My mother-in-law, Grace Thomson, Lady Thomson of Monifieth, has died aged 88. When, as Grace Jenkins, she married George Thomson in December 1948, they formed a personal and political partnership of equals that lasted almost 60 years until George's death.
Daughter of Nan and Kennie, Grace was a Glaswegian, brought up in Townhead. Her father, a railway labourer and NUR activist, was blacklisted after the general strike for Grace, the "hungry 30s" were a personal reality. She left school at 15 to work as a clerk with Glasgow Corporation, and after second world war service and night school she qualified as a teacher at Jordanhill. Grace always had a gift for sociability. After 1945, the centre of her life was the Glasgow Labour movement where, on an evening of carol singing, she met George.
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