Mona returns home with new book exploring early life in Shetland
Former nurse and midwife releases A Shetland Girl
“I STAYED next door to John Lennon – I think I mention that in the book.”
It’s testament to the life that Mona McAlpine has led that living in close proximity to one of the most famous people in the world may not even have made the final cut of her latest memoir.
The former midwife delivered two of former South African president Nelson Mandela’s grandchildren while living in the country, and spent time in Fair Isle as the island’s only nurse during the 1960s.
But while those subjects fill the pages of her two previous memoirs – A Shetland Midwife in Africa and A Fair Isle Nurse – this time around, Mona is looking closer to home.
A Shetland Girl, released last month by Kessock Books, explores her early upbringing in South Whiteness and how it shaped her life.
It also looks at her return to Shetland from South Africa, and the charity From Shetland With Love, which she and husband Iain set up to support orphanages in Africa.
Now living in Inverness and into her eighties, Mona was still on fine form when talking to Shetland News earlier in the week.
A Shetland Girl “should probably have been the first book” of her memoirs, she admitted – but it also seemed fitting to end the trilogy back in Shetland.
“I started by writing about when I was a nurse in Fair Isle and then I thought, ‘I could write about my time in Africa’,” she said.
“After that I thought, ‘what else can I do?’ I thought I can write about my life story.
“I should have started from there but it’s like it’s in reverse. I think it ties together the whole story.”
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Growing up in South Whiteness in the 1940s and 50s with two brothers and two sisters, Mona said it was only when looking back that she realised that times had been “pretty hard” back then.
“At the time I never thought about it as hard,” she said.
“I had a very, very lovely family, all supportive, and with two brothers and two sisters we had great fun.”
Rationing was one difficulty for the family as the UK struggled to recover after the Second World War, but Mona said that she also endured her own private struggle as a child.
“What affected me really was the school – my schooling was very bad,” Mona explained.
“The teacher hated me, she was awful. I never blossomed in school at all.”
Mona said that going to primary school every day “was a trial”, and that her teacher was “horrible” to her daily.
“But I had to go,” she said. “I hid it from my parents, I didn’t tell them about it.”
Until she moved to Scalloway school – which she said was “great” – Mona just concentrated on the positives in her life, “like my family and the things we did together”.
“We had a shop, a big croft, we had animals. We had a lot of things to do and we were expected to help wherever we could.”
It’s probably no surprise then after Mona’s difficult schooling that she left education and Shetland at the age of just 15 to pursue a career in nursing, starting with a two-year stint at a college in Elgin.
The cover for A Shetland Girl features a young girl standing on a beach and staring far out at the horizon. Is that how Mona felt?
“Oh yes,” she said. “Maybe because of my schooling, even in those days I wanted to get away from it.
“I didn’t think I would land up in Africa!”
That’s skipping ahead though – after two years in Elgin came stints in both London’s affluent Chiswick district and the vastly different Gorbals in Glasgow in the 1960s.
London’s swinging sixties must have been an eye-opener for a young Shetlander?
“All of my training I loved, especially going to London,” Mona replied. “That was the time of The Beatles, everything was going on.
“It was very vibrant, being part of it was super.”
This is where Mona casually drops in about living next door to Lennon, before swiftly moving on.
With the book featuring Shetland so strongly at its core, you may be forgiven for thinking that Mona longs for her life in the isles.
But she said that while she does “sometimes” miss Shetland, she said she has “made the most” of everywhere she has lived.
“I carried Shetland with me – it was my grounding definitely,” she said.
“My family were so good, they really grounded me, and I came from a strong Christian background.
“I married a Shetland man and he kept me grounded too.”
And despite living everywhere from the south of England to South Africa, Mona said that Shetland had always been where she returned to.
“In the back of my mind it’s always been home, South Whiteness has always been my home.”
A Shetland Girl is now on sale, and will be launched in Shetland at the Whiteness and Weisdale Hall between 2pm-6pm on Saturday 31 October.
All are welcome, with a cash bar available as well as tea, coffee and tab nabs.
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