She’s a healer, is Betty Craig from Castle Douglas – in every sense of the word.
A nurse at Stobhill in Glasgow and Castle Douglas for the best part of 35 years, she firmly believes that physical and mental health go hand in hand.
And bound up in both, the vivacious 72-year-old tells me, is emotional wellbeing, mindfulness and the human spirit itself.
Her journey of discovery in holistic health – which places huge emphasis on looking at the whole person’s mind and body, not just the patient’s symptoms – began after children Gary and Marie had grown up and while she was still nursing at Castle Douglas Hospital.
“I got interested in complementary therapies and began to learn meditation,” Betty explains.
“And after further studies I began to teach meditation as an evening class.
“Stress can very much affect the physiology of the body so reducing stress can have a positive effect on health.
“At that time I was friends with a psychologist who had an interest in Tourettes Syndrome and how its involuntary body movements affected the lives of people.
“This led to the production and narration of a relaxation recording for Tourettes Action UK called ‘At Ease With Your Tics’ and users reported better management of their tics after using the recording as part of their strategy.”
It’s a fascinating start to my conversation with Betty who, I will learn later, is both a master in reiki, the Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation – and an expert in Indian head massage.
Her life, however, began about as far away from the Orient as you can get – Springburn in Glasgow, in 1950.
The following two decades were a time of great change, when entire neighbourhoods of the city were being torn down and the populace moved out to huge housing schemes on the outskirts.
But in the early 1950s, Betty remembers Springburn as a bustling community with the giant St Rollox works nearby still churning out great locomotives for export abroad.
“I was just a child at the time and the works was a big presence,” she tells me, her voice still husky from a bad bout of flu.
“My dad Andy Stirling worked in an asbestos factory in nearby Balornock and my mum Betty was a home help.
“I attended Strathclyde School in Bridgeton then Albert Senior Secondary and I remember children then having a lot more freedom then compared with now.
“It was a fair distance to school – maybe a 15-minute walk.
“But after an initial six months of being escorted to school I just went and came home myself.
“From when I was a wee girl I liked to write and did not like sports at all.
“The first thing I remember was sending a story in to either the Beezer or the Topper (children’s comics) and I won a wee prize.
“I would only be seven or eight at the time – but that was me fired up after that and my writing career was launched!
“A thought would come into my head and I’d write it down and try to develop it.
“It was one of the things I enjoyed most – any kind of creative writing.
“But in school back then I don’t think there were the same opportunities to get involved in such projects that there are now.
“I did enjoy my education,” Betty adds, recalling one dominie with great affection.
“I had one teacher in primary school who called me Tusitala.
“That was the name given to Robert Louis Stevenson by the islanders in Samoa where he died. It means teller of tales.
“I asked him what it meant and he said ‘I’m not telling you – find out yourself then come back and tell me what it means.
“He really encouraged my writing – he was the one who really encouraged me. The best of teachers can inspire like that.”
As the old tenements were cleared, Glasgow Corporation began building huge high-rise buildings across the city to house those displaced – the most imposing of all being in Springburn.
“I remember the Red Road flats being built just a few hundred yards from our house,” Betty tells me.
“They were built between 1964 and 1969 and, at 31 storeys high, were the highest residential blocks in Europe at the time.
“My grandparents lived on the 29th floor.
“The views of Glasgow were spectacular and panoramic.
“And you could feel the flats swaying in high winds which was quite scary!
“The lifts had a major break down at one point, and we had the mammoth task of climbing all the stairs to take provisions to my grandparents.
“I believe the flats were demolished in 2015 and my husband Tom took a photo of them in their last days before demolition.”
Betty, I learn, was the eldest of four Stirling children, followed by David, Janet and Moira.
The fifties were a time of near full employment with Scotland’s economy still heavily tilted towards heavy industries such as coal mining, shipbuilding, engineering and a plethora of other manufacturing industries.
Some look back on that era through rose-tinted spectacles – but Betty remembers the lack of proper safeguards for workers earning their wages in what were distinctly unsafe environments.
“My dad’s work in the asbestos factory did affect his health,” she says.
“Proper health and safety measures that would be taken for granted now were not in place back then.
