Auchencairn's Anne Williams shares her story in Galloway People

Anne was part of a committed group of volunteers who helped ensure the village's only shop survived

Sometimes it only take a few people with dedication and know-how give a fragile community hope for the future.

And there’s no question that Anne Williams and her team have done just that at Auchencairn.

Just a few years ago the village faced the prospect of losing its only shop. Many believed that would be another nail in the coffin of the coastal community of fewer than 400 souls.

But thanks to Anne, paid staff and a band of enthusiastic and committed volunteers, that didn’t happen.

Instead, the shop, cafe and nursery behind are now under community ownership and well-supported – and all have undergone major refurbishment following a hugely successful fundraising campaign.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds were secured, Anne explains, to make the premises attractive and fit for purpose.

But more of that later.

Unassuming and personable, vivacious 74-year-old Anne is modest about her achievements, which are many.

Her life, she tells me, began in Glasgow’s Southside, on Pollokshaws Road.

Her dad Iain Law met his future wife Elizabeth Pickering in post-war Germany, where both were stationed, in 1947.

“My mother was a nurse and had served in Sierra Leone and Ghana during the war.

“My dad had been a prisoner of war,captured by the Germans during heavy fighting in 1944 following the Allied invasion of Italy, where he saw some terrible things.

“They married in 1949 in Essex, where my mother came from. I’m the eldest of three, have a brother and sister, and went to Eastwood High School in Newton Mearns.

“I got into Glasgow University and graduated with an honours degree in psychology, by which time I had met my husband David. We got married in 1973, the year after my graduation, and when he went to Stirling to do a PhD in organic chemistry, I moved with him.

“When he became a teaching fellow at York University we moved to York and I got a job as a trainee psychologist at a big psychiatric hospital there.”

The experience, Anne recalls, at a time when psychiatric care was still in the dark ages, was one of borderline mayhem, with little attention paid to the greatly differing needs of patients.

“To be quite honest, I was absolutely horrified at what I saw,” she says quietly.

“It was a long-stay institution and they were still using ECT (electro-convulsive therapy) on patients’ brains.

“I had come through university basing my ideas around community care – I thought what was happening was terrible. People with learning disabilities were mixed in with people who were psychiatrically ill or who had Parkinson’s disease. It was near the end of these great big institutions, it was just pretty awful and a terribly old fashioned level of care.

“My motto was ‘in every job you must be able to do better than this’. I was in there for 18 months and it changed my ideas about my career.”

Anne and David moved to Liverpool, she tells me, after he got a research fellow post at the city’s university,

The move to Merseyside was a watershed moment – and one which provided a chance to rethink her future.

“I decided to change my career and work in social services,” Anne explains.

“There was a shortage of fully qualified social workers and Liverpool at that time was changing. I was sent to work in new overspill housing built after they cleared the old Liverpool 8, the Toxteth area of the city where Ringo Starr was born.

“It was a bit like what happened to the old Glasgow tenements, only in Liverpool it was back-to-back terraced houses. The people were moved out to these new estates where there were no shops or doctors.

“My work involved child care protection, mental health and disability – it was challenging but we all pulled together.

“The flats were not bad compared to the back-backs but the community was gone.

“I thought people should not have been put there with nothing.

“I thought to myself ‘this is a challenge’ but I was happy there.

“Liverpool had a great atmosphere and I really liked it.

“That’s when I knew I wanted to stay in community service.

“After a year in Liverpool, we moved to Manchester, where I worked in Leverhulme, another challenging area.”

Seeing urban deprivation in two cities at first hand, Anne remembers, made her determined to do more and did a two-year post-graduate degree in social work and social administration at Manchester University, followed by a masters degree.

“Local authorities were looking to recruit people who had done a proper qualification – and I needed to get qualifications to move forward,” she explains. “And they gave me a great foundation to work in community services in the rest of my life. First I went to work for the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) for two years as a child protection officer.

“I was sometimes quite scared standing on people’s doorsteps asking to see the children.

“In those days you went alone and there were no mobile phones and sometimes you got a police officer to accompany you.

“I can remember going out to Mosside – another challenging area – and my husband came with me.

“At least then there was not so many drugs which can make people much more volatile.

“But I have been spat at, beaten and once taking a child into care somewhere they set fire to the back of my car.

“When people say any good mum could be a care worker maybe they could be.

