Perth's first female provost's daughter pays tribute to devoted mum who always put others' needs first
Jean McCormack DL served as provost from 1992 until 1996
The daughter of Perth's first ever female provost has paid tribute to her mum as a devoted family woman who always put others first.
Jean McCormack DL died on Wednesday, June 18 aged 87.
First elected onto Perth and Kinross Council in 1982, Jean went on to serve as deputy leader, leader of the administration, then provost from 1992 to 1996 and was a Deputy Lieutenant until aged 76.
Born and raised in Dundee, Jean was the second of four girls.
She is survived by her husband Peter (88), son Peter (62), daughter Carrie McLennan (60) and her five grandchildren: Katie, Reece and Lewis McLennan and Patrick and Olivia McCormack.
Daughter Carrie said her mum was "always thinking of other people and how to make life easier for others".
While Jean served as a Conservative councillor, her political life started with a stint doing voluntary work for a senior SNP politician.
Her uncle Wallace Kinloch was the election agent for SNP MP for Perth and East Perthshire Douglas Crawford. He asked her to take on the job of constituency secretary in 1976.
Carrie said: "She was unsure about it but he said, 'You can write letters, answer telephone calls, what else do you need'? And she thrived on that and really enjoyed it. It was a voluntary role.
"Then she moved on to become an election agent, but after tackling a general election and a Euro election in the same year she took two years out, before winning a by-election in her own ward, the Carse of Gowrie as a Conservative."
Helping others was what drove Jean.
Carrie said: "For my mum, the politics were less important than serving the community and the people in that community."
During her time as councillor she played a part in securing sheltered housing in Errol and was proud of Perth's reputation in town twinning and the start of Perth in Bloom's repeated success.
Perth first won Scotland in Bloom in 1992 before going on to win its first Britain in Bloom award in 1993, claiming the large town trophy ahead of 1300 entrants.
Carrie said: "She drove the application as provost and they went down to London for the award and had quite a hoolie in the hotel room I believe."
Carrie added: "For five years she was chair of Friends of Aschaffenburg, Perth's longest established twin town and she was on the working committee for the Peace Child event and formed close ties with John Chan of the Jade Garden restaurant in Perth."
In August 1997 Jean was awarded Officer of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland for promoting British-Polish relations and it was her work with the Polish community she was most proud of.
Back in 1986, her son Peter announced he was going on a rail holiday to Poland and what was then Czechoslovakia. This being before the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall, it was a somewhat unusual holiday choice.
It helped spark a long-lasting friendship between Jean and her husband Peter and a local Polish couple Nana and Janek Jarmulski, who frequented Perth's Conservative Club.
When Britain geared up for celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day in May 1995, Janek and Nana expressed concern to Jean that the Poles might again be excluded from any commemorations.
As Provost, Jean was the driving force behind arranging for Perth to host the largest VE commemorations in 1995 outside London and she made sure the Polish veterans were warmly invited.
As a former primary school teacher, Jean valued education and was devoted to her family.
Jean and her husband Peter - who lived on the same Dundee street - began dating in their teens. They celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary in December 2024.
The pair loved cruising and, according to Carrie, "saw most of the world from a cruise deck".
And, as Peter is the co-owner of Perthshire Caravans, it is perhaps no surprise they enjoyed caravan and motorhome holidays. The couple travelled all over Scotland and Europe and only stopped recently when the COVID pandemic hit. In fact, they loved it so much they even lived in a caravan, when they lived in England, until their house was built in 1970.
Becoming Perth's first female provost was a huge deal.
Carrie said: "It was massive at the time and she was nervous about it. One of the highlights for her was the relationship she had with the High Constables of Perth.
"I was at home the first time she had to go to the annual dinner. She was the only woman in a room of 100-odd men.
"I remember she said her first joke was, 'Now gentlemen, you need to look really closely at what I'm wearing, which caused confusion until she said - because it will be the first thing your wives will ask you when you get home'.
"It's a joke of its time. Mum was a woman of her generation."
