James Stevens LINKLATER Arthur David LINKLATER  LINKLATER Margaret DOUGLAS Mary Flint LINKLATER Edward James LINKLATER Adelaide Jeanette LINKLATER James Ernest LINKLATER Amelia Agnes BELL tree

Valdemar McLelland LINKLATER 1881-1953

Also known as Uncle Val



Uncle Val
Temporary image!

Apr 1953




Married Margaret DOUGLAS



Birth of a son


EVELYN: Amelia's 2nd son, Valdemar McClelland Linklater, was apprenticed to a firm of shipbuilders in Leith and eventually became a ship's architect, doing beautiful drawings of plans for the building of ships. He joined either a Yeomanry or Territorial Regiment - Northumbrian, I think - as a gunner and went to France early in the war (1914-18).

[img src="val_uniform.jpg" width="450" height="595" alt="Val in uniform" /]

[I am not sure, but I think the figure on the left is Val. Pencilled on the back of the photo is just “Val?”]

He fairly soon reached the rank of Major, was wounded and a bit shell shocked, but made a good recovery. He married Gretta, a war widow, and an officer in the WAACs. After the war he became a surveyor of ships for Lloyds and was. stationed at Caen in Normandy for some years. He was then transferred to Newcastle - where he had been before the war - and later to London.

He and Gretta bought a lovely old house in a small country town called Bishop's Stortford, about 20 miles from London, and when the 1939 war began Val went to Glasgow on an Admiralty job, retiring from Lloyds. He and Gretta lived on at Bishops Stortford after the war until he died, also from cancer, in 1951. Gretta still lives there.

Val was tall, fair and good looking as well as appreciative of the elegancies of living. His was a nature, kind, generous, affectionate and innocent in the right sense of the word. Gretta was a very good wife for him - sharing all his tastes and they were devoted to each other. Only one child who died at his birth. Gretta was an excellent cook, housekeeper and needle woman, who worked wonderful tapestries, petit point etc. She was also a collector of antiques and especially pewter. Both Naena and I were very fond indeed of Val - he and Mary Grant his sister, who died last year in Canada were our favourite cousins. We spent many happy times with Val and Gretta at Bishops Stortford, and Robin went there too.

Val may have died in 1953 or 1954?

Gretta was still living in Bishops Stortford in the 1970s in her 80s but probably died sometime in the 1970s