Joan Gilmour (12 Jan 1971 - 18 Jun 2025)

In loving memory of Joan Gilmour who sadly passed away on 18th June 2025, aged 54 years. Our beautiful mum, an amazing sister, daughter and grandmother.

Below is the eulogy from Joan’’s funeral which took place on the 12th July, 2025.

Joan was born in January 1971 to Barbara and John McGinley and grew up in the southside of Glasgow with brother Ian and sister Caroline. She was close to her Auntie Helen and Uncle Rab and as a young girl Helen would take her rollerskating at the Barrowlands or the Barras as we all know it.

After attending St Marks Primary and Trinity High School she went on to meet Peter at a family party and they had 3 sons together Peter Sean and Paul. Joan went on to meet Robert through a neighbour of hers, John. They were married in 2004 and welcomed their daughter Bobbie Jo a year later. When Robert died in 2016 Joan found herself a widow, she was devastated by the loss and missed Robert dreadfully for the rest of her days.

The family had continued to grow when Peter and his partner Liz had sons Kevin and Peter, Paul had daughter Olivia and then went on to meet Holly and have their son Lucas.

Joan always had a house full and she shared her infectious laugh with all her friends, children and grandchildren. She was very fond of Sean’s pal Billy and Paul’s pal Alan and treated them as if they were her own.

Joan was never doom and gloom and could always be heard singing passionately along to her favourite big women power stars like the Spice Girls, Celine Dion, Tracy Chapman, Whitney Houston and Pink among others. Though she did also have a soft spot for Westlife. She would get up early in the morning to do her washing and blast out her tunes. A bit of mother in law advice that she gave to Liz was that it was cheaper to do your washing in the mornings, and with her having 2 kids she should be doing this as well.

Her fondness for Westlife did however cause Paul to develop an irrational anger and very personal dislike of the band and Peter and Sean could freak him out by chasing him with CD covers with their pictures on it. But I was also told that he bears more than a passing resemblance to one of the members of the band, Mark!

Joan was a very spiritual person, she loved her crystals and her Tarot Cards. She had been to a psychic night with Ellen, Liz and Bobbie Jo recently and was happy with her reading. Joan was sure that she had met Bobbie Jo before she was born. At a time when she was not in a relationship and had no intentions of having more children she was told that she would be contacted by a little girl and sure enough she was, listening to the little girls voice that only she could hear, and as we know after three strapping boys she did go on to have the little girl she had waited for.

She also loved the colour blue and she loved nature she loved cats and she always wanted to hug a panda, and she would feed the sparrows and the squirrels in the back garden.

She enjoyed her tv shows like Murder She Wrote and Touched by An Angel which the kids remember as always being on. She also enjoyed her online bingo and would set her alarm to remind her to join a session, she made lots of pals all over the world through this.

Of the holidays Joan took, including Bulgaria with Robert and Bobbie Jo and Craig Tara with the family probably her most adventurous was with Bobbie Jo went they went for a month to America in 2019, visiting friends she had made on the online bingo, they went to places like Pensylvania and New York. You can’t say Joan wasn’t a risk taker and I’m sure their were some interesting stories from that trip!