I was born into a world of strong women. A matriarch-dominated way of life never seemed strange to me.
My granny (who everyone called Mush) worked in the jute mills.
She was fiercely intelligent. There wasn’t a human being, male or female, she couldn’t outwit.
She was born into the wrong era. If she’d been alive today she’d be prime minister, Scotland’s Lord Justice General, or a champion boxer.
Possibly all three.
The notion of Mush being discriminated against is laughable.
She’d have argued anyone who tried into submission, beaten them with superior logic.
Or given them a dunt on the nose.
Mush was 100 years ahead of her time.
I am very proud of her.
Strong women run through every Dundee family
My other granny (Granny Anderson) also started in the mills and had an almost superhuman work ethic.
I never saw her at rest, she was always cleaning something or scrubbing something else.
Her husband came home shell-shocked from the First World War but she raised three sons and three daughters and looked after my grandfather, which was at times difficult.
Well into her 80s she was up at 4am every day cleaning offices.
Again, if she had lived today her capacity for hard work and ability to organise would have made her a CEO or a union leader.
I am very proud of her.
My mother was another formidable woman.
I once saw her short-changed in a fish shop. She reduced that poor shopkeeper to tears.
Similarly, she let her three sons away with no transgression.
There were rules and they were followed or she’d know the reason why.
Nothing less than 100% was acceptable, whether it was school work or polishing our shoes.
I am very proud of her.
I am grateful for the values and outlook these powerful women instilled in me.
And my experiences are common in this town.
Men-only bowling awards? In Dundee? Really?
Dundee’s women have always been strong.
Dundee was the town of the kettle-bilers: unemployed men who got the tea on for wives coming home from the mills.
Dundee was a gender equality city long before the rest of the world.
We invented the idea of men and women living on an equal footing.
The town can be very proud of that.
So, City of Dundee Bowling Association, what’s this “men only” thing at your prize-giving?
Is that really true?
The idea of you not allowing the female president of the Craigie club to attend is ridiculous.
This is Dundee, we don’t do that here.
If she was alive today my Granny Mush would come round and do something with your bowling balls that would make your eyes water.
You’re making Dundee look bad.
Our town will be mentioned alongside those toffee-nosed golf clubs people laugh at for their archaic men-only rules.
Get it sorted.
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