because she had to leave her mother’s bed and move to a cold room where she had never slept before.
The lines from Iain Crichton Smith’s poem ”Culloden and After” about men returning from a different war could have been written about Alec: “You understand it?/ How they returned…each cap at that low ebb no new full tide could pardon/ how they stood silent at the end of the rope/ unwound from battle; and to the envelope of a bedded room came home, polite and sudden.” Sandra and Alec’s relationship never became close. But Alec, a teetotaller who had signed the pledge not to drink as a young man, worked hard and was good to his family. He was head chef at the Northern Hotel, a beautiful art deco building in granite - a very grand place in those days, popular for weddings and functions. Sandra would often go into the kitchens for a wee ice cream and to be petted by the staff.
Sandra was a keen ice skater and shocked her mum by going to church with her coat over her skating dress one Sunday. She loved the new style of dancing of the 1950s - rock and roll and jive, and nights at the Beach Ballroom. Her favourite dancing partner was her cousin big David Ross (so-called to distinguish him from wee David Ross) who visited from New Zealand and stayed for a few months. They could really cut a rug and others would stop to watch them.
Betty’s mother, Granny Ross, was a legend in the family - she would visit Aberdeen for the month of May each year, and in the summer holidays would take half a dozen grandchildren away for a week to Millport - Jim and David, Morag, Rae and Ellis and Sandra. Other family members were frequent visitors. Betty was a Conservative while most of her siblings were Labour and political arguments would rage around the kitchen table - but there was a lot of love as well.
Sandra did well at school and she passed the 11 plus - but she didn’t get a place at grammar school. There weren’t as many places for girls as boys and there was a bit of politics around who got them - anyway Sandra didn’t get offered one. She left school as soon as she could and went to nursing college. She found this a rewarding career, meeting people, traveling the country. Two close lifelong friends from Aberdeenshire she made in these days were Edith and Lorna, and on the phone to them, Sandra would go back to the Doric speech of her childhood.
When Lorna was dying in Aberdeenshire, Sandra packed a bag full of home-cooked meals, tucked it into her wheeled zimmer frame (she suffered from psoriatic arthritis) and took three buses to go and spend a few days with her old friend. She also made it over to Boston to visit when I was living there, again with that Zimmer (which said ‘Nitro’ on the side to the kids’ amusement), and when we went to look round Harvard College, she joined in on a protest about Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court. Sandra stood at the front, chanting ‘Hell No, Kavanaugh’ as loudly as anyone.
Back to the days of Sandra’s nursing training. Part of that was as a midwife at Rottenrow in Glasgow, where they would go around in the distinctive uniform of capes and brimmed hats. She recalled the midwives were treated like royalty in the East End - usually. One of her stories of that time was arriving at a tenement flat where the husband had had to deliver the previous baby. As they came in, he turned the key in the lock and said “Nabedy’s leaving until this baby is oot”. They had to sit by the range for hours as the woman went into full labour. They didn’t have mobile phones in those days so nobody knew where they were for all that time - until eventually the baby was safely delivered and they left.
In the early 1960s, Sandra went down to London where she worked at Barts (St Bartholemew’s Hospital). She lived in the nurses’ home and had a great time, made lots of friends, often going out dancing. One story was she had asked the porter to phone her for a wake-up call for her morning shift - and just as she was getting out of her dancing clothes into her nightwear, the phone went. It was her wake-up call and she had to get straight into her uniform and go on shift. There were challenges too and she would occasionally share some sadder memories - such as a woman who had had premature twins that were taken to the intensive care unit. She continually asked Sandra about her babies, and Sandra reassured her that the unit would phone down if there was any news - but they didn’t and in the morning she had to tell the woman that both babies had died in the night.
Sandra met a young journalist called Arnold Kemp in London at the Down Under club - he was with his Australian flatmate Bert, and Sandra was with her cousin David. Sandra and Arnold fell in love and got married. They moved back to Scotland and had two daughters, Jackie and Susan.
Sandra was in the background as Arnold built a successful career as a journalist. She enjoyed the stimulating company of the friends he brought home. There were parties and delicious dinners that she cooked, and many lively political discussions. To the end of her life, Sandra maintained a strong interest in politics and current affairs. She was a passionate supporter of Home Rule for Scotland in those days, when that was the great cause of the Scottish Liberals. She and Arnold were both hugely disappointed by the failure of the 1979 referendum to deliver a Scottish Parliament.
After nine years as deputy editor of the Scotsman, Arnold was starting to feel stuck in his career and the lack of a centre of political power and decision-making in Scotland added to his frustration. He was delighted to finally be appointed editor of the Glasgow Herald in 1981 and determined to make a success of it - he would go on to build up its circulation so that it rivalled that of the Guardian. But the marriage did not long survive the move to Glasgow. Arnold fell in love with a colleague, Anne Simpson, who became Arnold’s partner until his sudden death from a heart attack at the age of 63.
The unexpected end of her marriage in her early 40s was a difficult time for Sandra - she was devastated. She regretted having sold the Edinburgh home where she had formed a family-like bond with her older neighbour Isobel Gracie. But friends put her up until she was able to buy a flat in the High Street.
