Biography

Alexandra Walker (née Stewart) was born at Laggan Ferry, Glen Lyon, in June 1896. One of nine children born to Alexander and Catherine Stewart (née Dewar), Alexandra grew up in Woodend, Glen Lyon, where Gaelic was plentiful in her youth.

She lived in the Glen until her thirties, when both she and her parents moved to Aberfeldy, following the trend of rural depopulation in the Perthshire glens. She worked in many a job, from field labourer, to dairymaid, to schoolteacher. In 1945, she married John Walker in Aberfeldy.

Alexandra's father, Alexander, was a shoemaker and Gaelic scholar (author of 'A Highland Parish'), and she followed in his footsteps in her later years, writing two books about her youth in Glen Lyon - 'The Glen that Was' (1975) and 'The Daughters of the Glen'(1986).

She was recorded extensively by Anne Ross in the 1960s, and we are privileged to have nineteen tracks of Alexandra's on our website in which she speaks on a variety of topics, from local history, to Perthshire Gaelic and stories of the supernatural.

Alexandra passed away in Aberfeldy in February 1991, at the age of 103.