1. Passing the Qualie

Lorna at school at Kilmarnock Academy

WHEN I was finishing primary school in 1965, we sat the qualifying exam to see what secondary school we were going to go to. If you passed, you went to Kilmarnock Academy, and if not, you went to one of the junior schools.

I passed, and going to Kilmarnock Academy gave me a great opportunity in life because I was able to take subjects like French, Latin and sports, and there were debating societies. It was a fantastic school but it also opened my eyes to social groupings which I had previously never been aware of.

I can still see myself sitting in class and hear the teacher reading out the list and thinking I had made it. To get the school bus we had to go up the hill from the council houses meeting those from the private houses. I remember the surprise of some of the mothers from the “bought” houses when they heard I was going to the academy. That has stuck in my memory ever since.

My father had actually won the bursary to go to the academy when he was young, but was unable to take it up as his dad had been killed in a mine explosion. He had to go to work at the brickworks to keep the rest of the family.

2. My mum’s death

Lorna's mum and dad

MY mother died when I was 15. That meant I really had to grow up very fast. I was an only child and my dad was on shifts.

I had been brought up in a Christian home attending church and Sunday School, but her death made me think a lot about my faith.

When she died it was pretty awful. She had bone cancer and in those days there was little care, and with no hospice facility she died in a geriatric ward. That was a pretty terrible time, but I think it brought out a resilience in me and a determination to do my best.

My faith helped me through that, but I did wonder. My mother was the quietest, gentlest person and it just didn’t seem fair that she was dying in such pain.

In later life it helped me to understand what people are going through in times of grief and be more empathetic.

3. Professor Robert Davidson

GOING to the academy meant I had the opportunity to go to university. I was the only one out of 23 cousins to go to university and took an MA in History and the Principles of Religion at Glasgow University. I went on to do my Bachelor of Divinity there after being selected by the Church of Scotland to be a candidate for the ministry.

One of my professors was Robert Davidson. He taught me it was okay to doubt. Until then I had just accepted faith without really questioning it. He helped me examine what I believed, pull it apart and then put it together again. That has allowed my faith to develop and grow. I remember once coming out of hospital after a baby had died and shouting at God, but knowing he accepts our anger.

Faith is not set in stone and my faith now is very different from those days. My thoughts on marriage and the LGBT community, for example, have changed over the years.

4. Going to Canada

KNOWING I was going to be studying divinity, I decided not to work in Marks & Spencer for another summer but rather go and work in Canada.

By this time my father had died. He died when I was 19 and I was very much on my own, so I got a job with the Presbyterian Church in Canada who sent me to a wee village called Stokes Bay on Lake Huron.

It had a population of 100, although it went up to around 600 in the summer with holiday visitors.

I worked there for three-and-a-half months as their minister even though I was just 22 and a first-year divinity student.

It changed me in many ways, as I was still quite naive. I conducted my first funeral there.

An 11-year-old boy had been shot by his 15-year-old brother who was sitting in the front row at the service. I was terrified but I had no choice and just had to get on with it.

However, I became very much a part of the community. They loved my accent.

5. Going to Renfrew

IN 1979 I was called to Renfrew North Parish Church and remained there for 37-and-a-half years. I was the first woman in the presbytery and when people heard it was a woman, they asked only one question – “Was there naebody else?”

It was a huge step for them and a huge step for me. It was a big congregation in those days – around 900 – and I went there when I was 26. Peter got a job at Lanarkshire Health Board as an auditor and we were married on July 7, just a week after my induction to the charge.

6. Having a family

I HAD been in Renfrew for five years when we decided to start a family. I had then to decide whether I would stay in ministry. Ministers are supposed to remain in their first charge for five years, so when the congregation was told I had an announcement to make they thought I might be leaving. They burst into applause when I told them I was expecting a baby. The decision was made to stay.

I did get morning sickness, but in those days there was no printed order of service so if I felt sick I would just announce the offering and sit down.

