Ask anybody in our family....Aunty Ki was the sort of aunty everybody would love to have. She was the liveliest, bubbliest most wonderful person you could ever wish to meet. She had an endless supply of jokes and could keep people entertained for hours. And behind her kind and happy exterior was a person who had seen so much and lived through 91 years and 11 months of the most astonishing change. She was a link back to the times when our family lived on Burntisland in Scotland and she remained a true Scot even though she lived south of the border for so long. "Just because you were born in a stable , it doesn't mean you are a horse" she used to say to me, referring to my English birth place. She grew up as the forth railway bridge was being constructed and saw the arrival of the motor car. She lived through both world wars and had such a wealth of stories that somehow we have just got to capture some of the magic to hand on to future generations. It’s a golden thread that has  to be maintained, because it is the history of our family and the start of the family business.  

Business Card from Aunty Ki’s Trunk 

Aunty Ki

On a damp evening a couple of weeks ago I went round to visit Dad who was recovering from a bad cold. And we got to talking about family history. He mentioned that somewhere in the basement there was auntie's trunk of photographs. "But I can’t remember exactly where they are...somewhere in the basement". So I decided that there is no time like the present and descended the steps...banging my head on the way down. I started to rummage around and didn't really know what I was looking for except it was an old trunk. Well after a lot of searching...I lifted the lid on a very dusty old brown trunk right at the back of the basement, and there on the top...on a fabric tray was a business card....

I knew immediately that I had found something important. The trunk smelt a bit fusty and as I lifted out the tray....below I saw the most wonderful sight. In terms of family history it was like opening Tutenkhamuns tomb. I found not just photographs...but share certificates....the bank statements for the family firm from the second world war, letters, maps. Suddenly I had the most wonderful insight into the life that Aunty led before I was born, even before my father was born. Some of the photographs went back to before Aunty was born. Throwing shafts of light onto a time when earlier generations of Mackays were developing the abilities and skills that were to be used to start the family business.