HER dad was a hero. She could well be described as a heroine. The late Jimmy Wardhaugh was to Hearts fans one of the most skilful inside forwards Tynecastle had ever seen, idolised by the Jambo hordes in the early fifties.
His 51-year-old daughter Jo was a nun, working with the Sisters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Africa, experiencing extreme privation and all manner of horrors in terrorised and famine-stricken Africa.
She is back home in comparative civilisati
on, though not in her native Edinburgh. No longer a nun, she is now a farmer's wife, having married 49-year-old Matt Doyle, and she is ensconced on his farm in Ireland, "sharing the toil".
She was here in Edinburgh's West End last month in the One World shop at St John's Church with the harrowing, in places humorous, story of her life in the sisterhood, Labyrinth Through the Elephant Grass by Jo Wardhaugh-Doyle.
She schooled at St Augustine's and Holy Cross Academy. "We were three girls and a boy in a socialist family, largely sustained by our dad's rich sense of humour and our principled mother encouraging to think not so much of ourselves but also of others.
"Nursing was my chosen profession and I qualified after four years training at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. The premature death in 1978 of my father at 48 had what might be called a profound effect and set me thinking I should do something 'radical' with my life. At 22 I joined an African volunteer group in early 1980 that took me to post-Idi Amin Uganda for two years as tutor to 70 nurses.
"I became a nun in Ireland, joining the Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa and, having done a midwifery course in 1985-87 in Ireland, I was soon back in Africa, this time to Ethiopia, ravaged by famine and communism, where my midwifery experience proved invaluable at 10,000 feet in the mountains.
"My health took a dive and I had to return to Ireland for three years before resuming my association with Africa, in Nairobi for four years." A life-threatening existence for her and, she writes of an unforgettable scene in this bloody chapter: "In the middle of this mass was an open-backed army jeep. Two men in it were hog-tied, on their knees in the back. Stripped to the waist their skin was being whipped into discolouration and broken into a bloody mess, to the manic delight of the screaming villagers. I couldn't believe my eyes, my brain couldn't connect with what was happening. Murder before my very eyes.
As I moved round the jeep I found three soldiers whipping the men into senselessness. I screamed at the soldiers to stop, stop, stop.
"I saw the first man collapse and not move again. I screamed at the soldier beside to stop hitting the other man, still on his knees. That's when evil burned into my eyes. His face was full of uncontrolled mania, lust and death. In one hand a whip, in the other a large thick chain. Animal was written all over his face. 'If you don't shut up, you'll be next'."
Jo adds: "I loved being a missionary. They were different 'creatures' from ordinary nuns. I wanted this to be my life."
Not to be. What she witnessed in four years in Africa, particularly the killings in Uganda, took such heavy toll that she went to Massachusetts in late 1997 where "they could work wonders, mentally and physically, after telling me I was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and survival guilt." She adds: "I knew it was the right thing to do . . . either to leave the Franciscans or go back to Africa and be traumatised and get no help.
"There's no debriefing for missionaries like there is for soldiers and journalists. I left the order in 2001, though I still do workshops for them, and, through an introduction from an old friend from Africa, met my farmer husband-to-be in 2003. We married the following year. We farm in Kildare, next to the Curragh racecourse.
"We have 110 bullocks and grow oats and barley. We are keeping Guinness happy."
Truly a heroine in her sacrificial way, as her dad, nicknamed "Twinkletoes", was a legend in a maroon jersey, a member of the so-called Terrible Trio of Conn, Bauld and Wardhaugh (Scottish Cup winners 1956) in the same era as the Famous Five of Smith, Johnstone, Reilly, Turnbull and Ormond were putting Edinburgh firmly on the football map. In a manner of speaking of the Wardhaughs, like father, like daughter.
The full article contains 780 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
