My mother died on Monday 8 December 2025. She was 95 years old. I have written this post for those who knew her but were unable to attend her funeral on Tuesday 6 January.

The first piece is a very brief account of her life, concentrating on her years in Scotland and Indonesia. Then follows some of my personal memories of Mum. Both pieces will read at her funeral service at Landican Cemetery, Wirral.

***

Rena Wight, 1930-2025

Catherine Marshall was born in Glasgow on 3 May 1930 to Peter and May Anderson Marshall. Her elder sister Margaret was born in 1927. The family lived initially at 45 Blackburn Street, before moving to a top-floor tenement at 23 Rosneath Street, Govan. Her dear Aunt Kate lived nearby at Shawe Street. Catherine was known to everyone as “Rena”, to distinguish her from her cousin Cathy. She attended Hill’s Trust Primary School in Golspie Street, then Govan High School, where she was nearly always top of her class.  

In 1937 Rena and Margaret went to the cinema for the first time, to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at the Vogue. The following year, on Rena’s eighth birthday, the Empire Exhibition in Bellahouston Park opened. The sisters went by tram from school, with sixpence each to spend on souvenirs. 

Rena would often go to “Jeanie’s” shop in Shawe Street on a Friday evening with her sister and her mother to buy half a pound of butter. Jeanie would give them a little bag of raspberry ruffle chocolates as a treat. Local children would collect empty glass jars and bottles and take them to Jeanie’s. They would get a halfpenny for a jam-jar and a penny for a lemonade bottle. Rena and Margaret used to go to the chemists on Saturday afternoons to get her granny a bottle of ipecacuanha wine. Quite a tongue-twister! They would then walk home, buying a jug of ice cream from Notarianni’s on the way. 

During the war Rena’s father, Corporal Peter Marshall, served in the 157 Brigade of the 52nd Lowland Division. He was an excellent piper: one of four who would play at the officers’ mess each evening. He assisted with the evacuation from Dunkirk and was himself later evacuated from Cherbourg.

Rena contracted diphtheria when she was nine and was taken by ambulance to the children’s ward of the Glasgow Fever Hospital, where she remained for nearly a year, only seeing her father once. At the height of the German air raids the family was evacuated to Crieff in Perthshire, where May Marshall got a cleaning job. Rena remembered this as a very happy time. Nobody wanted to go back to Glasgow! However they did return, in time to witness the terrible bombing of Clydebank on the night of 13 March 1941.

Rena’s Aunt Peggy and Uncle Sam lived in Cloughmills, Co. Antrim. After the war the teenage Rena would go over to Northern Ireland to spend her summer holidays in a cottage with Margaret and cousin Cathy. The local lads were in awe of the sophisticated Glaswegian girls!

After leaving high school Rena found a job in the personnel department of Alexander Stephen’s shipyard in Govan. There she met met Andrew Wight, who worked in the drawing office and they started to go out together. Andrew and Rena were married at Elder Park Church, Govan, on 31 October 1952. Their only child, Colin, was born on Valentine’s Day, 14 February 1955. Peter Marshall never saw his grandson because he had contracted TB and died on 10 April 1953 at the age of 45. Rena’s cousin Cathy also passed away in the same year.

Shortly afterwards Rena’s mother suffered a stroke and was to spend the rest of her life in Darnley Hospital, Renfrewshire, paralysed down one side and unable to speak. In the next bed was Jean Caskey, a celebrated artist who painted beautiful watercolours by holding a paintbrush in her mouth.

Four years later the Wight family was living at 36 Barnes Street, Barrhead. Then Andrew received an interesting offer. Bureau Veritas, a French company, wanted him to became their surveyor in Surabaya, Indonesia’s principal port and second city. Although it meant leaving friends and family behind, they set off into the unknown.

