Margaret Anderson, one of the anchors of the SNP in Perth over many decades, has died aged 87.
She was the first female councillor on Perth Town Council and was an agent for Douglas Crawford’s successful election campaign during the party’s breakthrough year of 1974.
Margaret lived three streets away from former SNP deputy leader, Jim Fairlie, and their family homes doubled as campaign and strategy headquarters.
As election day loomed, Margaret’s home in Letham became central to the SNP’s local election strategy and her, her husband George, daughter Morag and son Ewen, would play host to Winnie Ewing, Margo MacDonald and Gordon Wilson.
The SNP successfully unseated long-serving Conservative MP Ian MacArthur and their candidate, Douglas Crawford, was one of 11 SNP MPs sent to Westminster.
Margaret’s son, Ewen, a retired Perth barber, said: “Jim Fairlie and my mother would plan and strategise and discuss election campaigns; so many happy hours were spent in the Fairlie household.
“It’s just a pity that wee Andrew (who later became a celebrated chef) wasna auld enough to reach the cooker or the catering would have been magnificent.”
Margaret credited the people of Hunter Crescent, Perth, for her town council election success in the 1960s.
It is a measure of the esteem in which she was held that in 1988, when the area was being redeveloped, Margaret was invited back to open the first phase of renovated homes.
She was born in Avoch, north of Inverness, on January 11 1937 and died at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, on her birthday in 2024.
Her education took place at Fortrose Academy and it was hoped she would go on to university but during a working holiday in a hotel in Crail, she met George Anderson who was working at the nearby RAF camp.
Marriage
Within six months they had got engaged and married and set up home in Cellardyke where their daughter Morag was born on Margaret’s 21st birthday.
When George successfully applied for a barber’s job in Perth the couple moved to live in an old house overlooking the North Inch and joined the council housing list.
Ewen said: “It was a magnificent old house but the man who owned it never lived in it after his wife died and they soon found out why. It was haunted and my mother saw the ghost several times.”
The family eventually got a house at the top of Strathtay Road, where they welcomed their son, Ewen in 1959.
When the children were wee, Margaret took jobs at RS McColl in High Street and as an usherette at the Playhouse cinema in Murray Street.
“It was not until we were at least school age did mum consider her own ambitions,” said Ewen.
“She enrolled at nursing college and qualified top of her year to begin her working life. She became sister of Birnam ward at Murthly Hospital and her approach to psychiatric nursing was simple.
“She saw the ward as the patients’ home and believed every endeavour should be made to ensure it was as much like home as she and her staff could make it.”
A passionate nationalist, she combined her nursing career with campaigning for the SNP and attending meetings and rallies.
Council convenorship
After her election to Perth Town Council, she served a social work convener, sat on the licensing board and was later appointed a Bailie. In those days, council service was voluntary and meetings took place in the evenings.
She left local government after the regional councils were formed in 1975 at a time when Murthly Hospital was starting to wind down.
Margaret worked at a number of other hospitals but eventually found her niche managing the new Almondbank House, a residential care home for adults in North Muirton.
In later years, Margaret lived with MS but still managed to give occasional lectures in psychiatry for trainee nurses, in addition to enjoying her many hobbies and supporting her family’s shared passions.
For 62 years, her late husband, George, ran the barber’s shop in George Street where her son, Ewen, also worked and retired from during lockdown after 44 years.
You can read the family’s announcement here.
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