“But you need a lot of experience and a lot of good people round you when you come back from some of these visits. Training and supervision does help you not to take too much home. Gradually you learn how to manage it.”

After two years with the NSPCC, Anne continues, she joined Salford City Council – and found her true vocation.

“At that time Salford still had the docks on the canal and it was a very deprived area,” she recalls.

“I stayed there for 29 years until 2008, first of all working on the front line and then with a series of teams until in 1999 I was appointed director of social services, the council’s first woman director.

“I loved it – I liked the people and I found the council very good. It’s motto was from the English philosopher John Locke – ‘The Welfare of the People is the Highest Law’.

“They really tried to do that and protect social and children’s services on the front line.

“That’s why I stayed so long.

“I started doing work nationally with the Association of Directors of Social Services and chaired the research committee, which meant I contributed evidence on spending reviews for the government’s Department of Health. Latterly I became president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services in England and worked to raise the profile of social care to try and get more money for it, and contribute to the formulation of national policy.”

Anne is very unassuming about a career which culminated in 2008, when she was appointed as national director for learning disabilities in England by the Department of Health – a role she held until 2011.

Her service was recognised when she received the CBE in 2009, but she’s keen that we focus on Auchencairn and all the people involved in keeping the community viable.

So, how did she come to live – and become so involved – in a place a world away from round table talks with government ministers?

“Well, my husband and I had bought a small cottage in Auchencairn as our bolthole,” Anne tells me. “Over the next 30 years we came as much as we could, and in 2018 we retired here.

“Sadly I lost my David not long after we moved – we would have been 50 years married last year.

“I knew people and they knew something about me, and I was asked if I would come to the Auchencairn Initiative AGM and volunteer as a director.

“I went along – I suppose a bit naively – thinking there must be a lot of people and I’ll have to say what I have done.

“But they just said ‘yes please’!

“Then the person leading it took ill and within a month I found myself convenor.”

“Everything I have done has been with other people, other good people,” she stresses.

“The trustees of the initiative have been great, especially Dorothy Anderson.

“Our first challenge was that the shop was failing and people in the village were very concerned about that.

“We advertised for leaseholders and Vicki and James said they would run it on a new model for a couple of years. It was set up with new equipment with money from the initiative. The business kept going through Covid which made a huge difference.

“We aslo had a childcare service at the back of the shop.

“It was a great service but was getting marked down because of the state of the premises.

“Dorothy and I set about getting grant funding to extend and upgrade it and raised £180,000. We have got a beautiful childcare centre now which gets very good reports from the Care Commission. It gave us more space with proper children’s toilets and changing, a proper kitchen, a space for parents to sit and talk and a lovely garden.”

It seems a remarkable story success story but, as Anne explains, one which has only been made possible through adapting to changing circumstances.

“When Vicki and James decided they had done enough we had big village consultation about what people wanted and how quickly we could do it.

“The decision was that we did not think we could attract any more leaseholders because it was very difficult to make a village shop pay commercially, and we should try it as a community shop.

“It was more or less a seamless transition and we are now in our third year. More than 25 volunteers support the shop and cafe doing everything from doing the Bookers cash and carry run, washing all the hand towels and dishes, cooking, cleaning and serving.

“People are from all walks of life in the village – it has really has become a community hub.

“In five years the shop and cafe have really been transformed – it’s open 8am to 6pm every day except Sunday, there’s fresh food, baking, a takeaway service three nights a week – and we are managing to cover all our costs. During the winter it makes a loss so we have to ensure we keep a working capital to cover that period.”

That the enterprise remains strong Anne puts down to the dedication of the staff and volunteers, along with support from the wider community.

“We have a fabulous steering committee, an incredible and brilliant lady who does all the books and gives a weekly report on how much we have made and the staff are all on proper contracts.

“The golden thread is always looking at what we can do better.

“Working with communities in Liverpool I saw the effect of having no shops or facilities had on people.

“It’s the same in a rural community – if you don’t have a centre where people can meet it will die. Also, volunteering, meeting people and feeling useful is very good for people’s mental health.

“Lots of our volunteers are older – but that does not matter a bit. I have been a volunteer myself, especially since I lost my husband.”

“Auchencairn Initiative also owns community allotments and the community garden, which is also run by volunteers and is absolutely beautiful,” Anne adds in conclusion.

“The initiative has been going since 2001, and all of our assets have come together by volunteers applying for grants to buy them, our shop and nursery, the gardens – managing all of that has been done by volunteers.”

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