Alistair the Man

Alistair the Grandfather

John Dryden

Alistair the Dad

My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.

The Gravestone at Mortonhall, Edinburgh

Alistair McLennan

Born 20 May 1931

Died 1 April 2004

Age 72

So farewell then, Ally Pally. From Ice Cream vans to the café, from pubs and clubs to cafés again. Through taxi driving, building houses, laying drains, selling property, running hotels, cabarets and Guest Houses. Through thick and thin, feast and famine, up and down. Yours was the life well lived and you never retired. Even now I'm sure you're negotiating a better spot for the rest of us, as that was your way. A sadly missed husband to Margaret, Father to Maureen, Alistair, Douglas and Raymond. Grandad to many, Great –Grandad to one and friend to multitudes; enemy to a few but none the worse for it.

His Favourite Quote was:

“There are three sides to every story, your side, the other side and the truth ! ”

A Service was held at Mortonhall Cemetery, Edinburgh on Tuesday 6th April 2004 at 10am

The Eulogy as read by Raymond his youngest son

Early Life

"Alistair McLennan was born in the depression years in 1931 in an Edinburgh very different from the one we see today.

At just 8 years old a traumatic event happened when the war broke out – Alistair and his family were split up during the evacuation. His oldest brother George went to the Navy, Alistair went to a home in Arbroath and Ronnie and Douglas the youngest were also sent away. They were never together again as a family.

It was at this time that an event happened that he told me about many times and one that we discussed in the last few weeks of his life.

The whole of the evacuated class of 1939 went to the cinema.

To see The Wizard of Oz.

There in the cinema in Arbroath they watched as Dorothy left Kansas in Black and White…and landed in Oz in Colour. As if out of the darkness of his life a bit of colour gave him hope.

That he never forgot that scene was reminded to me just recently when we spoke about it shortly after he came out of the Marie Curie home for the first time.

He was traumatised by his time at Arbroath and never forgot how he felt abandoned.

The first time we took him up to the Marie Curie home just one month ago, he tried everything in the book to ensure that he didn't stay there and that he was not left alone.

We didn't know it at the time but it was that fear of being left alone that he was fighting. An event that happened 55 years ago was so strong that he resisted us in our attempts to make the end of his life better.

It was only after a week in the Marie Curie hospice when he came out that we talked about that incident and he said that he felt as if he had left Kansas and landed in Oz. Now that he was home again, all was in Technicolor and there was hope once again in his life.

That hope was only to last a couple of weeks.

Back to Arbroath and after 6 years, the now 15 year old Alistair was never the same again. As an independent in the true sense of the word, he earned his way with a succession of jobs from, laying drains to digging graves for one day only! He then joined the Merchant Navy and after a while bumped into his older brother George in Gibralter!

Well, after a while he came back to Edinburgh and started work in The George Hotel, at the same time as a certain young lady from Donegal.

The two cultures collided (at least that what he said) and that led to Maureen, Alistair and then Douglas and eventually to me. They say that behind every man there is a woman rolling her eyes and Margaret, our mother rolled them more often, for more reasons and in more places than most women.

When I say places I do of course refer to their predeliction for moving house. In their married life they moved house no less than 37 times. Always upwards, always improving and nearly always on the South side of Edinburgh. The one exception was their “retirement” to Tenerife where they lived on the North Side of Puerto de La Cruz.

Anyway back to 1959.

There is a saying that every small boy wonders why his father doesn't go into the ice- cream business...we didn't have to wonder , our Dad did got into it…with a vengeance.

The summer of 1959 was where he made his money.

He didn't know it at the time but normally you didn't stay out until all the ice cream was finished. He did…until it was dark, but he sold the ice cream and paid off the loan on the van in a matter of weeks. There he learned his first business lesson; don't let anyone know how much you earn!!

The café followed and then the pub in causewayside which incidentally, he sold to a customer who won the football pools. There he bought the first ever remote control colour TV in the country and once again he had landed in OZ.

In fact out house at Strathfillan had green and yellow walls and a red tartan carpet. The colour was never far from anything.

The next move was to the St Clair Hotel in Mayfield Gardens, then Queens Crescent (which I note is up for sale right now)

That was about the time he lost his way and turned to staying out late and fighting with builders…a certain Bob in the audience has a lot to answer for there.

Mayfield road followed, then Robertson Avenue and Queens Avenue where Dave and I nicked his car one night, he was not too pleased…especially after his other two sons had been up to nonsense at a certain football match in Glasgow!

And so to Colinton Road and the Avenel. Another massive project that followed on from his attempt to buy up half of Royal Circus. The people in that deal that were less than straightforward found out the meaning of own brand of justice.

