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 Anyone
who frequented SNP election rooms over the past twenty years knew Elsie
and Frank McArthur. Frank would be busy sorting out leaflet runs, or
shepherding activists in and out as fast as possible. Elsie would be
preparing or serving hot drinks or snacks (her soup was famous) for
those who had done some work, and prodding those who hadn’t into getting
on with what needed to be done. And in between she and Frank would be
folding newspaper’s, bundling deliveries or setting out to knock on
doors.
And not just at election time. From 1975 to 1983 the
SNP shop in Dumbarton Road in Glasgow was in Elsie’s determined but
tender care — as suited a former nurse. Indeed it was as a nurse that
Frank first met Elsie, she as a young lass from Aberdeenshire working in
far away Killearn, and he talent spotting at a local dance and
determined to walk her home that first night in 1949.
Elsie went on, after a
brush with TB, to do other
things. She worked with needle and thread, and made her own business
from those activities for a while. She served on the Children’s Panel,
firmly rooted in her own experience as a mother of a son and daughter,
and she busies herself with gardening and charity work.
But she was, first and foremost, a
political activist, devoted to the nation she loved and hoped for.
And by-elections were her forte.
For example in the Perth and Kinross by-election in 1995 Frank was the
obvious choice to run the Crieff rooms as he had been brought up in that
douce wee town.
In the old greengrocer’s shop which was the centre of
activity Frank and Elsie had a kind word for everyone and an
encouragement for those who were flagging. I used to call in as I rushed
round the constituency doing my Campaign Director bit and I always got a
cup of tea and a chat. And I always left with a feeling that the SNP
could not but win with people like that prepared to give their all to
the cause.
I had that feeling again in a wet
churchyard at Strathblane on the 25th of February. Under the snow
streaked bulk of the Campsies Elsie was laid to rest, facing the hills
she loved and in the heart of the country she wanted to set free. The
funeral which packed the homely church where Elsie had worshipped was
full of Nationalists, all of whom had a particular memory of Elsie and
Frank. There was a good turnout from the North East
— her voice always carried the Doric lilt —
and from Glasgow, most especially from Govan where during one campaign
she had her second diagnosis of cancer, and yet where she was back at
work in the rooms the following day. There were also non nationalist
friends and neighbours many of whom had cause to thank her kind advice
and her ever listening ear.
For everyone, there it was a day
not just of sadness but also of thanksgiving for Elsie touched people’s
lives and brought to them the sense of purpose and determination that
always guided her. When someone as passionate about the Nationalist
cause dies there is always a special sadness, that we have not yet won
what they wished to win. But there is also a realisation that deep down
we are all part of a family which
— at its best — gives one to the other the
continuing hope that no matter the obstacles and hardships, we will gain
our goal.
It will remain impossible to think
of Frank without Elsie, or Elsie without Frank. They were an inseparable
Campaigning pair, yet each of them had a distinct personality: Elsie’s
sharpness of touch and directness of speech matching perfectly Frank’s
quick witted but methodical personality. Yet it is Frank who must now go
on alone, comforted by the many memories of a marriage that lasted
nearly fifty years and supported by the affection and respect of so many
friends and colleagues as well as by their family.
It was typical of Frank that he
was at National Council the Saturday after Elsie’s funeral. I expect he
will be at any by-election that comes. There we will all miss Elsie, but
we will all also cherish what she did and work all the harder alongside
Frank to make her dream — and
our dream — of Scottish independence a reality.
Michael Russell MSP |
