A 96-year-old Highland woman, who spent seven decades tending the graves of Indian servicemen from the Second World War, is to receive the British Empire Medal (BEM).
Isobel Harling would weed the grass, plant flowers and look after the graves at Kingussie of nine men who served in Force K6, which rode mules and delivered supplies to front-line soldiers.
She had lost her own brother John Macpherson when he was shot down over Belgium, aged 19, and she hoped that someone would be doing the same for her sibling.
Mrs Harling, a great grandmother, was also the long-serving secretary of the Kingussie branch of the Royal British Legion Scotland, a position her father held before her.
She first started visiting the graves in her early 20s, after becoming alarmed that few others seemed to care.
Now it has been announced that she is to receive the BEM for services to remembrance and to the community in Inverness-shire.
Last night, she said: “I was shocked. I was surprised. I don’t know why. You don’t really need an honour to do things, to help folk, you know what I mean?
“I get on with everything. If I can help with something, I will. I think it was the way I was brought up.
“I haven’t seen it yet. I heard a while ago that my name was being put forward but evidently I’ve got it. It is a surprise. I don’t know why I am getting it.”
Mrs Harling served in the Wrens (Women’s Royal Naval Service) during the war, as an ambulance driver at naval hospitals, including Invergordon.
More than 1,700 men from India and 2,000 mules were sent to France at the start of the war to help the British Expeditionary Force deliver supplies to the front lines.
They were the Force K6: Punjabi Muslims of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps.
Two companies escaped from Dunkirk and another company via St Nazaire, and they spent three-and-a-half-years in Britain.
Thirteen of the men are buried in four cemeteries across Scotland.
Last year, a multi-faith remembrance service took place at Kingussie Cemetery, next to the war graves of nine soldiers from Force K6.
Organisers spoke after the ceremony to call for a permanent memorial to be erected in Scotland to commemorate the “forgotten soldiers”.
