Mary Christie celebrated her 100th birthday this week.
Mary Christie was born on August 26, 1908, the youngest of six surviving children born to dairy owner Thomas Linklater and his wife Mary.
Her father operated a dairy at 70 Holyrood Road in the ground floor of a tenement block, later demolished to
make way for the University of Edinburgh Sports Complex.
From an early age Mary would help out with deliveries, often walking up dark closes before dawn – an experience that frightened her as a girl.
She attended the now closed Cranston Street School and, upon leaving at the age of 14, she left to become a counter girl at the local Co-op.
During this time she developed an interest in dancing, including Scottish country dancing and other solo routines, and enrolled in a course in dressmaking. These two hobbies would stay with her throughout her entire life.
She met her husband-to-be William, a Newton Street pawnbroker, through her eldest brother's wife, who happened to be William's aunt, and they were married in 1935.
Less than two years later their first son Billy was born, but their domestic bliss didn't last long as William was soon off to war with the Royal Signals.
Following a stint in North Africa, he was sent to Italy and fought in the battle of Monte Cassino – one of the bloodiest battles in Western Europe – before ending up in Austria.
Mary and Billy, meanwhile, were initially evacuated to Banff, but soon returned to be with their family at Holyrood Road where Mary volunteered as a fire warden.
Billy said: "My mum remembers how we had a lucky escape when a bomb landed at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, but failed to go off.
"She said she took us to an air-raid shelter once, but we almost died of hypothermia and she figured we'd be as well being hit by a bomb so we didn't go down there again."
William returned in 1945, and within a year the couple's second child Thomas was born. Although William was not injured during the war, he would suffer frequent health problems caused by a bout of malaria contracted in North Africa.
Mary cared for their growing family while William changed professions when the growth in hire purchase and credit services after the war sent the pawnbroking business into decline.
He took a job with Bin Removals on Orwell Terrace and, in the late 1950s, the family moved to Gracemount.
Billy said: "My mum was delighted. She had a garden which she used to grow roses and vegetables, and even into her later years she used to carry two buckets of water down two flights of stairs to tend to the plants."
William's final job was with JG Stewart in St Leonards but, in the late 1960s, he was diagnosed with cancer and had to have a lung removed, an operation which bought him a further four years with his family until a recurrence in the throat took his life in 1971.
However, Mary has rarely been alone throughout her life as her two sons have given her a large extended family. Billy has five children and two grandchildren, while Thomas has two children – most of whom were with her on Tuesday at her 100th birthday party at Balmwell House, where she now lives.
The full article contains 566 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
