I remember him growing sweet peas in our house in Ilford after he was widowed - digging a trench 2 spades deep, filling it with manure from a nearby farm (there were farms at Gants Hill in Ilford in the 1920s) and growing stems with four flower heads (unusual I'm told!).

My maternal grandmother was a nurse at Woodilee Hospital, due to the following circumstances. She and her brother were orphaned as children and brought up by an Uncle and Aunt who had a farm near Alford in Aberdeenshire. Money was available for her brother to go to Aberdeen University, after which he started the Aberdeen Free Press.

He has 2 sons, one of which Edward Watt, became Lord Provost of Aberdeen in the 1930s.

My grandmother on the other hand kept house for her Uncle when her Aunt died. However, when the Uncle remarried she was despatched to Woodilee as a nurse. Note that Lenzie is a fair distance from Aberdeenshire. (Just a little bit of social history for those interested in the feminist movement).

As to why the McLellans came to be domiciled in mid-Argyll when their clan lands are far to the south (near Dumfries - McLellan Castle), it occurred to me this might have come about when the Highland Lairds discovered the Cheviot sheep would survive in the Highlands. I read an article about these clearances and it explained that they moved some people up with the sheep as they were versed in sheep husbandry. The ignorant Highlanders only knew about cattle! True? Maybe!

Not a scintillatingly interesting story, but with some snippets of history which I find mildly intriguing!