Jean's funeral will take place at Perth Crematorium on Wednesday, July 9 at 1.30pm. All are welcome.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Labour MPs call out Keir Starmer's 'rushed' disability cuts
The Prime Minister faced losing the July 1 vote on his Government's proposals to save £5 billion per year, primarily by cutting back Personal Independence Payments (Pip) – the main disability benefit paid to people in and out of work – and the health element of Universal Credit. After some 129 Labour MPs, as well as dozens from other parties, backed a 'reasoned amendment' which threatened to topple the cuts, Starmer rowed back and now plans to create a staggered system whereby current claimants will have their incomes protected in real terms, while claimants after November 2026 face cuts. UK Government figures projected that Starmer's original plans would force 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into relative poverty. Under the revised plans, 150,000 people will be pushed into poverty. READ MORE: Tommy Sheppard: SNP must treat the Holyrood lists as the most important votes Labour MP Cat Eccles told the BBC that the concessions from the UK Government had come 'far too late'. 'We're not going to hear what the Secretary of State has got to say until later this afternoon, and then just 24 hours later, we're going to be expected to vote on this and just take the government's word that everything will be OK,' she went on. 'I just feel the bill is being really rushed through. The committee stages and 3rd reading will occur during the following seven days. These are processes that would normally take several weeks. 'They'd go in front of committee and hear oral evidence from people involved in organisations, people with lived experience, and we're not getting any of that.' Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall will outline the changes to the Labour Government's proposed cuts on Monday afternoon in a bid to quell the rebellion. Work and Pensions Secretary Liz KendallHowever, Eccles said the new proposals had been 'quickly drafted over a weekend just to rush it through'. 'I just cannot understand what the hurry is,' she added. Asked how many Labour MPs may still be planning to rebel and vote against the cuts, Eccles said there were 'a very large number of MPs who are awaiting the statement today, a large number who are just still completely opposed, and there's a number of people that we don't know what they're thinking at all, but we do know they're uncomfortable'. 'So I think it's still all up in the air about what could happen [at Tuesday's vote]', she added. Vicky Foxcroft, the Labour whip who resigned over the proposed welfare cuts, told The Guardian on Monday that the UK Government's concessions do not go far enough to win her round. READ MORE: UK Government wins High Court battle over exports of F-35 parts to Israel 'I would hope that actually we start to ensure we listen to disabled people and their organisations right across government. This isn't just about warm words. This is about making sure we get policy right', she said. 'Right now, we're kind of tinkering in terms of things to make it the least worst situation we can, and we need to learn lessons from that and make sure that we get these things right going forward.' And Simon Opher, a Labour MP and GP, also criticised the revised plans. 'It's not that we don't appreciate the concessions, we just feel that really, it's not going to help the situation,' he told the BBC. 'We want to really design a really good benefits system that looks after people, encourages people back to work, and also doesn't incorporate a two-tier system into the benefit system, which will cause problems in the future I'm sure.' Diane Abbott was among the Labour MPs to criticise Keir Starmer (Image: PA) Starmer has further faced criticism from Labour grandee Diane Abbott, who called out his claim to have been too focused on international affairs to head off the backbench rebellion. 'The PM surely does not expect anyone to believe he did not realise taking over £5 billion from the disabled was wrong because he was abroad,' Abbott wrote on social media.
New Statesman
an hour ago
- New Statesman
George Osborne is still trashing the UK economy
Photo byThe Lifetime Isa sounded like an unbeatable idea: put up to £4,000 a year into a savings account and the government would add 25 per cent on top. What a bargain! A grand a year, for free! And for some people – people who could afford not to touch the pot until they used it to buy a home – that's exactly what it was. But for those who weren't sufficiently well-off to make proper use of it, the Lisa was a failed bet. The Lifetime Isa was part of George Osborne's highly successful programme to inflate the British housing market. Announced in Osborne's 2016 Budget speech, it joined Help to Buy (£29bn in government-backed, interest-free loans) in juicing demand among first-time buyers even as house prices rose beyond a joke. As with the other defining characteristics of the Osborne economy (such as low interest rates and quantitative easing), it helped contribute to the 'wealth effect' – the sense among property-owning middle classes that they were becoming better off because the value of their assets was inflating. Economically, the idea is that this causes people to spend more and grow the economy; politically, the idea is that this causes people to vote Conservative. But as a new report by the Treasury Committee shows, bungs like the Lifetime Isa are worth more to some people than to others. The key statistic is the number of people who ended up taking money out of their Lisa, thereby incurring a hefty penalty, before they used it to buy a home. In 2023-24, nearly 100,000 people found themselves in this position, while fewer than 60,000 used their Lisa to