Ella Wooley, nee Small, died earlier this month at the age of 100 years and seven months in a nursing home in Tasmania. Here we look back at her strong Arran roots.
Elliza Wilson Small was born on March 2, 1917, in Paisley. The family moved to Arran in 1935 when her father, David A Small, took up the position of engineer/ manager of the Isle of Arran Electric Light and Power Company Ltd at Brodick pier. Ella assisted her father in the office until she joined the ATS.
As a corporal, armed with only a bucket of water and a foot-pump, she was stationed at night on the roof tops of Edinburgh. Her orders were to extinguish the Luftwaffe’s incendiary bombs. It was a futile action although one night she did put out a small fire on the roof of the Carlton Hotel and used to joke that ‘she had saved the Carlton’.