General Notes

Bert served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from March 1943 to July 1946. His war service included being on the beaches at Normandy on D-Day, as well as service in Belgium, India and Burma. Bert and Mary were married in the Stevenson Street Assembly Hall, Aberdeen. They lived at Motherwell, Dundee and Aberdeen.

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Poem written by his aunt Nell (b. Haining) Smith on the occasion of his birth:

LITTLE BERT

My brother went to Aberdeen
To better himself in life,
He waited there for some long months,
Then took to himself a wife.

They lived together hapily,
Then came this wonderful baby;
His mother was as proud of him
As any high-born lady.

His father, too, we understand,
Was also proud of his boy;
I am sure it must have filled their hearts
With happiness and joy.

To look into that baby face
And eyes of bonnie grey,
And pray to the Lord who reigns above
He may prove a blessing "one day."

And trust that he may never know
The heights or depths of sin,
But learn from his infancy
That Jesus died for him.

That he may tread the narrow way
Which leadeth into rest,
Then shall he surely understand
The narrow way is best.

Then with the ransomed up above,
When Jesus calls his own,
That little Bert may be amongst
The loved ones round the throne.

(poem found by Nell's daughter, Betty (b. Smith) Kemp, in a box of sheet music; reported by John Craven in his November 25, 2004 Christmas Letter)

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named after his grandfather, Robert Boyd Haining

  Birth Notes

Nigg is now simply a neighborhood in Aberdeen, within the Aberdeen City Council.

  Recorded Events in His Life

• He worked as a grocer.

• Nickname: Bert.

• Robert served in the military: Royal Army Medical Corps during WW II.

• He had a residence in 1975 in Dundee, Angus, Scotland.