Kathleen Fidler (Mrs Goldie) was born in Wigan in Lancashire in 1899, where she later became a teacher and then a headmistress. Following her marriage to Mr James Goldie in 1930, she spent most of her married life in the Edinburgh area, later moving to Lasswade when her husband became Manager of the local branch of the Bank of Scotland.
She began writing during the war years and among her books for children were two series, one covering the activities of the Brydon family and the other covering the Dean family. The characters in the Brydon series were based on her young family and their friends and these books were written mainly in the 1950’s.
She went on to write both fiction and non-fiction with historical backgrounds and her work continued with material based on a wide range of subjects such as lighthouses, sheep dogs, old inns and archaeology to mention only a few. For all her books, she researched her subjects thoroughly and quite often her research would involve trips abroad.
Kathleen Fidler also wrote about three hundred radio programmes, not only for “Childrens’ Hour”, but historical items for Schools Broadcasts. As far as the latter is concerned she could be termed one of the pioneers of BBC Schools Broadcasting. As Mrs Goldie, she was very well known in Bonnyrigg and often was seen reading stories to children in Bonnyrigg Public Library. She died on August 7th 1980, aged 81.
Photograph & text supplied by Herbert Dryden