Tuesday’s Child is Full of Grace

The autobiography of May Vincent, née Canning: coming soon

I made a statement when Donald Trump became United States president, to the following effect: I would issue all blog posts hereinafter, until stability had returned to our world, on a free basis. That is in line with certain other bloggers on Substack and different to yet others who declare things like “we’re all in this together” and then charge a rentier fee to read some of their stuff or comment on it—even if you have good ideas, or want to point out that clearly not all of “we” are in it together, whatever together then means (what a dreadful precedent the US constitution laid down, don’t you think?) There are even some writers on Substack where I’m signed up for free and get more messages asking me to upgrade than actually telling me anything useful. I unsubscribe pretty quickly. I hope I’m not like them: my aim here is to nurture community, not unduly to profit from it.

Those who choose to pay a subscription to receive my posts have the additional benefit of my deeply felt, grateful thanks. I have not forgotten that pledge and you who pay out of the goodness of your hearts still have my gratitude. Thank you.

Some time ago, I mentioned in a comment on one of my posts that I am in possession of my mother’s mémoire, which one correspondent said they would like to read. So they shall: one hundred and eighty-two pages of typescript spaced at space-and-a-half. Very few illustrations, other than those which I am able to research and add. They are the self-written life story of a very ordinary woman who had a very extraordinary role in my life and in many people’s lives. What she has to say in her mémoire is what she has to say. I will be publishing it over a number of months in unexpurgated form, without comment or commentary (except to add [sic] where I identify obvious mistakes and typos, and to insert illustrations along with explanations of what they depict).

I shall not dangle before you tempting morsels of text from it: there is nothing earth-shattering contained in it, depending, of course, on what your definition of earth-shattering might be. But the fact that an ordinary Scotswoman took the time and trouble to record her own feelings and thoughts about her life and her interactions with her friends and family from the mid-1920s, through the war years and on through the century and into the late 1990s, is in itself pretty extraordinary. It’s an insight we don’t often get. It is, I can tell you, very personal.

If you are interested to read it, it will be published on Saturdays in instalments and available only to paid subscribers. The first instalment will be published on The Endless Chain on Saturday, 6 September 2025. Free subscribers will received the first paragraph as a “teaser”. I originally typed “teaset” there and, if it is successful, that, too, may yet occur.

It will be followed by a second work from my mother’s pen, entitled Karel, the biography of a Czech airman who was a close friend of my father’s and hers from my dad’s time in the Royal Air Force, who lived an extraordinary life filled with adventure, particularly after Czechoslovakia’s invasion by Nazi Germany. She often said that his life story would have been feature-film material (if anyone wishes to make that feature film, please apply here). The book was extensively researched, is profusely illustrated and to my mind very well executed, right down to its final words. That will likewise only be available to paying subscribers.

I believe these are suitable and appropriate ways to give paying subscribers that bit more than my simple thanks, by way of two extra publications as a mark of my gratitude for their generosity and friendship. They are limited to paying subscriptions because they were written well before, and have no bearing whatsoever on, the presidency of the US or the prime ministership of nations such as Israel and the United Kingdom in our own times.

If you’d like to take out a paid subscription, you may do so. This extra publication is not intended to entice you, however. Its aim is to say thank you to those who have already done so. The title Tuesday’s child is full of grace is my own addition. I was born on a Tuesday.

The authoress:

Mary Lochhead Vincent

born Glasgow, Scotland, Tuesday, 27 April 1926

died Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon, England, Friday, 24 February 2007