My broken promise to the little girl who lost her mummy

Young Vi, shortly after her mother left.

July 12, 2020

I am writing this just a few days after my mother’s death. It is a personal apology to her and a form of catharsis for myself, as well as a confession of failure.

“Never make a promise you can’t keep”, was something I was always told, and that’s where I failed, making one with a confidence and assurance that turned out to be unfounded and arrogant.

Lying on my desk before me is a death certificate, not mum’s but my grandmother’s. It is fortunate I had that because it was needed to register my mum’s death, and the only reason it came so easily to hand was because of that unfulfilled promise.

That came about nearly two years ago. At that time mum was still living independently in supported accommodation in Leven, Fife. At 90 she was still mentally agile though physically failing. What distressed her particularly was her macular degeneration and the slow, irreversible loss of her eyesight.

When she was in the mood, I always enjoyed prompting her to talk about the old days, her childhood, and what it was like for the young Vi Neil growing up in my hometown during the 1920s and ‘30s. And it was on one of those nostalgic journeys that she brought up the emotional subject of her mother. The last time she saw her, she was just seven years old. Now her memory was fading, as was her vision. Her one wish was to hold a photograph of her mum.

Without any hesitation at all, I said, “I can do that. I’ll get you a picture. That’s a promise.”

A few simple words that now haunt me.

Having worked for the local newspaper and for a company with over 200 titles across the UK, as well as numerous contacts, I expected to have that picture within a week or so. Nearly two years on, and with mum gone, I’m no further forward. My frustration has, in many ways, become anger, and the mystery surrounding my absent grandmother has become darker and uglier.

My quest had a delicate starting point. My grandmother walked out on her daughter and, it would seem, never looked back. As a family we were aware of that. As a father and grandfather myself, it has always bothered me how a mother could do that. But the journalist in me always said there are two sides to every story, and my grandmother’s just had never been told. If I uncovered that story then that might just help heal those 85-year-old wounds and provide some understanding of a heartbreak mum had carried all that time. Even her name was a heavy reminder of abandonment … and whatever else came with it.

I admit, with my mum’s passing I still feel raw, and that reporter’s mantra of always being “fair and balanced” is well ingrained. But with no other information, I can only put one side of this sad tale, though the story was always of secondary importance to simply finding that picture.

It upset mum to have to recall those early memories of her mother, no doubt distorted in childhood and through the passage of time. I would push her to dig deeper into those recollections and, on more than one occasion, she would break down in tears. There’s no clearer evidence of the damage we can inflict on a child when 85 years on a parent’s action can still provoke sobs from someone deep into the autumn of their life.

So, it is with some guilt that I can only narrate one side of this story, and it doesn’t reflect well on my grandmother, or her entire family.

Mum's maternal grandparents,
Peter and Margaret Wishart.

The story begins in March 1927 when my grandfather Thomas Neil married Violet Wishart. He was a coal miner from Leven, she a fisherman’s daughter from Lower Largo. They were 20 and 19 respectively, and she was pregnant.

My mother was born on October 23 that year and her recollections of her infancy and early years, understandably, were vague but she did recall many a trip to Lower Largo, and being part of an extensive Wishart clan. The family was well-known with her great-grandfather being lost in the ‘Brothers’ fishing tragedy of 1886 while grandad Peter was respected and celebrated, having been honoured for a gallant rescue of a drowning child in the village harbour.

Efforts to trace a picture from this side of my family drew a blank, and I hit the first wall of silence. This I didn’t expect. Through social media I made contact with families that recalled the Wisharts and, discovering a relative through a mutual friend, I did find a firm connection, but more of that later.

Piecing together the family tree wasn’t difficult and I reached out to a number of ‘new’ relatives through genealogical websites. Again, all attempts at communication were met with a wall of silence, with one exception, that being an email stating, “I have nothing to add”.

While this was going on I was trying to piece together, with mum’s help, my grandmother’s tale and what made her walk out on her child?

