A book by a Musselburgh woman has been published posthumously, after she lost her life from secondary breast cancer.

Funds from the sale of the late Lindsay Crofts’ book, in which shares her family history, will go towards Mary’s Meals – a charity close to her heart.

Her widower, Professor Roger Crofts, who has lived in Musselburgh for a decade, said: “Lindsay has pieced together the dramas and disappointments of her antecedents, revealed in letters and documents, expanding to take in the impact of global events.”

He added that the book, Hall Windows, made the story about the Hall family, timber merchants around Fisherrow Harbour, “accessible to all”.

The story is narrated by Helen Hall, the spinster daughter of Alexander Hall and Ann Burn, Fisherrow timber merchants who lived at Bush House, formerly on New Street.

Helen lived in a flat on London Street, in Edinburgh’s New Town, where she reminisces about the extended family, all those who married into it, and others who came to benefit from their contact with it.

Helen looks out of the window into the wider world, embracing Aberdeen, Edinburgh’s New Town, Dumfries and Dumfriesshire, Jamaica and St Kitts, in the Caribbean, and, perhaps most remarkable of all, Sierra Leone, in West Africa.

The story spans the period from the 1720s to the 1890s.

The book’s front cover was produced by Flora McKenzie, Lindsay’s niece, who now lives in New Zealand, the daughter of farmers Felicity and Calum, on North Island.

Lindsay, who has a connection to the Hall family on her mother’s side, was the daughter of Donald Manson and Isobel Hall.

She was born in Musselburgh and lived there most of her life. She was educated at Musselburgh Grammar School, where she became head girl, and then studied for a Bachelor of Education degree at Edinburgh University, teaching briefly at her old school.

She spent the rest of her career in what is now called the Scottish Government, specialising in housing and homelessness.

She also held senior administrative positions as private secretary to the Head of the Scottish Development Department, as secretary to the top management group, and on secondment as personal assistant to the chair and chief executive of Scottish Natural Heritage.

Sadly, she died in March 2021 after living for a period with secondary breast cancer.

In the book’s preface, Lindsay, writing in 2020, made it clear that “history was always a closed book to me… and then a few years ago I found the end of a piece of wool – a box of family papers – and was able to disentangle the story of an ordinary family, their ups and downs, their stars and also-rans and I finally got that history thing.”

Through the narration, readers learn of connections across Scotland and the world.

Professor Crofts explained: “There were timber traders in Fisherrow who joined forces through the marriage of Helen’s brother Bob to Ann Mitchell, the daughter of their former rivals, the Mitchells.

“Two generations earlier, Ann’s grandfather, a peripatetic exciseman, took a posting in Dumfries, where he trained Robert Burns, who in turn wrote a poem in thanks to him.

“Even further back, John Anderson, an Episcopal priest trained in Aberdeen, ended up marrying a sugar planter heiress in St Kitts and made a bequest which is still paid to Lindsay’s elder brother, albeit a minuscule amount.

“Helen’s uncle and family moved to Edinburgh and became merchants and civic leaders.

“Most extraordinary was the marriage of her sister Charlotte to a mixed-race son of a Dumfriesshire sugar planter and his Jamaican maid. He trained as a doctor in Edinburgh and subsequently became Surgeon General and then Governor General of Sierra Leone.”

Opening a window into each member of the family’s life, Lindsay has “created a family history with a difference”, he said, adding that the subtitle of the book was The Life and Times of an Extraordinary Scots Family.

Professor Crofts said Mary’s Meals, which would receive funding from the sale of his late wife’s book, was “an exceptional charity” which was “focussed and very effective”.

The organisation serves nutritious school meals to children living in some of the world’s poorest countries, and is feeding more than 2.4 million children every school day.

Professor Crofts said: “Lindsay trained as a teacher and understood the plight of homelessness and single parents from her work in the Scottish Government.

“She saw the need to feed children in body so that they are receptive to learning in the classroom.

“That’s the unique and outstanding purpose of Mary’s Meals and why she supported it so strongly.”

Produced by Birlinn, the book is available on payment of a donation of at least £10 to Mary’s Meals via justgiving.com/fund raising/RogerCrofts

Copies can be obtained from him on 07803 595267 or by emailing roger.dodin@btinternet.com