A former Huntly Citizen of the Year, retired teacher Morag Black, has died shortly after her 94th birthday.
Morag taught in the town for more than 25 years – as a primary school teacher and then an adult literacy tutor – and played a leading role in many church and community activities.
She and her husband Jimmy were jointly made Citizen of the Year in 1998 for their tireless charity and community work, just a few months before he died the following year.
Morag Jean Learmonth was born in August 1929 on a croft on the Orkney island of Sanday.
Academic excellence
She went on to become the dux of Kirkwall Grammar School before doing her teacher training in Edinburgh and returning to Kirkwall to start her career.
Through her church’s youth fellowship group, she met Jimmy, a lawyer from Edinburgh who had worked in Huntly for a couple of years before moving to Orkney.
The pair married in 1953 and five years later moved with their two young sons to Huntly where Jimmy had been offered a law partnership.
Morag returned to full-time teaching at the Gordon Primary School in Huntly in 1968.
She taught primary three pupils there until 1984, when she had to retire early because of back pain which had troubled her for years and which she bravely endured for the rest of her life.
In 1982, she fulfilled a long-held ambition when she graduated from the Open University with an MA in educational psychology.
Adult education
After retiring from teaching, Morag got involved in adult basic education as a voluntary tutor, trainer of tutors and organiser for Grampian Regional Council, covering an area that included Huntly, Insch, Keith and Dufftown.
She did this adult literacy work for about 10 years, during which time she was also a tutor of Scottish literature for the Workers’ Educational Association.
Morag was always enthusiastically involved in the community of Huntly, particularly in Strathbogie Kirk where she became its first female elder in 1972. She was a stalwart of Strathbogie Guild, having held all of the officer-bearers’ positions at one time or other.
In the 1960s, she was a leading fundraiser in the campaign to build Huntly’s swimming pool, being one of the joint conveners of the annual fete in aid of the pool.
She and Jimmy were founder members of Books Abroad, the Rhynie-based charity which has been supplying second-hand books to schools in developing countries since 1982.
Literary interest
For most of their years in Huntly, they lived in the former home of Victorian poet and author George MacDonald. Morag became an expert on MacDonald and did much to promote the revival of interest in him in his home country.
She and Jimmy entertained many MacDonald admirers and scholars from all over the world who came to visit Huntly.
Morag died in Scott’s eventide home in Huntly on Monday August 7. She is survived by her sons Neil and Duncan.
You can read the family’s announcement here.
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