Given this occurred in the early 1930s, the details, of course only from the Neil side of the family, make very uncomfortable reading. It was claimed the young Violet was given drugs to make her sleep so her mother could entertain a male friend while her husband worked night-shift. Her lover was believed to work as a delivery driver for a well-known local firm, and it was he she ran away with.

That elopement is possible though it does seem unlikely this was the man she would eventually spend the rest of her life with. Proving that though is as difficult as proving he was the only gentleman caller who visited young Vi’s Leven home while her dad was ‘down’ the Wellesley.

Whatever the entanglements, Violet snr, disappeared one night; it would later emerge that she was pregnant.

My mother remembered the next day’s search, visiting all the relatives and friends with her father that they could think of, but Violet had disappeared.

After the initial trauma she did make a brief re-appearance. My mother was playing in the front garden of her paternal grandfather’s house in Scoonie Drive, when her mother passed on her way to visit a friend she had in the street. Little Vi, from being overjoyed at seeing her mum, quickly became hysterical when her mother ignored her despite the girl’s pleas and walked right by. The incident was so upsetting my mother remembered her grandparents spending hours trying to console her, with her grandfather, Papa Tam, eventually going off to buy a bicycle for her in the hope it would soothe her grief and stop the tears.

Of course, the other cruel twist to her tale was since her father was working shifts at the pit, he couldn’t cope as a single parent so young Violet ended up being raised by her grandparents. So the loss of her mother also, though to a lesser degree as he stayed locally, separated her from her father.

But what happened to her mother? Well, there’s a gap of a couple of years where it was reckoned she headed across the Atlantic to America or Canada. Certainly Wishart family members had set up home there and even the widowed Peter made a trip with a one-way ticket, but did return to Largo some months later. As for Violet, no Wishart or Neil has been found on passenger embarkation lists. All I was able to discover was that she had another daughter, Mary.

Young Vi.

Violet surfaces again at the outbreak of the war in 1939 in Hemel Hempstead, now with Henry McIvor, a former sailor from the west of Scotland. There was little to be found on Mr McIvor in my searches as his family seemed a possible source for a picture, but  again that line of enquiry proved unrewarding.

Through online searches and with the help of registry offices, I learned when and where my grandmother had died, the date of her husband’s death, and that her daughter, mum’s half sister, was still alive.

The company I worked for then, owned a newspaper in Hemel Hempstead, so that was the next step. The story itself was of strong enough human interest to entice the editorial team and the result was a decent sized feature, complete with pictures. Obviously, I had mum’s permission to do this as she was never one for airing family business in public. Researching events was one thing, making headlines was another. But with the proviso that I would not do anything that might embarrass the mother that abandoned her, or her later family, she approved this copy:

A plea has gone out to readers to help make a wish come true for a 90-year-old Scottish pensioner before she loses her sight – to see a picture of her mother, Violet McIvor.

It comes from Vi Morkis, a retired school teacher who is now resident in supported accommodation in Leven, Fife.

Vi was the only child from a short-lived marriage in 1927 between the 19-year-old Violet Wishart from the Fife coastal village of Lower Largo and 20-year-old coal miner Thomas Neil.

The couple split when Vi was just seven and, with her father working down the nearby Wellesley Colliery, she was raised by her grandmother in Leven, but she never saw her mother again.

Now suffering from severe macular degeneration her eyesight is fading fast, and with no pictures of her mother in the family albums and no clear memories of her, Vi really wants to see her mum again before she loses her sight.

Family have discovered that her mother moved to Essex in 1939 and, in June 1955, married Henry Bell McIvor. The couple later settled in this area.

Violet McIvor, who died in Dacorum, in 1988 at the age of 81, worked as a hospital kitchen waitress. Mr McIvor was a toolmaker and passed in 1967 in Hemel Hempstead, at the age of 70.

Speaking on Monday, the day before her 91st birthday, Mrs Morkis said: “It was so long ago and I was just a child so I don’t really have any image in my mind of what mum looked like; I’m sure a photograph of her would bring back so many memories.

