The daughter of an Edinburgh dustman, she left school at 14, worked as a French polisher and was a trade union activist before joining a convent in London’s Notting Hill and dying of tuberculosis at the age of 25.
The girls, who had come into the porch to see us off, waved their hands to us; the weaver nodded kindly; the dustman bowed as gracefully as a troubadour; Dick shook the reins, and we were off.