OBITUARY: Anne Mackay, Kinlochbervie
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Still waters run deep and perhaps few deeper than Anne Mackay, who has died at her home at 136 Kinlochbervie, aged 77.
For the last 30 years or more Anne had lived at the family croft near the dark inland waters of Loch Innes, content with the company of sheep and a few villagers.
But few who had attended Inshegra Primary School and Golspie Secondary with her in the fifties would have suspected that this likeable, quiet, modest, woman would have gone on to out-achieve most of them in a business career which took her to Mayfair and a post as PA to the chairman of the Nationwide Building Society.
Computer programming was the key to her remarkable success. After graduating from Glasgow University with an MA in Maths and Political Economy, Anne went to Jordanhill College and qualified as a teacher, her first post being at Bellahouston Academy in Glasgow in 1965.
She maintained her close friendship with her school and college classmate Golspie’s Kay Scott (nee Grant) with whom she shared a flat for six years in Glasgow and it was little surprise that Kay chose her as her bridesmaid.
Anne then moved to Canada where she trained as a computer programmer.
But after two years she moved to London and took up a post with the Nationwide Building Society as a project manager and soon became PA to the company chairman. She was responsible for writing his speeches for TV appearances, mainly on shares and finance..
She continued her friendship with Kay and joined Kay, Bob and their family on happy holidays in France.
But then, aged 40, Anne quit the bright lights and took early retirement, returning to the family home to help care for her parents who were in poor health. Her mother died in 1984 and later her father John, who had been owner of one of the original big fishing boats in Kinlochbervie. Many cousins still remain including Dorothy, George, Norman and Lachlan Ross and three more in Canada.
Anne died on October 30 and her funeral took place at Inshegra Cemetery on November 6. She will be much missed by her Golspie school class-mates including Kay Scott (Grant), Donald MacDonald, Sandy Sutherland, Helen Bellany (Percy) and George McGowan.
