Ida Schuster is, hands down, the grande dame of Scottish theatre and the pride of Glasgow Jewry.
And at 101 — Ida was born at the very end of the First World War, in 1918 — she has become almost certainly the world’s oldest podcaster, enthusiastically embracing the new technology to talk about her life and times.
Ida has made eight sparkling ten-minute episodes, Old School, for a podcast produced in Glasgow by Big Light, a new digital broadcasting platform. The first two episodes have already been released online and fans are keenly awaiting each instalment.
She was the second youngest of nine children, born to immigrants to Glasgow’s Gorbals district from Vilnius, Lithuania. One of her five sisters, Ray, married Avrom Greenbaum, the founder of the Glasgow Jewish Institute Players, and the Schuster siblings — including one of her brothers, Leon — became the core of the theatre company.