“I have tried appealing locally as she must have had relatives in the area but no-one has been able to help.

“I just hope someone where she settled might have a picture of her. It might be family, friends or workmates, but it would really mean a lot just to have a picture of her.

“It would also be good for my own children, grand-children and great grand-children to be able to see a member of the family none of us really knew about. Her story might remain a mystery but there must be a photograph out there.”

Anyone who can help, please contact…


That and a community Facebook page serving the area that I contacted,  produced only one response. A gentleman called me, providing me with the married name of mum’s half sister, and the name of their only daughter. Unfortunately, they had recently moved house...

From there it should have been easy and while my ‘auntie’ remains elusive (and possibly still alive), I do believe I have found her daughter. Unfortunately, all efforts to contact her have been met with  silence. There is only so far you can go before you start to feel like a stalker. I know her address, what she looks like, where she trained and where she works. Unfortunately, it has become obvious we are a side of the family that must remain a secret.

I didn’t stop there though in the quest for that picture; I had one more lead.

One of the most distressing aspects of mum’s story was that, after Violet walked out, all communication from the Wishart family ended. Grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins all appear to have isolated her, with one exception.

There was an aunt who married into the Wisharts and she and mum kept in touch for a while. Then, one day, mum turned up at her door to be told she didn’t want to see her again and the door was closed on her. That ended that connection.

I discovered her daughter emigrated to Canada and thanks to social media and LinkedIn, I discovered she'd had a daughter, who now lived in New York, and was a fellow editor.  But that connection seems also to have drawn a blank. Information on that side of the family from this branch was sparse and there was none on Violet's tale. So it was another dead end.

It is irrelevant now. With mum gone, her death certificate finally closes the connection with a part of my family that wanted, and still wants, nothing to do with us.

As I said, there are always two sides to every story and I’ve tried to work out what went on back then. The most obvious scenario is Violet found herself pregnant and involved with two men, neither of whom would be keen on having an other man’s child to raise. In the 1930s, there wouldn’t be the option, never mind the support, of trying to make it on your own with two children and no paternal income.

My mother's dad and the grandma
who raised her.

So, what would she do? It could be seen as a tragic ‘Sophie’s Choice’ dilemma. It would be horrible and unimaginable for any young mum.

But there are problems with that version of events. Why would an entire family then ignore a seven-year-old child, forever?

And as for my grandmother? Well, it does seem she never had any interest in her daughter’s life. Then it starts to get personal.

She had no interest in my mum’s family; my sister and I to this day have no knowledge of the grandmother who was alive and well while we were growing up.

Then there is the fact that she died in 1988, which meant she could have had some contact, even a picture, of her four great-grandchildren.

To have seemingly no interest in daughter, grandchildren or great-grandchildren, and for that lack of interest to spread through an entire extended family, is bewildering.

There was one instance when the story might have come more into focus. I reckon I would have been in my late teens when mum had a visitor, a Wishart uncle from the States. He had tracked her down and said he was over for a family function and, if mum wanted, he could see if her mother, who was also back in the area, would be willing to meet her.

Probably through fear of being rejected again, mum declined that offer from this mediator. She was never sure she had made the right decision; at the time I was adamant that she hadn’t. But, then again, I genuinely can’t imagine the pain mum carried.

A few days after her death, as the UK pandemic lockdown eased, we were reunited for the first time in 100 days with our four grandchildren.

Each one is younger than young Vi was when her mum walked out. Looking at the four of them I simply cannot imagine, no matter where they end up in this universe, of not always wanting to see them or to follow every step of their journey through life, as much of it as time allows me to share.

And as for my own children, I look at them and know there is nothing they wouldn’t do for their little ones, that there is no frontier on their love, that every single breath and every wee tear shed is a precious part of an eternal bond between parent and child

My mum, at 92, still felt that for her mother, and before blindness and death, she did not seek an explanation or justification or apology for the rejection she carried through her whole life, all she asked for was a picture of the mummy she lost.

I’m so sorry I let her down.