Marjorie Isobel Shire, 1895 -1995

Born during the reign of Queen Victoria, one of four children in a close-knit athletic family, Madge indulged in as much sport as was seemly in young ladies of the day.

Education, partly abroad, centred mainly on music and needlework but fortunately Madge was an avid reader; although when asked once where north lay, she replied that it depended which way you were facing!

Motor cars were mastered and during the First World War she worked and played in Military Intelligence.

Summer days on the river and winter ones in London's hotels, theatres and music halls after the war, gave way to married life and the financial struggles endured by so many during the Depression. A little tennis was possible.

The Second World War - my mother, now settled in Surrey, enlisted as a driver. The War over, life's problems gradually lessened and in 1964 Madge and family moved to Scotland, where despite being an innate townie, she embraced fully the country of her forebears.

Both, now long widowed, Mama and I came to Coll in 1980. We shared the gales, the pleasures buoyed up by her sparkling, resilient sense of humour and infectious laughter which only wilted a few weeks before her death - so near to her 100th birthday.

G. de Mornay