Champion Cheese Maker, John Simpson with his many trophies. We still have the two larger cups in the family.

Granma and Granpa Simpson outrside their new Dairy Shop in Cumnock, Glasgow

John Simpson was in the Army in India and he went back later to teach the local people how to make Cheeses.

John Simpson on his Wedding Day.

John Simpson had two shops and this was his second one

In the Stranraer Free Press in 1933 about the young Sadie Simpson

The corner of Caledonia Road and Comden Street in the Gorbals

All that rermains is the fore part of the Alexander 'Greek' Thompson church in Caledonia Road.

This is where the Coussins Family, Louis, Rebecca, Jack, Leslie and Harold lived for a while

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Champion Cheese Maker, John Simpson with his many trophies. We still have the two larger cups in the family.

http://www.coussins.org/Family/Simpsons.htm for more images and items of interest

Simpson direct family tree to John and Margaret: http://www.coussins.org/Family/simpsontree.htm

Simpson Data Page     http://www.coussins.org/Family/Simpdata.htm

 Menu:
Grandma Simpson
The Kirkwood's
The Simpson's
Sadie Simpson
Ardrit                

Margaret Simpson was an erudite intelligent woman who was well educated for  her time and was an avid reader of  newspapers and was well aware of the world around her. I  asked her why this should be so. Grandma  (Ma) Simpson was not like other Grannies. She questioned things, asked for information and was very keen on our hobbies and our school. She was exceptionally proud of Raymond who was a concert pianist at the age of nine and had a great big soft spot for the beautiful wee one Paul whom she loved to cuddle.  Grandma Simpson always told me when I gave her grief, "you'll be sorry when I die". That quickly shut my mouth. She was right. 

She taught me how to cook, make Ginger Wine and even took me to the family farms and to family members who lived in Newtown Stewart. to learn  about farming, fishing and generally loving and respecting nature.  One uncle was a great fisherman who taught me over a couple of days to make  fishing flies and then took me down the River Stincher to help me catch a huge Sea Trout.

Another Uncle bred budgies in Stranraer and explained the techniques he used to try and get the first ever Black Budgie. We stayed there for a week and I was fascinated  by this hobby. We had a budgie at home and I suppose that was what gave me the interest.  I mocked my cousins when they replied Aye instead of my townie Yes and they in turn taught me pop songs form the 1950's -including the popular, See Ya Later Alligator.

Grandma Simpson taught me about animals, and when I was eight, I was sent down  to Uncle Willies farm to stay. My cousin Sandy and I rode his pony bare backed and bare arsed around the field under the hot sun-I remember the sweat of the pony made it a wee bit difficult to stay on.. Well  we  thought Indians  did all that  and I cant remember whose idea it was to gallop past the cow shed. I fell off into  the cow slip (liquidised cow dung) and had to walk over the field to the river to wash as I did not want the smell to come into the house.  My aunt , his Mum, made the best Apple Crumble in the world and if I was good and did not smell of cowshit I was going to get that for after supper. He was a great farmers son as he knew everything about animas and explained top me all about the cows, bullocks and hens. He wanted to be a vet. gave me an interest in natural history and helped me with my homework. He did not become a vet though but an International Surgeon and now lives in Switzerland with his wife and kids.

I  loved my grandma Simpson very much and miss  her to this day. She was the first person in my family to die and it broke my heart. She was my friend, my confident and my other Mum.

  Wigtownshire Creamery        The Stranraer Show Cup presented by R. Fuller -
                                     John Simpson won this in 1904 and 1905

The adventure that was India:

John, my husband was a dairyman and a Champion Cheese maker. His abilities as a Cheese maker, enthusiasm for his profession and the respect of his peers, led the British Council in 1922 to employ him to go  to India to  teach the locals how to make Cheese. Killing cows was not on the agenda in India for most native communities and the British Government wanted to set up community systems to both supply local communities with available materials and food but to develop an ongoing system of self development and experiment. All this was a bit hoighhty toitiy for 'fermers' like ooursels, but this was  an opportunity to travel see other cultures and comeback , hopefully, a' the wiser!. He had indeed served in India during the war so India was not altogether a new place for him. It would be for us though.