Laura was born in 1984 and Michael was born four years later. I was the first minister to have maternity leave and at the time the Church of Scotland didn’t have a proper policy. I was happy to propose one at the General Assembly two or three years later.

I could not have gone back to work without the most supportive husband in the world.

7. My granddaughter

BETH was born 15 months ago and that has brought us much joy. My daughter is a GP and had to go back to work after six months, so Peter and I went three days a week to Dundee to babysit.

That was wonderful because if you are a working parent you don’t have much time, whereas this time we did, and we loved it. She is now at nursery but we still visit. My son’s wife is expecting a baby in July.

Being grandparents is the icing on the cake. People say it is the most wonderful thing and I always thought “yeah, yeah”, but I have become a bore with photos on my phone and all that sort of thing – I’m besotted with her! It’s great, and when things go wrong you just hand them back.

8. Meeting women who had lost their babies

I WAS asked to join the chaplaincy team at the Royal Alexandra Hospital with responsibility for the maternity unit.

After two or three weeks I was visiting an antenatal ward where I thought all the women were about to give birth. I greeted them as ladies-in-waiting, but when I got to the bed of the last woman, she told me she was no longer in waiting as the baby had died. I wanted a big hole to open up and swallow me.

I spoke to the senior midwife afterwards who said they were desperate to do something about this and asked if I would like to join a project that had been set up to look at stillbirth and miscarriage. It was supposed to last just a few weeks but it lasted two years. It was like opening a can of worms.

The project won an award and totally changed the ways these things were dealt with in hospitals, allowing mothers (and fathers) to grieve.

I held the first memorial service and a huge number of people turned up. Some had lost a baby 40 years before and said it was the first time they had been able to say goodbye. Very often the babies were just taken away without the mothers knowing where. Through it, I found out my own mother had lost a baby boy before I was born, but I don’t know what happened to him.

9. Becoming Moderator

I WASN’T the first woman to hold the post, but I was the first female parish minister.

Being Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2013-14 was the most fascinating year of my life. It was also the year I spent more time with my husband than ever before.

He had taken early retirement and was able to travel with me. We went up and down the country from Shetland to the Borders, with some trips overseas, including the Caribbean – someone had to do it!

I took part in the Queen’s Jubilee service and the Lockerbie service and took the salute at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Every day was a huge experience.

I also enjoyed being in an office. Ministers are very much on their own and it can be lonely, so I loved being at the Church of Scotland headquarters in Edinburgh.

10. Remembering Srebrenica

Lorna Hood at massed graves in Srebrenica

AT the end of 2013, I took a call from Angus Robertson MP, who said he was taking the first Scottish delegation out to Srebrenica and asked if I would like to be part of it.

I knew about it but I was not fully aware of the circumstances until I went there. It made such a big impact, hearing stories of the genocide and speaking to wives and mothers still fighting for justice as many of the perpetrators of crimes were still living in their midst.

There are people living there who still deny it ever happened. There are also questions about the UK and its non-intervention policy along with the failure of the UN to protect.

It had a huge effect on me, and I became chair of a new Scottish board of Remembering Srebrenica. We are now a registered Scottish charity with Scottish Government funding, taking out more than 130 people and organising memorial events. The first memorial service was held in July 2015 in St Giles, where the First Minister, who has also visited, spoke. With our education pack and programme for schools, we have grown significantly in a few years.

Along with YouthLink, another charity which I chair, Remembering Srebrenica has really dominated my later life. In recognition of this work I was awarded the OBE in 2017.

Lorna Hood was awarded the OBE in 2017 in recognition of her work with the charity Remembering Srebrenica, which she chairs

It’s important because many still don’t know about the horrendous things that happened. There were 20-50,000 rapes as well as 8000 massacred, and if it could happen there, it could happen anywhere, if we allow hate speech and racism to go unchecked. We like to think of Scotland as being open and welcoming, but we are not immune to racism and hate speech. Just look at social media.