Marjorie Reid, a former teacher who spent 95 years living in the same house in Tain, has died aged 99.
She taught at Scotsburn and Logie Easter Schools in Easter Ross before becoming headteacher at Fearn school.
Marjorie, who retired in 1982, went on to study and teach Gaelic in later life and worked to preserve the heritage of Ross-shire.
Beginnings
All her life, she was never exactly sure where she had been born. Her father Alexander was a blacksmith and the family lived at the smiddie on the road to the Port, and then at Rockfield.
Blacksmiths moved around at different times of the year to work with horses and since she was born in August, Marjorie favoured somewhere north of the Port as her birthplace.
Family
Her father had married her mother, dressmaker Margaret Fraser in 1911, and she had three siblings Robert (Bertie), Katherine (Kathleen) and Margaret (Peggy). Marjorie herself was occasionally called Ara.
Working close to the fumes of a blacksmith’s forge was hazardous and it badly affected her father’s health.
He was forced to give up work and the family moved to 10 Tower Street, Tain, when Marjorie was four. It was to be her home for the rest of her life.
Marjorie’s mother, with a family to support, became the breadwinner, combining her dressmaking with cleaning work.
Study
She was determined to direct her children into meaningful occupations and she managed to send Marjorie to teacher training college at Jordanhill, Glasgow.
The war years were a time of upheaval. Her brother Bertie went to university then joined the RAF, and her sister Peggy married a young airman in 1939.
Marjorie completed her studies, returned to the family home in Tain and took up her first teaching post at Scotsburn.
Promotion
She then moved to Logie Easter school then Fearn, where she eventually became headteacher.
Throughout her working life Marjorie was active. She was a cyclist, a badminton player, a gifted golfer and a bowler.
When her mother died in 1962, Marjorie remained on at 10 Tower Street and retired from teaching in 1982, which she marked with a holiday in Brittany with her sister Peggy and nephew Bob.
Productive
She had both a long and fulfilled retirement. Marjorie helped catalogue Tain’s photographic archive and learnt Gaelic.
Her particular interest was in establishing links between the local dialect and its Gaelic roots.