Ex-Lanark Grammar teacher passes away

Former teacher Ishabel Beal passed away earlier this month at the age of 94 following a batlle with pneumonia.
Ishabel Beal was a teacher for more than four decades in Carstairs Junction and LanarkIshabel Beal was a teacher for more than four decades in Carstairs Junction and Lanark
Ishabel Beal was a teacher for more than four decades in Carstairs Junction and Lanark

Originally from Glasgow, she married her husband David in Penilee in 1950 and the couple moved to Carstairs Junction in 1950 as a house was offered along with their jobs at the village’s junior secondary school.

Ishabel would stop work for a time to raise their five children Anne, Alisdair, John, Richard and Janet, before the family moved to Lanark in 1968 when she took up a position at the Grammar in the maths department.

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David died in 1988, but Ishabel kept working until 1992, and also kept herself occupied with numerous interests.

These included being secretary of Falls of Clyde SWT Nature Reserve, a stalwart of the Oxfam shop in Lanark, delivering Meals on Wheels, a life-long member of the Labour party and writing letters on behalf of prisoners of conscience for Amnesty International.

Ishabel’s son John said: “My parents were fixtures of the local communities in both Carstairs Junction and Lanark for decades and I’m sure mum will be well remembered by the thousands of children she taught over more than four decades, including myself.

“She was a very well respected teacher by both staff and pupils and had a particular concern for the teaching of girls who were not academic high fliers and had not had easy lives, but whose needs were all too often overlooked within the education system.

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“She gave a lifetime of service to others whether it was with the nature reserve, the Labour party, Oxfam or her numerous other interests – she always had something on the go to keep her occupied.”

In recent years Ishabel moved away from Lanark to live in Glasgow and is survived by her five children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Ishabel died in hospital on January 9, but due to the Covid-19 crisis her funeral will not take place at Craigton Crematorium until this Friday (January 29).

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