buy a home. This means large numbers of people – the people who could least afford to lose money – ended up with less than they had originally deposited. The Lisa has in this sense worked as a regressive benefit, handing free money to people with good jobs and/or wealthy parents, who could afford not to open the pot before buying a house – at the expense of those who could not afford to keep their money locked up. Again, I'd suggest this has some political implications in terms of which party's voters are more likely to benefit from the policy. The Lisa report should also be read in the context of a wider problem in the economy, which is that the UK has one of the lowest savings ratios in Europe, and a growing problem for Britain's future, which is that very large numbers of young people are not saving enough for retirement. Despite the introduction of auto-enrolment, an estimated one in five younger workers have never paid into a pension and more than half have paused their pension contributions. The Lisa was one way of betting that this could be worked around by getting people on to the housing ladder, and using their home as their main investment. But when the government uses finance to help one set of people on to the housing ladder, it also raises the bottom rung for everyone who wasn't able to jump on, and brings the whole wobbling, inflated construct a breath closer to popping. This means such policies carry a risk for everyone, even those who benefit in the short term, because people shouldn't be relying on a single asset in the property market for their retirement – they should have a diverse set of assets in different markets, managed by professionals and making use of the considerable tax breaks and employer contributions that come with pension savings. The Lisa therefore ticks a number of the how-not-to-make-policy boxes: it is short-termist, it favours one set of voters, and it quietly undermines the economy of the future. The trouble with policies like this is that by the time a responsible body like the Treasury Committee makes it clear how bad they are, the politicians who benefited from them have long since left, and are chuckling into a podcast microphone. This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe [See also: Keir Starmer's 'Island of strangers' speech was right] Related
The National
2 hours ago
- The National
Theatrics of Unionist duo on Question Time were cringeworthy
Both Bowie and especially Sarwar are the perfect examples of everything that is wrong with Scotland when it comes to Scots attacking all things Scottish for their London puppet masters. To be fair to him, Andrew Bowie at least comes across like he has some manners and a warped kind of dignity, but Anas Sarwar came across as a totally spoilt wee brat who constantly tried to speak over the presenter and ignore all efforts to rein him in as he delivered his usual absolute drivel trying to rubbish the NHS staff and constantly mentioning the ferries, as he completely ignored the enormously damaging and farcical decisions from down south that are hundreds of times more costly. READ MORE: Question Time called out as Reform councillor on St Andrews panel It was an absolutely pathetic spectacle to have to watch, and the only thing more pathetic to witness was the tiny wee handful of audience members who actually clapped at the end of Sarwar's constant drivel. Perhaps I am reading this wrong and they were simply clapping in delight that someone had eventually managed to take out his batteries. When, oh when, are we going to get an SNP politician who will demand to be heard, call out the downright lies, not sit down when told to until they get their point across, and to point out every much bigger failure they have made down south rather than sit meekly and accept it? On a slightly different note... Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte has told the world they will need to learn Russian if their countries do not spend tens of billions – money few of them have – on defence, which in reality is quite simply to help enrich the armament companies even more, which in turn boosts the US economy. Watching this excuse for a man sook up to the orange clown at the Nato summit really prompts the question: is the Western world full of complete clowns when it comes to leading their countries and organisations across the world? If it is not, they are certainly doing a good job of pretending they are, with the likes of what we see across the pond and over here in Westminster and now at Nato. READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch slams Labour benefits cuts on Question Time Lastly, we really have to ask ourselves what on earth are the SNP doing, only managing to gain a tiny 20% or so of the vote from the polls of people's voting intentions from across Ayrshire and the South of Scotland, whilst the reviled Tories and Farage's new party have around 50% of the intended vote between them? OK, we all know there's a hotbed of sectarianism which blights this part of the land, which would rather place a vote that damages their own family's prospects, but it also points to many people wanting to escape the absolutely monstrous mess down south but who also seem too feart to dip their toe too far into Scotland so tend to mainly stay close to the Border, judging by these results! We can all understand the move away, but for the life of me I can't understand why somehow with the cahoonas to make the move north in the first place, who can then witness the truly awful impact of the damage done to Scotland under Westminster rule with their own eyes, and then vote for more of the same! It's for the birds, it really is. There really is nowt as queer as folk. Could you imagine what could be achieved without a shower o' wee timorous beasties representing us all? Iain K Dunoon
