NEWS: A Death on the Beach

By MARK McLAUGHLIN
Edinburgh Evening News
8 January 2010

A PENSIONER found dead on a Musselburgh beach was just 100 metres from the rented flat she had lived in for only a few weeks, it emerged today.

Christina Thomson, 80, was found on the beach just off Bush Street at Fisherrow Sands on Tuesday.

A post mortem examination revealed that hypothermia may have played a part in her death.

She lived alone in the ground-floor flat in Gracefield Court and had only moved there within the last two months.

The only sign that she had lived there was a note pinned to the door as a makeshift nameplate with the name Ena Thomson written shakily in black ink. A sign hanging from the letterbox read 'Please Knock Loudly'.

Ms Thomson's son visited her flat yesterday morning to collect some of her belongings, and chatted briefly with neighbours.

Neighbour Isabella Mouat said: "He was very cut up about her death. It's still a bit of a mystery how she came to be found on the beach. He said she just went for a walk, and that was that.

"We never really got to know her. One of the neighbours called an ambulance for her last month after she had a fall, and used to talk to her a bit after that but aside from this she didn't really speak to anyone."

Gracefield Court is a quiet cul-de-sac just a few hundred metres back from Fisherrow Sands.

Its largely elderly population was stunned to hear of Ms Thomson's death so soon after moving to the neighbourhood.

Neighbour Gladys Thomson said: "Nobody knew who the body on the beach was at first, but I began to suspect that it may have been the lady in the next block when I started getting letters in her name.

"We share the same surname and I received a lawyer's letter, and then a letter from Roodlands Hospital addressed to her.

"Then the police came to the door. I got such a fright because I thought something might have happened to one of my lads, but then they told me they were making enquiries about the lady next door.

"The police said that the son had reported her missing and that they were concerned about her, and then I heard that it was her that was found on the beach. It's very sad."

Lothian and Borders Police said the death is not suspicious and have sent a report to the procurator fiscal.