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Flower power route to success
By Leah Williamson July 2009 See this article as it appears in the magazine
“I still believe I can change the world today.” As she sweeps into our interview room like a tornado or some other force of nature you know she means it. From emigrating to the other side of world on her own and living through the Falklands War with a young family to her day-to-day battles as a Highland councillor, this is a woman who loves a challenge. Margaret was born and brought in the West Midlands town of Wolverhampton with a good dose of Irish thrown into the family mix from her mum and grandmother. “That’s had a big influence on my life, especially in the way I think!” She describes her education as “fairly classical”, studying English literature, science and Latin and attending a Catholic grammar school where she lost her Midlands accent. “I was a very restless child, I always wanted to get out. I didn’t understand it at the time but you don’t analyse these feelings when you’re young. “Like most families at that time we were very poor and I knew the only way out for me was through education.” Margaret completed her A-levels at her local college and was the first in her family to gain a place at university. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do except that I wanted to something practical. There were spaces available on the horticultural course at Nottingham University’s agricultural college and I had always been interested in the outdoors so that’s what I did.” Margaret spent three happy years in Nottingham, gaining an Honours degree in Horticultural Studies. Term time was spent between protesting the latest issues of the day and studying while summers involved exploring the West Country with friends, cycling and youth hostelling – wherever it was rural and remote. “It was a good time to go to university. It was the 1960s and flower power was in full swing! I suppose I was in quite a privileged position. Because I was on a low income, university was free. I had a summer job but because I had a little money left over I could enjoy myself and experience life. “There is far more pressure on young people going to university today because they know when they finish they’ll be leaving with thousands of pounds of debt. “I know if I had been in that position I would never have gone to university.” New Zealand As graduation day approached Margaret was unsure about what she wanted to do. “It suddenly hits you in your last year – the panic of having to get a job! But at that time, 1969/70 there were jobs on offer and I was tempted to go overseas. The New Zealand government was looking for horticultural advisors and would pay the fare so I attended an interview in London and got the job.
“It was a whole new world there. I shared a home at Auckland Harbour with a new group of friends and had an amazing time. It really widened my experiences. I was advising wine growers and at that time it was a relatively new industry in the country. Of course today, New Zealand and Australian wines are huge.” It was while in New Zealand that Margaret met and married husband, Donald, from Inverness. A meteorologist, Donald also had the travel bug and had been working for the New Zealand government assisting Antarctic expeditions. Donald had been planning to return to the Antarctic for another year but after meeting Margaret stayed only for the summer before heading to the South Island town of Christchurch where the pair were married and set up home together. But the travel bug struck again and the couple decided to move to the Falklands. “Donald had been there before working for the Met Office so we took the boat to Buenos Aires – it was the very last passenger trip across the South Pacific. It took about two weeks. It sounds exciting but there is a lot of ocean out there!” It was 1972 and the couple moved to West Point Island just off the Falklands to work on a sheep farm. “It was a lovely place to be. Great seascapes, wonderful wildlife – you could see penguins, whales, dolphins, albatrosses – it was a fantastic life.” The couple lived in the Falklands for 13 years, the last three of which were spent in Port Stanley. Their three children are born Falkanders. The family opened up a market garden business in Stanley selling their own vegetables for a marine garrison stationed nearby and also for the tourist ships which would call into port on their way to the Antarctic. It was a risky venture because if the weather was bad and the ships couldn’t dock a large chunk of their customer base instantly disappeared. The couple were later offered a plot of land and a house nearby which they ran as a hotel. Their garden was the forerunner of Abriachan Nurseries while the hotel just got busier and busier, with many Argentines visiting the area or popping in at the weekends for dinner. But their idyllic lifestyle was shattered on April 2, 1982 when Argentinian troops invaded and the Falklands War began. Lasting 74 days and resulting in the deaths of 225 British personnel and 750 Argentinians, the conflict formally ended on June 20 when Britain declared an end to hostilities, six days after the Argentine commander surrendered. Invasion Margaret vividly remembers the first day of the invasion.
