With a toss of her short grey hair and a twinkle in her very blue eyes, seventy-nine year old Mary Lillian Bovey, who is on her first visit to Trinidad and Tobago, informed me "had I not come here for my friend Julia's birthday, I would have been in Genoa, Italy, at the G7/G8 Summit as a member of Jubilee 2000 Edinburgh. We are trying to get the seven richest countries to see that more goes back from the rich to the poor." The Jubilee 2000 Scottish Coalition was established to spearhead the cancellation of unpayable debt owed by the world's poorest countries by the end of 2000. This has not been fully realised, and the Coalition has therefore been replaced by Jubilee Scotland to continue the campaign.
Mary, who will be eighty on November 8th, travelled to Trinidad by herself, to celebrate the birthday of her friend, Julia Rose, who she has known for the past fifty-four years. Rose, a former Bishop Anstey High School student, was on her way to the University of Caledonia 's Glasgow and West of Scotland Domestic Science College to study Dietetics, but stopped off in London to do chemistry and physics courses at the Regent Street Polytechnic because at that time, in Trinidad, girls only did Integrated Science. A chance invitation to a meeting of London's East West Friendship Council which brought people from the east and west together, was the start of a friendship between the Boveys of Paisley, Glasgow, and the Roses of Woodbrook, Trinidad, which has spanned many years and many ocean miles.
By the time Julia completed her courses and arrived in Glasgow, "Mummy Bovey, the Council's representative for Glasgow and West Scotland came to see me and offer hospitality and said anything I want please get in touch with her, and invited me over to Sunday dinner. I went and fell in love with the family who were in the days of rations of food and clothing, but she was a wonderful cook and after weeks of College food I enjoyed going there."
Standing just over four feet tall, Mary could only stay a week here as she had to be back in Edinburgh, her home for the past twenty years, to receive the Member of the British Empire award at the Palace of Holyroodhouse on Tuesday July 3, which she obtained in the Queen's last New Year Honours List for services to the community. "We do not know who will give it but I think it will be Queen because she goes at that time of the year to Balmoral" said Mary.
Born in Partick, Glasgow, and brought up in Renfrew and Paisley, Mary studied social science at the London School of Economics and has spent her entire life in the service of the community, especially the underprivileged. And although retired, is still actively involved in three voluntary community services. "Open Door" , a weekly lunch club for the elderly: "I collect two pounds a time, once a week for the meal which is delivered to the Open Door in Morningside, Edinburgh. We bought shop premises for this ecumenical project and collect those who wish to come for the meal."
"Friends" with the Edinburgh Association for Mental Health. "Every Tuesday for the past eight years I go out with the person I befriended, taking her to the shops and all sort of places."
And finally the "Sitter" service, a voluntary organisation which pays my taxi to and from the place where I sit for the evening with the child of a single parent. Both my boys are now very big - 10 and 14 years each - but I have been with them since age four. Once a month I sit with them as they cannot be left alone until age 16. Sitters used to be run by the church ladies but is now independent with government grants.
In spite of all of the activities described above, Mary feels "I am getting too old to do a lot of things" when her present life is compared to her busy life as a Missionary in the state of Bihar in North India from1961-1980. The eldest of four, one sister and two brothers who are all still alive, had always worked in urban areas doing her community work, speaks of having had a conviction although she is not the sort of individual who hears voices and thinks that God is she was working, talking to her mother said "you know mother if I do not offer myself to the Missionary Society before I am forty it will be too late. It was said before I actually knew what I was saying. My father saw it clearly, I wrote the letter, posted it, and away I went." Mary did a year's missionary training at Selly Oak in Birmingham and travelled to India where she worked in the Diocese of Choto Nagpur in North India for 19 years.
Three years ago, a very practical Mary moved into sheltered accommodation, because "as a single person I did not want my nephews and nieces to have to make arrangements for me, so I moved into a tiny flat, one of one hundred and one in the same building. We are tenants, not owners, and pay for services like gardening, but you do not get any food, you are looking after yourself and I am a great one for opening tins and things like that, and I can cook porridge" she says with a grin. "I have never been domesticated" says Mary without apology "it was the only way I could do as much as I did."