Scotsman Obituaries: Veronica McTernan, ​respected Labour Party activist

Veronica McTernan, Labour Party campaigner and Children’s Panel member. Born: 24 February 1937 in London. Died: 6 January 2023, aged 85
Veronica McTernan had a passion for people and politicsVeronica McTernan had a passion for people and politics
Veronica McTernan had a passion for people and politics

Veronica McTernan, who has died aged 85, was a lifelong Labour Party member and campaigner for social justice.

For more than 50 years, from the late 1960s onwards, she was a familiar figure in Edinburgh political circles, working tirelessly for children and young people.

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Her work started when pushing for a new primary school to relieve the then overcrowded South Morningside Primary School, continued with her serving as a Children’s Panel member, and culminated in her role as a Safeguarder representing the interests of children in the Panel system.

Always committed to flying the flag for Labour, Veronica stood for the council repeatedly in the rock-solid Conservative wards in south Edinburgh.

She never won, but definitely made an impact. One voter wrote against her name on the ballot paper “not under any circumstances” – a message the Tory candidate vainly tried to claim as a vote for them. Gordon Brown, who first stood for parliament in Edinburgh South in 1979, credits Veronica’s activism with laying the foundations for Labour’s eventual success in the seat.

Her political campaigning was part of her life wherever she went. In Peebles, where she worked for progressive causes into her eighties, she made friends across parties – during the referendum campaign both local Conservative MP David Mundell and Better Together campaign leader Alistair Darling asked her to take selfies with them.

In Murrayfield House, her final home, she was still following politics closely and arguing passionately for her values.

Born Veronica Murphy in London in 1937, she came from a political background – her parents met as Irish language campaigners – and as a child she was evacuated to her aunt and uncle’s home in Northern Ireland.

A scholarship took her to St Anne’s Convent School, now Ealing Fields High School. Mary O’Brien, the future Dusty Springfield, was a fellow pupil and fellow member of the school hockey team, and though in the year below was allowed to hang out with Veronica and the older pupils because she “was so cool”.

Leaving school at 18, Veronica went to work at EMI as a “computer” – when that term meant mathematician – and, arguing in a canteen queue with a colleague, she sparked a relationship, and love, with Allen McTernan that lasted a lifetime.

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Having started a family in London, Veronica moved to Edinburgh when her husband got a job with Heriot-Watt University. In the mid-1970s, with her children all in school, she became one of the founding members of the Lothian Region Children’s Panel.

This work harnessed her sharp and searching intellect and her deep personal empathy to the cause of understanding and supporting some of the most complex and troubled families in Scotland. Veronica gave herself to the work, eventually deciding that her energy was best focused on making the case for the children in the system.

So, from the mid-1990s until her retirement in 2002 she was a Safeguarder, representing the interests of the children in cases. Many families and young people benefited from Veronica’s energy and advocacy.

In parallel, in the early 1980s she took herself back to education, studying A-levels at Edinburgh University’s Extra-Mural Department.

In an article aimed at encouraging others to return to formal education, Veronica told The Scotsman: “You have to believe dust on the top of the piano is irrelevant”.

With her A-levels under her belt Veronica went to Heriot-Watt University and studied successfully for a degree in Business Studies and Spanish. At 52 a new life beckoned, and then, tragically, her husband Allen died while they were enjoying their favourite social activity, Scottish Country Dancing.

Veronica’s personal courage in the face of such a loss and bravery in building a new life for herself over the next three decades was an inspiration to her friends and colleagues in local politics, the panel system, and in ASH Scotland where she worked.

Moving to the Borders in 2010, she rejected a quiet retirement. Veronica joined the local Labour Party where she became a stalwart of the local Women’s Section, held fundraising lunches and campaigned.

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Her proudest achievement was to stand in a Scottish Borders by-election where she pushed the British National Party, who were on a foray north of the Border, into sixth place.

As striking an achievement was that in the last local election she fought, the combined experience of the candidate and Veronica as the agent was more than 150 years!

Late in life, and during the pandemic, a stroke removed Veronica from the home – and kitchen – where she loved to hold court over a cup of tea or coffee and a slice of home-made cake.

Veronica, who died on 6 January, led a life full of love, and is survived by her seven children, John, Fiona, James, Katy, Michael, Maggie and Angela, and 14 grandchildren.

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