Janey Buchan

Who was Janey Buchan?

Janey Buchan was a Scottish Labour Member of the European Parliament for the Glasgow constituency from 1979 to 1994 when she retired from the post aged 67.

She was born in Glasgow, a city where her father was a tram driver, and her mother was a domestic servant. She left school at the age of 14, and worked as a typist. In 1946, at the age of 19 she married Norman Buchan, a schoolteacher who later became Labour MP from 1964 for West Renfrewshire, and later Paisley South. He died in 1990.

She attended commercial college and was a councillor on Strathclyde Regional Council from 1974 to 1979, when she was elected to the European Parliament in the in 1979 for the first time. As an MEP she sat on the European Parliament's Culture Committee as well as being involved in the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Gas Consumers Council. She was Life President of the Scottish Minorities Group.

Her lifetime of activity encompassed many fields. She was an early and active campaigner against apartheid. She helped run the People's Festival in 1949-52 during the Edinburgh Festival; the events helped create the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.