Tribute
Elizabeth Frances Gulland was born on 29 August 1933, the first child of George and Winifred Hall.
The Halls were a close family, spending holidays with cousins and aunts in North Berwick, Arran and Lundin Links, where Frances’ granny loved to play golf.
There are many memories of Hall Work Dances, High Teas and Christmas Dinners where Frances whipped away plates as soon as people had finished or nearly finished, so card games could be played!
Frances attended Mary Erskine School from 5 to 18 years of age, where she was a Prefect, and was selected to play Hockey and Tennis. It was there that she formed a band of friends who continue to meet up to this day.
She achieved Highers and, during that long summer off, got herself a driving licence. Luckily for Frances, the Hall family business was in transport, so she borrowed a car and her ‘gang’ drove to Rome and back! Driving became her mode of transport and she was an AA member for over 50 years!
This started her love of travel and it saw her going to see a lot of the world. On her own visiting Rose in San Francisco and with Jim, visiting nephew Andrew in Detroit, and Bruce in the Bahamas. Then to a final huge trip of travelling round the world with Jim, making new connections with Australian family members who had been mere names on Christmas cards before.
Frances went to Edinburgh University to study for a BSc and then trained for a year to be a Secondary School Teacher. While at university, she had a diverse group of friends who enjoyed getting out of Edinburgh and off on adventures.
Roy, a university friend, married Barbara and Frances became a part of the Boyce family having fun with children Hilary and Susan in Gloucester and Sussex. She spoke with Hilary weekly (surviving member of the Boyce family) until her death.
The Hall family were active members of Lothian Road Church where Frances joined as a Guide, but soon progressed to Sunday School Teacher and Girl Guiding Captain.
She achieved the accolade of a Queen’s guide, which is an award higher than the Duke of Edinburgh Gold.
Frances enjoyed taking the girls on camping holidays and encouraging them to gain Badges. Guides had great memories of open fires and steam puddings in MOF tins. She was still in touch with some of her guides until her death.
During university, she joined the Officer Training Corps. From there, she joined the Signals.
This was led by David Marshall, who became a friend along with his wife Elizabeth.
Frances enjoyed going to numerous camps and functions within ‘army’ life. Her younger cousin Jenny remembers being in awe of her driving army lorries and going to army dances.
Frances then moved to the Military Police based in Easter Road. This is where she first got to know Jim and his then wife, Jane.
She still met her OTC friends on a regular basis before her death.
After university, her first teaching post was at Ainsley Park School, dealing with challenging pupil situations and later at Craigroyston School where she spent many years, ending up doing more pastoral care than teaching. There, she made a diverse range of friends, from janitors and headmasters to teachers and pupils, a lot of whom she kept in touch with after retirement.
Frances would regularly visit her little brother Renwick and his family in Crieff, and I fondly remember many of those along with our visits through to see Frances in Edinburgh.
Frances also spent a lot of holidays with her sister, Evelyn, and her family.
She would drive down seeing other families enroute.
Frances would then be the entertainer as the Paton’s travelled to France in their camper van. Sometimes, she would then take Fiona or Stuart back to Scotland.
It was after one of these family holidays that she decided to accept Jim’s hand in marriage.
Held on 31st March 1975, theirs was the very last wedding in Lothian Road Church before its closure.
Jim and Frances complemented each other well. Jim was at home pottering while Frances was out socialising. They shared a love of sport and became active members of the Edinburgh squash club.
They had fun making and tasting their own wine or introducing their goddaughter to the delights of an eclectic array of music from Queen to Glen Miller. Or sharing in the delights of musicals like Les Misérables with their goddaughter, Jayne.
After retirement, she and Jim moved to Comrie where they spent 20 years. She became Captain of Comrie Ladies’ Golf team and played off 13!
Soon she developed a love of Bowls, which Jim started then Frances joined in on (not to be left out) and soon was carrying the most trophies home!
Do you feel a theme here?
Like a stone gathering moss, when you became a friend, you were in Frances’ life forever. Frances became one of the family.
For example, she would be comfortable and adaptable playing with your children or chatting sport with parents of friends.
Frances was competitive and all children and adults in her company soon learnt you had to play your best to beat Frances, tears and tantrums did not work! She was kind, patient teaching them games, but then loved winning!
At school she learnt to play Bridge whilst having a cigarette in the staff room. This enjoyment of playing Bridge brought her another set of friends. Playing this continued all her life, even during lockdown she played online against the computer and did not like losing to that!
Frances loved the outdoors, and walks with her, Jim and Dan the dog were a discovery of different flora, fauna and wildlife that she expertly named. She and Jim bagged a few Munros and encouraged others to love hillwalking too.
Bird song was always enjoyed with that last cigarette of the day out in their manicured garden.
When she became bed-bound, Fiona would play her bird song and they had a lovely afternoon on the balcony listening to the birds shortly before she died. She was so peaceful there that she refused to come in until the chill of the early evening made Fiona override her, a rare event!
Frances knew her own mind and had a way of letting you know how she felt, without offending. She loved socialising, but her home was her private haven and she found it really challenging to entertain. Often when guests arrived, they would be asked what time they were leaving. Or be told when to go as there was some sport on TV that needed to be watched or a match to be played. Jim was not so sociable, but they worked well as he knew she would not bring friends home or if people did come it would be for a set period of time!
Frances was an organiser, even her day was a fixed timetable and woe betide anyone who interrupted that. She ensured weekly phone and video calls to family happened and was a great letter writer. In the times before mobile phones, Fiona and Frances wrote a lot. She was Fiona’s personal agony aunt. Fiona had opportunity to let out her teenage rants to someone when she felt that her parents did not understand her!
New Year is a big celebration in Comrie. James and Jackie often stayed and were Jim’s support as Frances dived straight into First Footing which ended up “First Stumbling”! Fiona was often a wide-eyed teenager who was out with Frances lapping up this Scottish tradition.
Frances enjoyed all sports including football and rugby and loved to get texts and phone calls from various matches being played in Scotland and England. When they returned to Edinburgh, James would pop in on his way to a Hearts match and latterly gracefully accepted the list of jobs that needed doing.
Frances not only enjoyed physical activity, she ensured her brain was active too. Crosswords and Sudoku became a daily event. She investigated her family tree before the ease of online activity was available. Every winter she had a ‘winter’ project, often a complicated jumper to knit or cross-stitch to complete. She would encourage Jim to create amazing models of buses and boats.
As she became less agile, her interest reverted to TV game shows: The Chase and Tipping Point were favourites and she often discussed with visitors how much better their team would be than the teams on TV.
When Jim and Frances moved into their flat in Roseburn House five years ago, as always Frances was quick to make new friends and she helped out on the rota for the Wednesday Coffee mornings in the Lounge, which was also her chosen venue for playing Bridge with other friends. Jim, however, had become frail and sadly he died in January 2018.
In recent months it was very hard for Frances to allow people in to help her and accept her terminal condition. She happily pushed it out of her mind, refused to talk about it, letting Fiona lead and be the organiser and thinker now! They joked that Fiona was now being the bossy one, but had learnt that skill from an expert. The Edinburgh Council care team were amazing. They understood her and knew what she did or did not want or like. She now loved socialising on the iPad, seeing friends from all over the world. Frances was not going to give up her independence and fought to the end, which was peacefully in the care of the staff in St Columba’s Hospice on June 19th.
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