“We filled the hotel with people who had lived on the hillsides around Stanley. The army were building gun points up there and people were terrified their homes would become targets, which they did. “We had been used to Argentines coming to the hotel for meals or for lunch and there was never a problem but that all changed after the invasion. “They were letting people leave the islands and we had our chance to go but our children were born Falklanders so we decided to see it out and we stayed.” By this point the family had three children – aged seven, five and six months. With news that the British were coming, Margaret and Donald had little option but to join their neighbours and take to the relative safety of countryside outside Stanley. “Everyone thought the British were going to land at Stanley to re-take it but of course they didn’t! They came in at San Carlos on the other side of the island and we were right in the path of the advancing British forces.” Margaret can laugh about some of her experiences of those terrible three months now but admits that it changed both her and Donald’s life forever. “On the day of the invasion I realised for the first time in my life that my freedom was gone. It was completely gone, it was out of my control. “It is a strange thing. It was the most terrifying time but also an exhilarating one. You can’t reason your way through war. We had to learn to dig foxholes, food got very, very low and you could hear bombs going off all around. When we came back to the hotel we found all the booze that we had buried under the conservatory. I also remember it was snowing at the end of the war and that a lot of the Argentinian conscripts had never seen snow before.” The family returned to their home but the aftermath of war was still apparent. A British unit had been billeted at their hotel, the water system had been fouled, there was no running water, everyone was suffering from dysentery and there was very little food. But it was only when a new garrison marched through Stanley’s streets, ironically the Highlanders, that pangs of homesickness hit the couple hard. It was time to go home. The family sold up and sailed back to the UK to set up a new home in Abriachan, by Loch Ness. “We didn’t know where we were going to live. But then we saw that a house in Abriachan was for sale and Donald was keen to get back to the Highlands – Highlanders always come home to roost.”
“We were shown film clips of the war on the way home and there was a clip on a newsreel of Donald walking down the street with the kids. An Argentinian crew had been filming in town that day and they approached Donald and the children. But he just walked on and gave them a big V-sign. Everyone thought it was great!” Thriving Since returning home the family have remained at Abriachan putting their horticultural skills to use by opening the nursery in 1984. The nursery, like the Davidsons, has thrived. “We spent the first two or three years in shock before we settled in. Every time we’d hear the RAF go over Loch Ness we used to cringe. The noise of war stays in your subconscious. But I have an undying respect for the British forces, they’re fantastic. I know, now more than ever, why the RAF does what it does.” Margaret admits the garden is her sanctuary, the place to keep her sanity intact, especially since becoming a Highland councillor for the Loch Ness west area in 1995. “My involvement in politics developed through the local school. I was involved in a local campaign to get a school bus for Dochgarroch primary and I realised the power people can have when they work together, especially women!” Margaret was key in the campaign to develop Abriachan Forest for the community and also joined her community council but it was in 1995 that her political career was put on a more formal footing. “Alistair Mackenzie from the old Highland Regional Council approached me and asked if I’d stand for the upcoming council elections. He assured me it would only involve two afternoons a week and maybe the odd evening!” Fourteen years on and Margaret remains a councillor for her local area and has been involved with the committees tackling the issues closest to her heart – education, community care, housing and social services. Her workload is considerably more than two afternoons a week and the odd evening but she loves the challenge. “Whenever I feel that I can’t cope with the pressure I just have to go out into the community to speak to people and it refreshes me.” With both her council duties and thriving business taking up most of her time it is hard to imagine she has time for any hobbies but she assures me she does. Horticulture, unsurprisingly, is a big love whether she is pottering about in her own garden, being the “Saturday girl” at the nursery or delivering lectures for the Royal Horticultural Society. Her other great passion is Land Reform. “I love it! I love the legislation and I love that it is about communities taking control. We saw it at Abriachan and I was on Ghia when they got their £3.5 million from the lottery for the community land buy-out. You don’t get many days like that. It was wonderful and I’d love to see it elsewhere.” Margaret admits that with such a hectic workload she and Donald rarely have time for regular holidays so when they do have a break they make sure it is a good one.
But it seems clear that while Margaret is still trying to change the world for the better, she wouldn’t change a moment of her own life. “It is challenging and exhausting but I wouldn’t have it any other way.” |
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“I WAS a classic child of the 60s believing I could change the world,” declares Aird and Loch Ness Highland councillor Margaret Davidson.
“The contract was to emigrate to Auckland for three years so I packed up my luggage and just went. It was about the furthest place from Wolverhampton on the planet!
“We spent that first day in the cellar listening to the radio which had become our lifeline. The army arrived at the hotel, rounded people up and told them to leave. Over the next month Stanley became progressively different. The schools were closed, people were told their children would only be taught Spanish, more and more soldiers appeared on the streets and you couldn’t meet in groups. 
The long journey home proved to be an entertaining one, however, as Donald became something of a cult hero among the passengers who were also leaving the Falklands behind them.
Recently she has returned to New Zealand to visit her daughter who, following in her mum’s footsteps, emigrated to the country.
