Saints alive, it's original cine
DECADES-OLD
footage of family members of Edinburgh's would-be saint and one of the first
people she is said to have miraculously cured has been discovered.
Margaret Sinclair, a nun from Blackfriars Street who cared for Edinburgh's slum-dwellers, is tipped to become Scotland's second saint. Two old cine reels containing the rare interviews were handed in at the priests' house at St Patrick's on the Cowgate, where Margaret is buried. She died at the age of 25, of Tuberculosis The parish priest had them converted into a DVD which will be shown at the church on the annual Margaret Sinclair pilgrimage day tomorrow. On the tape, aged nun Mother McMahon tells how Margaret miraculously cured her of severe arthritis and Margaret's sister Bella, also a nun, describes her goodness.
The footage, shot in the 1960s, shows actors playing out Margaret's life story, interspersed with real-life interviews. It was handed in to Father Richard Reid of St Patrick's by an elderly man, whom the parish priest believes may have been the brother of the original film-maker.
Mother McMahon, from the Sacred Heart convent in Dublin, tells in the DVD how she attributed to Margaret her cure from excruciatingly painful arthritis, on May 19, 1928, three years after Margaret's death. She said: "I'm a very old woman now, over 80. There was no hope of a cure and I went about with the aid of a stick."
She describes her reaction after walking down the stairs in agony as usual when on the last stair she suddenly became pain-free.
"An extraordinary thing happened as I was going down the stairs. I had no pain. I jumped up on a stool, raced down a long corridor, did exercises formerly impossible and knelt for the first time in many years."
Wondering at the source of her cure she contacted her sister, who told her she had been praying to Margaret Sinclair for her recovery. Mother McMahon's original testimony was included in the first documents to be sent to Rome as part of the campaign to have Margaret made a saint, which began shortly after her death.
Bella, Margaret's sister and best friend, became a nun with the Little Sisters of the Poor in England, with whom she was known as Sister Cecilia. She gives testimony about Margaret's goodness, telling how she used to tidy up the family home and always tried to cheer up those around her.
Fr Reid said: "It's a wonderful piece of archive to have. What struck me most was listening to Bella, her sister, as they were so close. To hear her voice gives me some notion of what Margaret must have been like.
"It's the first film I've seen about Margaret not in black and white and the film is very likely the only time her sister was filmed."
Fr Reid said Bella was forbidden in her convent from speaking about her increasingly famous sister, as it might have been viewed as a sin of pride. "She wasn't allowed to tell people she was Margaret's sister, so to be asked about her 50 years later would have been a big culture shock."
The film contains archive footage of Edinburgh in the 1960s, including shots inside Rosslyn Chapel, where Margaret used to pray while on holiday in nearby Rosewell. It will be shown at 2pm tomorrow in St Patrick's.
Fr Reid said last year more than 800 people attended the annual pilgrimage day and he hoped the film would give new momentum to the campaign to make her a saint, which he believes is really taking off.
THE FACTS
Margaret Sinclair was born in 1900 and brought up in Blackfriars Street. She was one of nine children born to Andrew and Elizabeth Sinclair.
She was raised a Catholic by her mother, who was a devout Catholic, and her father, a Protestant who converted.
Margaret became interested in religion at an early age and regularly attended mass at St Patrick's Church in the Cowgate and helped the elderly and homeless in the city's slums.
After being educated at St Anne's School in the Cowgate, she took a certificate in sewing, cooking and dressmaking at the Atholl School of Domestic Economy, while working as an errand girl for a local business.
She left formal education at 14 and began work as a French polisher in the Waverley Cabinet Works. Margaret joined the Order of the Poor Clares in London, aged just 23 and only a few months later contracted tuberculosis. She died in 1925.
JOANNA VALLELY
Edinburgh Evening News
15th September 2006