We decided that this was,  indeed,  a great opportunity and we decided to go. We were to be away for two years. It was not feasible to take  all the children so we farmed some out to our other relatives for this period. All  our relative were farmers. Some  rented farms and we were tenants and some worked on farms. Everyone was very excited about the McClymont Simpson's being given this great honour. We decided that the younger ones may be at risk with all these tropical diseases  and we were advises to leave the younger children with other family members while we were away. We still had enough though with the older wains (wee ones) We got all the right hot weather clothes from the sponsors and had our picture taken for posterity. John was quite taken with his Keppie.

Bairns in tow, we went to Glasgow  to get the fine ship that was to be our home for almost two weeks as it steamed  towards the great continent of  India. (more later on this journey)

We arrived in the Mediterranean and sailed towards Egypt and the Suez Canal. We were told all about the canal at this stage after asking if we were  safe going through this man made waterway that seemed so vulnerable. Debts forced Said Pasha's successor, Isma'il Pasha, to sell his country's share in the canal to the United Kingdom in 1875. The Convention of Constantinople in 1888 declared the canal a neutral zone under the protection of the British, after British troops had moved in to protect it in 1882.

 We realised that this was no longer New Luce anymore. John struck  up  a conversation with the cook about cheeses and we were soon speaking to other passengers about the art of cheese making. Maybe that was to take the mind of the perceived constant threat sometimes felt when passing a group of Bedouin horsemen with very long Muskets who sat on the horses just staring at us, or perhaps  they were amazed with the huge  ship of the desert  passing so closed to them. As farmers we were impressed with the quality of these horses and knew a little about them.  We knew they were useless as ploughmen's horses and could not compare to  our own Clydesdales anyway. We  saw some that had been brought to the Stranraer show in past years and all the Farmers has discussed what they were useful for. Pulling a trap perhaps and for the Lairds lady perhaps. But these were show horses at Stranraer and stood with proud heads and tails that were  erect almost above the rump. The gentleman who had brought them explained to us some of the background and  as this was something we were really interested  in the information  was very interesting.  Arabian horses in Arabia were considered by Arabian Bedouin horsemen to belong to different "strains" or families. These strains were assigned on a matrilineal basis with each mare transmitting her strain to her offspring, regardless of the strain of sire. Seeing them in their native environment was a completely different thing. As wary as we were  about the guns, we could only admire these fine beasts, the horses wer nae to bad eether.

As we entered what was Egypt, Arabia and North Africa with vast deserts and reed beds, ancient monuments  and Arab boats, called Dhows,  we moved slowly towards the Red Sea shores, majestic granite mountains and sweeping dunes enfolded Bedouin tents and lost Egyptian temples. The kids did not seem to be so in awe of the landscape  but we certainly were seeming  to spend all out time on the deck watching this very oriental world go by. The steward regaled the children with tales of huge sharks and gigantic man (and children) eating crocodiles which the bairns had never seen and lo and behold, just as  he was clearly getting carried away with himsell everyone on one side of the ship started to shout that there  was crocodiles basking in the sun. These were indeed huge beasts that looked like prehistoric  monsters to our collective eyes as they lay on a sandbank hardly moving s the sun  started t  warm up the morning air.

Such exotic names, Suez Canal  the Red Sea and  the Arabian Sea made this journey all the more exciting.  However, disaster was  to strike when our ship , exiting the Suez Canal ran aground getting out of the way of a muckle great steamer driven by what could only be described as a Captain that was a few potatoes short of a bag. He just seemed to ram us without any concern for our safety. The result was a panicked captain on our ain much slower ship trying to take evasive action and in doing so, ran aground having been skelped by the ither idgit.. We were not sure if we were  indeed shipwrecked but we were absolutely very well aware of the huge sharks and giant man (and children)  eating crocodiles that were probably just waiting get their teeth intae a nice young set of Wigtownshire backsides.

