What was it like living in Campbeltown 150 years ago? We have some idea of the number of people in the town, what they did for a living, what kind of house they lived in, but what kind of people were they? What made them laugh, and what made them cry? We need a good gossip. Someone who was living in Campbeltown at that time and who had a sharp eye and a keen ear for the little details of everyday living, which brings dry statistics to life - and, luckily, we have one. Her name was Mary Streete Campbell, and she came to live in Campbeltown in 1815, when she was nine years old. Her father, who was a native of the town, had been in command of a company of the Argyll Militia during the Napoleonic Wars, and Mary, together with the rest of her family, had led a peripatetic life following his various postings in Scotland, Ireland, and the south od England.

But by 1815 Napoleon had been disposed of, and Thomas Campbell returned home to take up an appointment as surveyor of roads in Argyll. In Campbeltown Mary grew from child to woman, the dutiful eldest daughter in a large family of 11 sons and daughters. She never married and, in 1839, went out to the West Indies to join the household of her eldest brother, Donald. Like many a Campbeltown family before and since, the Campbells scattered across the world. Four of Mary's brothers are buried in Jamaica ( where an older generation of the family owned estates ), and at least one brother and sister settled in the United States.

In the course of her long life, ( she died in 1900 in her 90th year ), Mary lived in both the United States and the West Indies. But when she was a very old lady, living in Edinburgh, and was given a present of a diary to record her memories, her thoughts went back over sixty years to Campbeltown, and to the precious time when the family were growing up together in their home in Kirk Street. Later her diary was printed as a slim booklet under the title, "A Nonagenarian's Memoirs".

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