My mother, Margaret Ewan, who has died aged 73, was a teacher of art and design at a number of schools in Scotland, including Beath high school in Cowdenbeath, Summerhill academy and Oakbank school in Aberdeen, and Balwearie high school in Kirkcaldy.
Although she enjoyed her time at all of those places, it was in her last job, at Kirkland high school and Community college in Methil, during the 90s and 00s, that she perhaps had the most fun. Often known by some of her students at Kirkland as “Ma Ewan” – and even occasionally receiving Mother’s Day cards – she referred to her time there as “the golden years”, marked not just by a great relationship with the children but a huge sense of camaraderie with her teaching colleagues.
Margaret was born in Keith, Banffshire, to Isabella McGregor, a Scot, and Thomas McDonald, a Canadian working with the Newfoundland Overseas Forestry Unit near Ballater. They put Margaret up for adoption as a baby, and she was raised by Cosimo Pacitti, a Scottish-Italian confectionary salesman, and his wife, Wilhelmina (nee Howes), a dressmaker. Cosimo and Wilhelmina brought up Margaret as an only child and absolutely doted on her, Cosimo even raising eyebrows by pushing her around in a pram, something that fathers in the 50s were not expected to do.
She left Sacred Heart convent in Aberdeen to study jewellery, silversmithing and tapestry in the city’s Gray’s School of Art, and while there she met Neil Ewan, an architecture student, at a folk gig in 1966 at the local Blue Lamp club. They got married in 1972 and from 1988 our family – now including two daughters, Anna and me – lived in the coastal town of Burntisland, Fife, where Neil had been raised.
After art school, Margaret gained her teaching qualifications from Moray House School of Education and Sport in Edinburgh in 1971, before embarking on her long teaching career and retiring from Kirkland in 2007.
With Neil, Margaret shared a keen interest in Scottish history and was a long-term supporter of Scottish independence. She devoted her retirement to gardening, caring for her grandchildren and researching her family history.
Margaret had met members of her biological family in the 70s and 80s, and a chance phone call in 2009 led her to discover two unknown brothers, Alex and Bert, who had been sent to Australia in the 50s as part of the UK government’s child migrant programme. In 2010 she travelled to Australia with me and Anna to meet them for the first time, and they remained in contact.
Margaret was an empathic, clever and fun-loving woman who always gave so much support and love to those around her.
Neil died in 2020. Margaret is survived by Anna and me, three grandchildren, Peggy, Daisy and Hamish, and two brothers.