We were taken into Egypt. The only place that we could go was into the exotic city of Cairo.  We could not believe oor een as the motley assortment of horse and carriages that the authorities had assembled to move us on dry land drew near Cairo. Towering above the city to the south west was the famous Pyramids of Giza. We spent three mostly wonderful days and nights exploring  this fairy tale city. The children  were mostly open moothed  most of the time until they eventually got tired.  We had been given a large room on a nice hotel  and took our meals there. The manager had given us  four umbrellas before we went out in the first day. ,Was it going to start raining while we were in Cairo. We had been grateful for the large fans that attempted to keep us cool the previous evening but we did not think that it as going to rain here. Still, the umbrellas served us well s walking canes  as we negotiated the , sometimes, broken and dusty pavements. During our visit we had heard of many archaeologists in Egypt had been coming here to search for the lost treasures of the Pharaohs.  We decided to visit the Cairo Museum to see some of the amazing things that had been discovered. However it seemed that thee were many people digging for treasures and selling them on  to tourists on every street corer and every market . There were so may that we decided to buy a little turquoise blue beetle that we wer told was called an Scarab. It was very small and we carried that with us as a reminder of our time  in this place.

Between the heat, the flies and the persistent begging from what seemed like most of the population, the entire thing became tiresome after the second day until  we hired a charabanc to take us to the Pyramids. What a marvellous experience. To see the Sphinx, to wonder how the whole thing was actually built by human beings so many thousands of years before. It was not at all easy to take it in. After all we came  from a green and very pleasant land and now  we wer wandering aboot in the hot desert\with unforgiving sun on  our backs.     We now understood way the hotel gave us umbrellas to use to try and keep some shade over our heads.

It was to end too quickly though as we were taken back to or newly repaired ship to carry us to even more exotic places. The entire journey out was exotic. The languages we could not fathom, the clothing that did not look out of place here was extraordinary for our eyes and the buildings, towers and minaret's all blended together to make the journey to India a journey that we could never forget.

And so we arrived in Inda.

Names  you only knew from books. We had researched the country of  course and even the language a little but also the religious questions .We  liked to attend Church on a Sunday and were concerned that there would be no church for us. We had nothing to fear. While Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people English  is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people but there are 14 other official languages  and Sarah actually learned Hindi. ( Dad (Jack Coussins)  enjoyed taking Mum into Indian Restaurants later in life as she would order the meal in Hindi. The astonishment on the face of the waiter was always good for a laugh and usually a free starter- Mum (Sarah-Sadie) was proud that she had done this while she was there.)

Church was the same as while Hindu was the main religion followed by Muslim, 2.75% of the population were Christian and so we were well catered for and so was Sunday Morning and Sunday School  for the Kids.

We arrived in the busy port of Bombay on the West coast and were taken in two large cars to the house we had been given for the period of our stay. It was called 'a Bungalow' and was on short stilts. It was in a lovely clearing with  trees and other almost 'normal' garden plants around. In fact, apart for the shape of the house you would of thought that you were in a posh house in Scotland, it was so 'British'

Settling in for a few days , we found that we had two other house guests. These were two parrots. One was a wee green parrot and the other was a lovely Cockatoo. Apparently the previous tenant, an army officer,  had been there for five years and had now  gone back to Britain, leaving his parrots behind. At first they were no problem. They seemed  a bit wary of us but one day when we had sat down for lunch, one of the parrots said Hello'. That was a great shock to all of us. We were all so excited. The children raced over to the Parrots who must have had a heart attack and started telling the parrots to speak more, Pretty Polly was being shouted at these poor birds in an ever increasing volume.

I  told the children to sit down and stop frightening the parrots but no sooner had I done this the wee green knaff of  a parrot said , a swear word. I was  black affronted, embarrassed and the children started laughing and John was no help either as he started laughing as well. I warned the parrot never to use such foul  language in the house again which prompted near hysterics from  the rest f the family with Foul, being the operative word that caused the  most merriment..

The parrot was quite for a couple of days after that and then it started. The swear words were pouring out of both the birds.  I got in touch with the manager of the project and asked hi to move the birds but he replied that he had no where  to move them and as the wings had been clipped we could not let them fly away. We were stuck with them. Two swearing parrots were too much and I was worried that the children would start copying the vitriol  being poured into the air every minute of the day. Well a staunch god fearing farmers wife can only put up with so much searing and blaspheming.

I had reached the end of my tether. One day I opened the cage of the green parrot, grabbed it by the throat and, as if it were a chicken, I wrung its neck. Do you know something, after that we never heard anither word oot of yon Cockatoo again.