Gordon Joseph Gray: Scottish Cardinal

Abstract

Speaking to Cardinal Gray, one was repeatedly reminded of his early years at home, of his family's background and of his religious heritage. He was brought up in Leith, but the family came from the North East, from the Portsoy area of Banffshire. His father was a mechanical engineer of some distinction, a man who pioneered techniques of paper-making from bamboo pulp, but his ancestors had been farmers, miders and gardeners. They were Catholics, for the most part, and he himself was fornied in a similar image: practical, prayerful, positive and committed. Gordon Gray was always very conscious of these factors and of their importance in shaping his character and oudook. He was proud of his inheritance, particularly of the long-standing Catholic traditions associated with his 'native' Banffshire, and he was immensely proud of his parents and the home they created. Roots and continuity were very important to the Cardinal.1 He was no less proud of the fact that he had been bom and bred a 'Leither'. At the time of his birth in 1910 the family2 stayed near the foot of Leith Walk within a few yards of the engineering works of James Bertram and Son. Gordon Joseph's father, who had started there as a draughtsman, was then works manager. He later became a director. Gordon was stid very young when the family moved to Dudley Terrace, and then to a much bigger house in Newhaven Road (with three storeys and a basement). One of his most vivid memories of those days was looking through the window one evening when his father opened the bdnd. There, silhouetted against the sky, was a Zeppedn airship: one of the bond houses in the docks was ablaze, having been hit by its bombs. Most of his childhood memories were happy ones, however, including family holidays in Portsoy where the children would codect pieces of the local marble to make ornaments, and hear tales of the Jacobite past. There were memories, too, of his father's workshop, of the garden, and the church. When asked in later years why it was that he chose to become a priest he would stress three factors: his parents and home, his priestiy uncle (a 'favourite uncle') and his local church and its parish priest when he was a youngster. To Gordon Gray his father was