Mark Chalmers

Over time, you lose track of most people you’ve ever known. If you’re lucky, you might keep up with some colleagues from previous jobs, a few from architecture school, a handful from secondary school, and perhaps one from primary school. Friendships which go back that far are scarce, and it came as a jarring blow to discover that Mhairi was no longer around.

I remember her at this time of year, when I make Christmas cards, and whenever I hear The Eurythmics on the radio. At primary school she stood out thanks to her auburn hair: but Mhairi was bright, articulate and radiated personality. That stood out more. Her childhood was split between Dundee and Aberdeen, which was something we had in common, then her parents relocated again and she went to secondary school in St Andrews, followed by Ellon Academy.

As an adult she threw herself wholeheartedly into everything she did. After university in Aberdeen she made a successful life in London, between work and supporting the London Scottish rugby club, before moving back to Scotland. She jokingly referred to herself as a “rugby meer”, and we reconnected thanks to Friends Reunited: pretty much the only time that social media has fulfilled its promise to be useful.

That link went back to childhood, to Mrs Ramsay and Japanese larch trees and Adrians, to Rotork pens and The Secret Garden and bathroom doors with keyholes. Even though it can feel strange to pick up a friendship again after a gap, discovering the adult version of a person you remember as a child, then reconciling it to impressions formed when you were also a child, is a gift which we’re given only a handful of times over the course of life.

Similarly, memories of people we knew sometimes become conflicted due to things they did or said; but not with Mhairi. Her life ended at 44 years old, and its unfulfilled potential brings to mind the line from Philip Larkin, “There swelled/ a sense of falling, like an arrow-shower/ sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.” Larkin saw that the course of a life is like the flight of an arrow, fired at birth towards an unknown destination. It follows a random walk of chance: nothing is fixed, nothing is forever.

The end of the year is for remembering, as well as celebrating. Happy Christmas, Mhairi Gillanders, wherever you are now.