Sisters die within week of each other
Two well-known Asssynt sisters, Ruby and Barbara Corbett, who were born in and lived most of their lives at Inchnadamph, have died within a week of each other.
Ruby (94), passed away at Raigmore Hospital on Thursday 18 August, following a short illness, while Barbara (88) who had been in very poor health for some years, died early last Thursday morning at The Meadows Nursing Home, Dornoch, where both had been cared for latterly.
The second and fourth daughters respectively of Inchnadamph Hotel chauffeur-mechanic Donald Corbett and his wife Mina, both attended Inchnadamph Primary School. Ruby continued her education at Bonar Bridge Senior Secondary School, which she left with Highers in 1936, to become an uncertificated teacher, while Barbara worked initially in guest houses and hotels.
Both served in the war, Ruby in munitions at Dumfries, Wolverhampton and Birmingham, and Barbara with the NAAFI, mostly at Invergordon and Tain, but also at Southampton before and after D-Day. Ruby later attended Aberdeen College of Education to train formally as a primary school teacher, being appointed to the single-teacher school in her home community, where she remained until retirement in 1977.
On demob, Barbara worked as receptionist and book-keeper at Inchnadamph and in Forres, moving briefly to London in the early 1950s, before returning home to look after her elderly parents.
For many years she drove pupils from remote areas to and from the local school.
They had two other sisters, Jessie Morrison, late of Durness, who died in 2007, aged 95, and Georgie Barber, who died in Australia aged 81, in 2002, and a brother George, who was fatally injured by a passing car at Inchnadamph in 1919, aged six.
