Arthur Wilson
I have so many great many memories of Geordie and Catherine the boys and I will miss him greatly.
A very early memory is when Geordie and my grandpa built a greenhouse at the top of the garden. When they started it and I asked what they were doing I was told, "we're building a hen house for a dog". It was built from scratch, brick by brick and ended up like the tropical hothouse at the botanical gardens. I became a major part of the Geordie McArthur greenhouse project as every day I went with my Grandpa to pick up coal from the beach to burn in the small furnace they had installed to heat the greenhouse. And the tomatoes were huge.
Another early time I recall was when we had a good football match going on at Middleshot Square when we heard singing and shouting in the distance and our game was interrupted by a troupe of young men carrying a beer barrel, cutting through the football pitch, obviously on their way to a party. As expected, Geordie was to the fore and my teammates were laughing and saying, "its Arthur's uncle Geordie". I was laughing too, they seemed to be having a great time and I realized even then that Geordie loved a party.
But it was when I got older that I got to know him better and started to see how much of a quality person he was. When my Granny McArthur was ill and living at home, he cared for her without a moan when it was obvious she should have been in care long before she was eventually admitted to hospital. More recently he spent the best part of a day laying turf in my son's garden, without being asked, just to help out. I also remember him telling me about how he managed to negotiate a large compensation settlement from an employer for a recently bereaved widow, that was a few years ago and it was clear to me then that he got great satisfaction from helping others
He was one of the first people to have a home computer, an Apple Macintosh Classic, this would be nearly twelve years ago; he was well ahead of his time. I remember him phoning me and saying, "You'd better come around here and show me how to use this computer". I got him started and he was off and before long all his minutes, agendas, reports etc were typed up and printed out. Not only that, but Christmas cards, invitations, flyers, menus and leaflets were all typed up and printed on Geordie's Mac. After a few years the printer died of exhaustion but he bought a bigger better one and he was away again.
There are so many times I remember, like him singing the red flag at the end of all those great Labour Party dances we used to have in the Pans community centre, his new year parties or the great civic week street parties he used to have - great times. I remember he fell asleep when our band were playing at the Scottish Labour party conference dance but he burst into life when we started singing the Red Flag and took over from me after the first few lines.
While looking through the hundreds of photos he had scanned on his PC, my dad remarked that there were lots of parties and lots of friends and that his life seemed to be one big party.
He had some great qualities and I hope that some of them have been inherited by my own sons and that they turn out a bit like Geordie, that they are not just like everybody else, they gain the respect of others, fight against injustice, speak their mind and HAVE A GREAT TIME!
Arthur Wilson