The company bungalow at 79 Jalan Raya Darmo had a large garden with mango, lime, papaya and banana trees. Nearby was the zoo, where Colin and Rena would go to see the orang-utans and Komodo dragons. Some weekends, they would escape to a mountain resort to enjoy the swimming pool and the cooler evenings. There were occasional glamorous events to attend, but for the most part living in Surabaya was anything but glamorous. After two years in the sweltering heat of tropical Java, the family returned to Scotland in summer 1961.

Andrew and Rena had expected to continue their family life in Glasgow but his employer had other plans for them. Andrew’s next post would be as principal surveyor in the Liverpool office. The family paid £2,800 for a brand-new house at 40 Whitewell Drive, Upton, in October 1961 and – although they considered moving somewhere nearer the sea – they never did, because they got on so well with their neighbours. 

Rena’s mother May passed away on 6 June 1962 at the age of 53.

Andrew retired in 1989 and he and Rena enjoyed their time together, taking holidays in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. But in 2021 Rena was diagnosed with dementia and her health began to deteriorate.Finally, after more than 60 years in Whitewell Drive, she and Andrew moved to the Manor House Care Home, a few minutes’ walk away, where Andrew passed away on 25 October 2022. Rena followed him on 8 December 2025. She is remembered by the staff as a gentle lady who enjoyed the social events.

Mum – by Colin Wight

My earliest memories of Mum are of a loving mother who would take me in my pram to the park and to see friends and family. Despite all the hardships that Mum had to go through, seeing her parents and favourite cousin pass away, and very nearly dying herself as a child, she accepted the blows that life had dealt her and was always a strong and positive personality. Her early poverty meant that she appreciated the comfortable living that came in middle age.

When, as a schoolboy, I brought friends home Mum was always welcoming and accommodating, often skipping meals herself so that she could serve a proper dinner to unexpected guests. Not for us spaghetti hoops on toast! When I spent a year in Spain as part of my university course she wrote “not only do I miss you but I miss your friends as well”. Mum and I were similar in personality, with similar interests and enthusiasms, but we also possessed an extraordinary ability to wind each other up, much to my father’s annoyance. But it was always quickly resolved.

Mum was very cultured and intelligent. She taught me to read before I started school and was interested in my academic career, without ever being pushy. Coming from a musical family, she had a love of classical music although she did not play an instrument herself. Amongst her happiest memories was attending the opera in Verona’s Roman Arena. She and I once went to a five-hour performance in Liverpool of Berlioz’s Les Troyens. At last, my having studied Virgil at school proved of some use. It is an epic work in every sense: a feat of endurance for performers and audience alike. My father was grateful that work commitments prevented him from accompanying us. 

When I moved to London after university and eventually got married, Mum must have realised that I was never going to move back to the north-west. She and Dad enjoyed their visits to our home in the capital but I am sure that she would have liked to have seen me and Anne more often than she did.

In 1998 Mum had heart pacemaker surgery. The procedure went badly wrong. Her lung was punctured and she lost a great deal of blood. It was touch and go but, typically, Mum pulled through. She was amazingly resilient. Unlike her own parents, she lived to a ripe old age. Dementia is a terrible disease, and she had seen its effects on her elder sister Margaret. In her late 80s it started to take hold of her too. On 1 February 2022 she and my father, whose mind was still sharp, entered a care home. Unlike Dad, Mum quickly settled into her new home and was content. It is a sad thing to see a loved one’s personality start to drain away, but she was usually cheerful and we had many a laugh during my visits. 

She passed away, peacefully and without pain, on 8 December 2025. She will be greatly missed by friends and family, as well as those who cared for her.

———————————-

Processional music

Gloria from MISSA L’HOMME ARMÉ
Guillaume Dufay (1379 – 1474)
Performed by OXFORD CAMERATA

Music for reflection

Gondolier’s Song, Op.30, No.6, from SONGS WITHOUT WORDS
Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847)
Performed by Péter Nagy

Recessional music

A BRIGHT STAR IN CEPHEUS, from ROADS NOT TRAVELLED
Performed by Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham