Finding Peggy

Scottish journalist Meg Henderson grew up in Glasgow during the fifties and sixties as part of a large, often troubled, family. The tenement block in which they lived collapsed and they were moved to the notorious Blackhill district, where religious sectarianism was rife, gang warfare and struggles with hostile bureaurcrats were part of the daily life for the people. Meg was born into a mixed-religion family, where there was warmth and laughter as well as conflict. She had a close relationship with her mother, Nan, and her mother's sister, Meg's Aunt Peggy, two idealistic emotional women who took on the troubles of the world. Together they shaped Meg's life, shielded her from the effects of her father's heavy drinking and helped her to move on, eventually, from the slums of Glasgow A hopeless romantic, Peggy searched for a husband until late in her life and then endured a harsh, unhappy marriage until she died tragically in childbirth. Her death devastated the family and destroyed Meg's childhood, but it was only as an adult, after the death of her own mother, that Meg was able to discover the shocking facts behind Peggy's untimely demise.

Meg Henderson's journalistic background undoubtedly adds to the ease with which she describes people and places, making them at once familiar and freshly seen. Finding Peggy is full of rich detail told with humour and sharpness., A warm and vivid memory of Glasgow life - it provokes nostalgia and anger in equal measure. Apart from anything else, this is a gripping story, told with real passion

Meg Henderson was born in the Townhead area of Glasgow in 1948, the youngest and only girl of three children. Thereafter she lived in the Blackhill, Drumchapel and Maryhill areas of the city. She gratefully left her convent secondary at sixteen, and though writing had always been her main interest, she spent some years working within the NHS before going to India with Voluntary Service Overseas. On her return she married, went to live on a Scottish island and became an adoptive and a foster parent. She now works as a journalist and lives with her husband on the East coast of Scotland.