I was an only child brought up in the late 1940s on an isolated croft, several miles from the nearest town and more than one mile from the nearest neighbours. They were an elderly couple whose family had grown up and moved away. So, for most of my early life, I had no close friends of my own age. This situation changed when I turned eighteen and was in my final year at secondary school. Our neighbours moved to a small hou...

My brothers John, Harry, James, Robert, and I (Jean) lived with our mother (Ailsa) in North Scotland during the 1950s and early 1960s. We had a good and relatively happy upbringing, albeit a strict one. Mum was austere and did not tolerate misbehaviour; her hairbrush or plimsoll regularly lit up my bottom for my misdeeds. By contrast, I had a charmed life at school until I reached eighteen and moved into the all-girl clas...

I was raised in a very traditional region where the patriarchy still held sway, and gender roles were set in stone; men were to be the breadwinners and in charge of everything, while women were to be housewives and baby-makers, with no rights and little or no say over their lives. Single women were allowed to go out to work to financially support their family until they left home upon marriage, but only doing the most men...