My friend Ellena McCabe, who has died aged 104, was the inspiration behind the creation of a social care reform campaign in Scotland at the age of 99, when she complained about standards in Scottish nursing homes.
As a resident of a care home herself, Ellena’s concerns led to the creation of BetterCareScotland, the charity of which I am director of research, and which aims to get the Social Work and Care Inspectorate to properly address alleged abuses. Ellena was the campaign’s driving force, telling us at every opportunity: “Don’t let them get away with it.”
Earlier this year she led a petition to the Scottish parliament for independent oversight of social care regulation in Scotland by a new body with lay expertise. The petition, and the campaign, gave her new purpose at an age when she was no longer fully self-reliant and felt of little practical use to her family.
Ellena was born in Cumnock, Ayrshire, the first of four children to Samuel Ūssas and his wife, Sarah (nee Sadeikute), Lithuanians who fled antisemitism shortly after the first world war. They had intended to emigrate to the US, but were detained on their stop-off in Hull, where they were told they could not travel onwards. The officials gave them a new surname, Houston, which Ellena took when she was born, and sent them to Ayrshire, where Samuel was given a job as a coalminer.
Ellena performed well at secondary school, but further education was not an option, and so she trained as an apprentice to a master tailor in Glasgow.
Although a pacificist, as part of the second world war effort she worked in a munitions factory. While there, in 1943, she married Michael McCabe, a Dubliner, who was in the Parachute regiment. After the war they spent 10 years living in various parts of Europe and north Africa while Michael was involved in peacekeeping activities and Ellena raised their first three children.
She continued with her childcare duties on their return to the UK, as the couple had eight children in all, and also put her tailoring skills to use on a part-time basis, although she never had a formal job.
Ellena was admitted to a nursing home in 2015, but left in 2018.
She is survived by six of her children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
