Tributes to athletics stalwart Alexandrina Rostek, who died aged 100

May 26 2011 by Leona Greenan, Hamilton Advertiser

A RESPECTED Hamilton resident, who was well known for playing a major role in the Scottish Athletics Track and Field team during the 1934 London Empire Games, has died.

Alexandrina Rostek (Lexy Urquhart) passed away on Tuesday, May 17 - just five weeks after celebrating her 100th birthday with family.

Born on April 8, 1911, in Glasgow, Mrs Rostek, was raised by her parents William and Ann and enjoyed a close bond with her siblings Mary, Kit and Alistair.

On leaving school at 14 years of age she developed what would become a lifelong love for athletics and was a member of the Maryhill Harriers.

As her talent nurtured, she began to compete in athletics contests and was proud to win the Scottish Women’s Championships in both 100 and 220 yards between 1931 and 1933.

Just a year later she represented Scotland in the Empire Games, the forerunner to the Commonwealth Games.

After her retiral from athletics at the age of 24, Lexy moved to London to work as a seamstress.

In 1936, when her father retired as a marine engineer, she moved back to the then family home in Inverasdale, Wester Ross.

Later in 1941, she was sent to look after her mother’s sister at the South Lodge on Loch Lomond and in 1942 she joined the army as an aircraft spotter.

It was during this time, and at a dance hall in Dunfermline, that she met a Polish soldier called Ted Rostek.

The pair fell madly in love and married on January 31, 1944 at the Gardner Street Church of Scotland in Partick.

By 1946 the couple had moved to Swiss Cottage in Hamilton. A move back to Ted’s homeland in Poland was later planned and he returned to set up a life for them both and subsequently missed the birth of their first son Tadeusz.

By September 1947 Lexy was able to travel to Lower Silensia in Poland, with their young child, to be reunited with her husband.

In 1953 she was blessed with the birth of the couple’s second son, William.

Lexy was a woman of great strength and when conditions in Poland became too difficult for many British wives, she remained with her husband and sons. Even after Ted’s death in 1970, Lexy remained in Poland.

Eventually, just one day before martial law was implemented in Poland in 1981, she returned to her roots in Scotland, living with family in Cambuslang, before later settling in High Earnock in Hamilton.

Her family paid tribute to her this week describing her as “happy, optimistic, loving, stubborn and thrawn. A glorious colour of breadth and depth and creativity.”

Beloved wife of the late Ted, she was a dear mother to Tadeusz and William, mother-in-law of Lidia and Teresa, and a loving grandmother and great-gran.

Her funeral service was held on Tuesday, May 24 at South Lanarkshire Crematorium, Blantyre.

Mrs Rostek’s family will respect her wishes to be buried with her husband in the family grave in Wroclaw, Poland.