Annie "Nan" Stewart, my mother, passed away at the age of 101. She was a devoted Quaker, a pacifist, and a teacher.
Born in Dewsbury in 1918, during the Spanish flu pandemic, Annie’s parents, Thomas Fawkes and Jane Cornfoot, were millworkers and frequently unemployed. As a result, Annie was sent to live with an aunt in Dundee at the age of six. She excelled academically at Harris Academy but left school at 15 due to financial strain.
Annie’s horizons broadened when she passed the civil service exam and began working for the post office telephone engineers’ department. Through reading Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth, she became involved with the Peace Pledge Union, and during the second world war, she lived in a commune with like-minded individuals. It was there that she met Alf Stewart, whom she later married in 1943. Their shared values included social justice and the peace movement.
After the war, Alf’s work as a Labour party organiser took the couple to South Shields and Huyton, where Annie became the secretary of Labour Women. Eventually, they returned to Dundee, where Annie became among the first few married women who were allowed to become schoolteachers.
Annie taught at various primary schools around Dundee, including Blackshade, MacAlpine and Powrie, until her retirement in 1976. She wanted to improve her own education and later became a proud graduate of the Open University, receiving her BA in 1983 at the age of 65.
Annie and Alf were devoted Quakers and active in their meetings in Dundee and St Andrews. They enjoyed travelling and went on numerous campervan expeditions across Europe and the US well into their 70s.
After Alf passed away in 2005, Annie moved to North Berwick and became a part of East Lothian Quakers, where she made new friends. Despite fading eyesight, she continued doing The Guardian crossword into her 100th year. She enjoyed reciting poetry in Scots, English, French, and German, and never lost her passion for social justice.
Annie is survived by her four children, Gordon, Sheila, Neil and myself, as well as her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She loved her extended family and never forgot any of their birthdays. She will be deeply missed.
