Ellie was born on Sunday March 1st 1936. Even though that is St David’s day- patron Saint of Wales- Ellie was 100% Irish, and she always let it be known that that she was Northern Irish.
She was born at the Shepherd’s Cottage, an isolated cottage in the 1930s, situated midway between the village of Bushmills and the Giant’s Causeway; a lovely part of the UK. She was the second child of Margaret and James McClelland and they both lived in Distillery Row, Bushmills, but Ellie, like her elder sister Sylvia was born in her Grandparent’s cottage.She later had another sister, Iris, who was born in Distillery Row in 1941. Ellie loved the Shepherd’s Cottage and her Grandparents, especially her Grandad Sam. She was actually named after her Grandma- Ellie Gault; Gault being the family name.
Whilst her father was away in the Navy during the war, Ellie lived with her sister Sylvia mostly at her Grandparents cottage and had an idyllic childhood there and in the County Antrim countryside. At 5 years of age Ellie started school in the Orange Hall, Bushmills, then later Dunluce Primary School. Sundays were a day of church going- first to Dunluce Parish Church in the morning then Montgomery Sunday school in the afternoon, and perhaps the Gospel Hall in the evening. Her Grandparents certainly kept the Sabbath as a holy day and her Grandad used to say ‘if you want to read on Sunday there’s the good book’, meaning the Bible, even though they never went to Church themselves so Ellie had quite a strict Protestant upbringing.
After the war and when she was only 10 years old, she lost her Father so her Mother was left a young widow at 35 with three girls, which as you can imagine was quite traumatic. Ellie’s elder sister stayed at her Grandparents until she married in 1955, whilst Ellie and Iris and their Mother eventually moved to Belfast with the help of a family friend who had a grocery shop in Bushmills. They moved into a new home in Silverstream Gardens with the help of this friend for about eighteen months. For most of that time her Mother was ill and Ellie had to care for her and in doing so missed a lot of schooling.
When she did go to school she started at Carr’s Glen and finished at Mountcollyer’s. They later moved to York Road, Belfast where she stayed until her marriage. Leaving school at fourteen she had one or two jobs before getting employment at Gallaher’s cigarette and tobacco factory, one of Belfast’s biggest employers, after the Shipyard. The money was good and with her Mother a widow on only 10/ (50 pence) a week, Ellie was the only wage earner so most of her wages went on housekeeping.
It was while working there in 1953 that a young man from Leicester came to install some air conditioning plant in the same room that Ellie and about 100 other girls worked. Unbeknown to this Leicester lad Ellie had told her workmates that she thought him quite attractive and nice. Little did she know that this Leicester lad- me- thought Ellie was the loveliest girl he had ever seen, and knew she was the girl that he wanted to spend his life with.
Thus began a courtship between Ellie and me, a long distance courtship because I was travelling the whole of the UK and Ireland, so we only saw each other about every 2 weeks when I would fly over or catch the ferry for the weekend and holiday times. We got engaged on Christmas Eve 1953 and were married in February 1955 at St Paul’s Church of Ireland, Belfast.
After our marriage I gave up travelling and we got our first rented house in Upper Canning Street Belfast and eventually I got a job although it didn’t last long so we decided to move back to Leicester, the two of us and our lovely border collie Shelagh, where there was plenty of work. We lived with my Parents for a short while till we got a house in Highbury Road. Ellie got a job at the BTH on Melton Road- later Thorn Lighting- until she became pregnant with our first child Jacqueline in 1958. She didn’t work after that because in 1960 Nigel came along and then in 1961 Steven was third- and last.
Later on as the children got older Ellie had one or two part time jobs like shelf filling at Sainsbury’s in the evening, at a bakery on Belgrave Road in the afternoon and also an usherette at the Carlton Kinema in the evening- but not all on the same day naturally. In the end though she found permanent part time employment at C&A’s where she stayed for 25 years and she really enjoyed it. Being a good worker and time keeper they rewarded her with a really great ‘golden handshake’ when she retired in 1996 at 60 years old, you had to retire then at C&A’s, and she became a fulltime OAP with myself who had retired in 1995.
In 1985 we moved to a bungalow in Thurmaston and after retiring in the ‘90s enjoyed our lives together; gardening, holidays at home and abroad and walking as we always had a dog. I took up bowling in about 1987 and later Ellie joined me, and we both loved the game. Later Ellie became President of our first club, Leicester Telephones, and when we joined Loughborough Granby we were joint Presidents, the first time this had happened at the club in over 100 years. For 20 years at the Granby we enjoyed the social part of the game too until 2015 when Ellie had to give up bowling because of arthritis.
We both later took up curling at the Community Centre until Ellie was struck down with anal cancer and her whole life changed. She tried to fight it but unfortunately the dreaded C word took its toll and she finally could no longer fight it and sadly passed away at LOROS on Monday 8th July.
Only Jacqueline of the three children married in 1980 and Ellie adored her Grandchildren Nigel and Lianne and was lucky enough to see them both get married and was a proud Grandmother.
Both Ellie and I have had a beautiful 64 years of wedded bliss, loving one another every day as we had done from that very first meeting in July 1953. We met in July and sadly parted in July.