“My dad used to come home from work and his clothes would be full of asbestos dust.
“My mum would just beat his work clothes and the house would be full of this dust.
“We were none the wiser then.
“Later on he had breathing problems which did contribute to his death, although he did live into his eighties.
“It seems horrific now but that’s what happened.”
At school, Betty had a flair for words but admits to being less enamoured with other disciplines.
“I liked English and languages but maths a lot less,” she smiles.
“I took both French and German at school.
“I left at 16 and did not go on to further education.
“For me it was straight into the world of work which was an office of an insurance brokers near Charing Cross.
“I was there one and a half years working on the switchboard sending out insurance renewal notices.
“Then I left to start nursing training – at that time you could start at 17 and a half, which is what I did.”
It’s a fair leap from a dingy insurance brokers to patrolling the wards, I suggest, intrigued at Betty’s change of career.
“Well, my mother was a nurse to start with,” she smiles.
“Also, I was influenced by a friend in the office who went into nursing too.
“I trained at Stobhill General Hospital which at that time had the biggest number of beds
in Europe. Originally it had been built by the Glasgow City and Barony Parish Council and opened in 1903-04.
“It had 1,867 beds and I remember an old railway siding in the grounds.
“During an orientation session, I learned that it had been used in WW1 to bring soldiers directly to the hospital for treatment.
“In my first year I lived in and training was done in college and on the wards.
“It was very disciplinary and I remember having a fear and terror of the ward sisters – but training was of the best.
“There was a lot of emphasis on hygiene and each ward had a ward book with all the different procedures you had to learn.
“That could be giving injections, taking out stitches and staples, care of the new born and the mother or dermatology procedures. Training was
two years. And I have to say the whole experience of entering into such a huge bustling hospital from a small office in Charing Cross was awe-inspiring.
“It took a bit of getting used to.”
Recalling the strictly controlled regime inside Stobhill reminds Betty of a wild and violent event outside – one which broke all weather records and cost the city many lives.
“I still remember the deadly hurricane that hit Glasgow on 15th January 1968,” she says.
“It was described at the time as the worst natural disaster to happen in central Scotland.
“I still remember it all these years later.
“Winds whipped through the city at 140mph and, I believe, 2,000 people were left homeless.
“In all 21 people were killed and a further seven died after being involved in accidents in damaged buildings.
“I was living in the nurses’ residency at the time, and remember the howling wind, tiles falling from the roof and the crash of trees being uprooted.
“By early morning, Glasgow was a scene of devastation.
“My grandparents, up in the Red Road flats, heard none of it, as they were both profoundly
deaf. On going out early next morning, my grandfather concluded that a war had begun!”
Outside work, Betty quickly dispels any notion of wild nights out in late 1960s Glasgow.
Either that, or she’s just no’ telling me.
Whatever the truth of it, the hospital authorities imposed a curfew on young nurses going into town after work.
“We had to get a pass out of the accommodation block so they had a record of who was on site and who was not,” Betty laughs.
“You had to be back at night by a certain time – 11pm – so it was pretty draconian.”
Back on the wards, training was broad-based and multi-disciplinary.
“Part of my training was in terminal care which was a huge learning curve,” Betty recalls.
“One of the biggest things we learned was that care was for the relatives as much as for the patient.
“It could be emotional at times.
“But there always had to be an element of professionalism around terminal care otherwise you can’t do your work.”
At the other end of life, Betty remembers cases involving young mums-to-be bringing particular joy and satisfaction.
“We had several mothers in who had been unable to have a successful pregnancy,” she recounts
“Some already had had two or three miscarriages and were very scared about losing another baby.
Betty adds: “One young mother had been admitted some time before she was due and was being closely supervised.
“I nursed her through that difficult time before the birth then moved with her to the labour and delivery suite.
“I was by her side when she went in.
“Seeing that baby being born – it was a little girl – and nursing the mum after the operation was just tremendous.
“Then to see that young mother with a baby in her arms and so happy with all her family happy as well, was wonderful.
“That was one fussed over baby I can tell you!
“It is such a special privilege to be part of that journey.
“And it was lovely to see the young husband holding that baby.”
Don’t miss part two of Betty’s story in next week’s Galloway News.