Sandra got a job as a health visitor in Leith, and found consolation in family - including her childhood companions, her cousins (wee) David, Jim and Morag Ross and their families. On her last conscious day, she asked for David and he came and sat with her and even made her smile.
She also found support in strong female friendships. Her close friend Judy Greenwood wrote this poem when she died.
Sandra
When Arnold, then John left
there was space for our friendship
In West Bow, Rock House.
Cranston Street, Leith Links
Seton Sands, Glenogil
Salthouse, Janes Cottage ,
East Linton and Seahouses
We regularly met
well oiled at home
or away on countless trips
some with Patsy and Agnes
some just the two of us
through much of Scotland
and many jaunts abroad.
As our friendship grew
I saw her enormous pride in her two daughters
the special and mutual love between her
and her three grandchildren
the respect and love of the families
she worked with,
I met her many friends
and saw how young people
loved to be with her
I ate her legendary meals
venison stew, herrings in oatmeal
and those special flapjacks
She laughed at my unfunny jokes
and always said yes to new outings
She was good fun to be with
despite her occasional angst
Her body was not kind to her
with multiple health issues
stoically borne with great dignity
But her beautiful face was spared
To the end she looked as lovely as ever
with not a grey hair on her head
She was so happy about her final home
with Susan’s clever adaptations
and her special care
It proved to be
A perfect resting place for her
where her loving and lovely family
and myself could say goodbye
to a very special lady.
Judy Greenwood, 2023
Sandra rebuilt her life and grew in confidence and independence in the 1980s. She did some impressive things for a single woman at that time. For example, she decided to go round the world to mark her 50th birthday, on her own. She saved up and planned a once-in-a-lifetime trip where she visited friends and family and spent some time by herself in Singapore and Bali - having been an only child she was quite comfortable in her own company.
In the mid-90s, Sandra became a grandmother - first Mary came along and then Walter and William. Reeling back to the story of Rottenrow, Walter was a home birth, down in London, born almost two weeks after his due date. The midwife came when we called - and went away again. When she returned, I was in full labour. There was no chance of the second midwife arriving in time so Sandra had to scrub up and help deliver Walter. There was a complication - the cord was around his neck and he had to be pushed back up and turned around. Sandra’s training and muscle memory kicked in and she did a fabulous job. “Don’t do that to me again,” she said afterwards. (By a strange twist of fate, she died on Walter’s birthday, 26 years later.)
When we moved to Leith, Sandra lived with us for a few years, Latterly, she moved to East Linton, where my sister Susan increasingly spent time with her, helping out as her health problems grew. As with her early childhood, Sandra’s last years were spent against the background of a global crisis - this time Covid. Sandra often suffered from anxiety - which may have been related to the trauma of her infancy as well as to the pandemic. But despite this, those years were largely happy, thanks to the tremendous support and care she got from Susan. Just before lockdown, knowing that Mum would struggle on her own, Susan threw a bag of clothes in the car and drove out there. They lived together for the next three years. The rest of the family would visit in a socially-distanced way by sitting on the low wall outside her bedroom window and on one of those visits, Rob took this photograph.
Her grandson Walter spoke at her funeral about the central role Sandra played in his and his siblings’ lives: “Few things in my life have been as simple and uncompromising as the love I shared with my Grandma. That goes without saying for my siblings too. There are three certainties in life: birth, death, and grandma loves you. The ending of that certainty is not as jarring as you might think, because even in death, she never stopped loving you. She died loving you. That is not the same. Her power was unreal, because the power she wielded was love. Love that emanated from her presence and warmed your whole body. Love that made sure that your belly was full and your teeth were clean. I don’t just think of her as loving, I think of her as a reference point for what unconditional love means. I’m not saying that she was someone to put it all into words for you, but she didn’t need to, because it was always singing from her aura. It was there in all sorts of moments, in all sorts of homemade flapjacks and stovies. It was there in the way she looked at you, and in the way she told you not to touch that. You only need to spend a few hours with a person like her before you can tap into that same energy: not just with your friends and family, but with everyone you meet. It’s a wonderful way to be. When I stayed with Grandma, I always enjoyed when her dog walker Craig would drop Bess and Sasha off, because he would pause for a blether with her at the door. Just recharging; being seen and truly valued by her. That’s what it looks like to feel worthwhile. To feel worth her time. When I was sitting by her bedside I had the feeling that there was nothing else in this world I could possibly be doing. It’s rare to arrive at a moment like that. It reminded me of her dedication to the people in her life. She helped you like there was nothing else in this world she could possibly be doing. Like you and her and the room you shared was the only place on earth. That was her gift. And it was really a superpower. We’ll miss you grandma, but your life was a success. You loved and died loving. Your people know you built them, and we thank you for it.”
I'm sad to hear about your mother's death, Jackie. I knew your parents when I lived with my parents at Regent Terrace, Edinburgh. Your mother had a lovely, warm personality.
I’m sorry to hear about the passing of your mum, Jackie.