A retirement to Tenerife petered out as he wouldn't learn Spanish and then the big one. He bought a 40 bed hotel with banqueting for 250 for no money down…in fact HE did THEM a favour. Well it wasn't to be and we all headed back to Edinburgh to start all over again. With a café. He always said your mother and I work as a team, but we couldn't understand why he was always on the bench!

They went from no money to a right few quid in the space of 10 years by working hard and buying the right property; proving to us all that no matter what age you are you can always make it.

Well he never retired. Taking on another café in Portobello and then a Guest House. They looked after other people's Guest Houses and had a following of people who had all been on the receiving end of his (repetitive) wit. New guests were told that breakfast was each morning between 5 and 6am. When they expressed surprise he would always make an exception for them and move it to 8am!

When it came to their bill for two nights accommodation of some £40 He would always add “That's £140 please” when they recovered he would add that they got a £100 discount for cash!

The Marie Curie nurses said it was a pleasure to be of service to him. He kept his sense of humour to the end. In fact he insisted that I tell them a joke to cheer them up as there were a few people who passed away the week before he did.

He did truly think about other people and he was generous, all great qualities that we can learn from.

The colour was finally taken from his life a few days ago and our world is all the darker for his passing…and he will always be that wee lad in Arbroath, alone, away from his family, in a black and white world and waiting for colour.

And with that he wants to leave you with laughter and sadness; and a funeral is not a funeral without some weeping …so prepare to weep now as Ally leaves you with his favourite song ringing in your ears."

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Eva Cassidy

For anyone who has suffered a bereavement, the following words may offer some comfort:-

Everything Explained in 800 Words

The universe has about a billion galaxies, with about a billion stars in each galaxy. That means that planet Earth is a tiny speck in an infinite ocean of space and energy. Earth is like a small airport for souls, with thousands of arrival and departures every hour. In the short time between when a soul arrives and departs on airport earth, there is a game they play. A game called “Life” and it has various rules and goals like any other game.

Based on the millions of people who have had life and death experiences and come back to report what happened, certain assumptions can be made.

First, there is a higher power of some kind who truly cares about the souls that visit planet earth.

Second, this higher power seems to ask everyone who is dying the same basic two questions. First, “ What did you learn about being a kind and loving person ”? Followed by “ How well did you use your gifts to contribute to the good of the world ”?

Since people from all different cultures report that they get asked the same two questions at death, we can safely assume that the higher power is interested in our spiritual and personal development.

The first rule of the game of life is to find out what rules will lead to winning. Winning is defined as the ability to consistently feel deep levels of Peace, happiness and love in your life. The second aspect of winning is to take the peace, happiness and love you feel, and live in such a way that you contribute to other people's lives.

With such a clearly defined goal, it would seem easy for these souls to learn the “rules” that lead to the destination they desire.

This is not the case.

There are many obstacles on the way towards each soul's desired destination. To begin with, each person is brought up in a unique family and cultural situation. Your family and culture effectively “hypnotise” young souls to strongly believe many things that are not true, thereby, putting them at odds with reality. For example in western culture, we're taught to believe that more money or the right relationship will lead us to lasting happiness. Such cultural conditioning leads us to spend a lot of energy looking for love and happiness in areas outside of ourselves and our control.

Another obstacle to winning in life (finding peace, love and happiness) is the fact that our minds are almost totally out of control and they never shut up!

Most people don't even know this and will get defensive if you inform them about their obvious condition. But since people have almost no control over their own minds, they end up primarily focussing on worries, problems and what's wrong with themselves and their life. Furthermore, they have no training in how to control their own minds, so they can do little or nothing about it. What they are told and believe will “cure” their lack of peace is one simple lie. They are told that “If you could simply control more of the events and people in your life to be the way you want them to be, you'd achieve lasting happiness”.

In fact, when things go the way we want, we do feel good for a brief period of time. That's why we become addicted to the process. But people who have the most control such as multi-millionaires or the President of the United States, are not one iota happier than other people. Control simply doesn't lead to lasting happiness. But people don't see this obvious situation because they get lost in blame, denial or distraction.

With blame, people see the problem as being in the world or with someone else. They become helpless victims.

With denial, people refuse even to see that they have a problem (i.e. they aren't winning!) and therefore do nothing to move closer to their goal.

And with distractions (T.V. drugs etc.) people are too busy to attend to the overall underlying problem.

The most efficient means to winning (finding lasting peace, love and happiness) is to tune in to the peace love and happiness within. Our minds are like radio receivers. An infinite number of stations are being broadcast. Some are playing beautiful music, whereas other, noise. Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to learn ways of tuning into the stations that play the type of music that feels good to us. There are many methods for doing this, such as prayer, meditation, being in nature, feeling grateful and various spiritual practices.