ONE of West Sutherland's best known senior citizens has died at Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, after a short illness, aged 94.
Ruby Corbett was born at Inchnadamph, Assynt, in April 1917, in the house in which she subsequently lived until January 2010, the second of four daughters of Donald and Mina Corbett.
Her parents, who married in 1910, came respectively from Kinlochbervie and Achlyness. Her father became a coachman at Inchnadamph Hotel, leaving briefly to train as a chauffeur-mechanic, at the start of the motor age. His driving licence, now in the possession of his great-grandson Iain Morrison, dates from 1905.
Her sister Jessie (1911-2007) was the oldest of the family. Ruby had two younger sisters, Georgie, who died in Australia, born in 1921, and Barbara, born 1923, who is in care. She had one brother, Jesse George, born in 1913, who died at Inchnadamph in July 1919, shortly after being struck by a car driven by a drunken travelling salesman.
She was educated initially at Inchnadamph Side School, progressing to secondary school at Bonar Bridge, which she left in 1936 with Highers in English, French and History.
Ruby then started work as an uncertificated teacher, because her parents had not the wherewithal to finance her through teacher training college. She taught briefly before the war at Achlyness to which she returned for a short while after hostilities ceased.
For some reason she was turned down for service in the women's forces during the war, so instead entered the often hazardous munitions industry, where she served at factories in Dumfries, Wolverhampton and Birmingham.
She took up an uncertificated teacher's post at Inchnadamph in 1946, until prevailed upon in 1951 by Sutherland County Council's enlightened new education director, Thomas E Landsborough, to undergo a shortened course at Aberdeen Training College, of a type available to returning war service veterans, to acquire full certification.
Thereafter she remained at Inchnadamph School until 1977, when she retired.
A conscientious teacher, she was generous to children, and few of her pupils, now almost all themselves in middle age, have other than happy memories of her kindness and her lovable, odd little ways. Many went on to do well at secondary school, university and in their chosen professions. Sadly, in more recent years, the school roll fell beyond an economic point, and it closed.
Ruby's father died in 1960 and her mother in 1965. She and Barbara lived together on their own after their parents' deaths, until Barbara fell ill in 2006.
Barbara undertook most of the domestic chores, as Ruby was not particularly domesticated.
Indeed she tended to be somewhat "laid back", fond of reading, mainly historical volumes, and like Barbara, given to buying and hoarding everything from books and clothes to sometimes doubtful "bargains" from sales of work.
Ruby also loved painting and decorating, though alas, she had no great aptitude. Close relatives recall how she would splash bright gloss paint, usually lurid lime green or yellow, with abandon everywhere, without ever trying to prepare a surface, or apply primer and undercoat, and instead of cleaning brushes, she would almost always leave them standing in half-empty pots, until the paint had dried on them.
Ruby was a highly intelligent eccentric, good at correcting points of grammar, but quite unfazed by the constant clutter in her home.
She tried on a number of occasions to learn to drive, but never progressed beyond the basics.
She never seems to have been romantically inclined in her younger days, being very self sufficient, preferring the company of cats. In bygone times she often cared for as many as six or seven. Her last cat, Amy, still survives in comfort with her nephew, Willie.
Ruby took ill in January 2010, in the midst of a very harsh winter. After staying with relatives for 10 days, she moved for treatment to Migdale Hospital, Bonar Bridge, transferring a few months later to The Meadows Nursing Home in Dornoch, where with good care, her general health improved until her final illness earlier this month. She was latterly frustrated, however, by rapidly failing eyesight and inability to read.
Sadly, Highland Council regulations have prevented her interment at the now closed cemetery at Inchnadamph. A private cremation takes place at Inverness on Thursday, followed by a memorial service for friends at Inchnadamph Church, and a subsequent scattering of her ashes beside her home, on Saturday
l Barbara died in her Dornoch care home in the early hours of Thursday (August 25) morning.
