Comments on: One Year On

By: Alli

Alli — Sat, 10 Apr 2021 12:16:27 +0000

First memories are of Auchinclech parties and daytime drop ins with the drop outs. We had our alternative culture in common.
Later I recall visiting your home when Adam was a youngster and Nick was teaching and into microlight flying. Kathy had both feet firmly on the ground.
Doug and I visited again when you ran the shop in Auchenblae.
Our last visit was to Siel Island . You showed us all around your lovely locality including a boat trip to the neighbouring island with slate quarries where we skimmed stones and locals wheeled their groceries from the boat to their homes in wheelbarrows.

By: Mal

Mal — Mon, 09 Feb 2015 12:31:44 +0000

So many memories, from our first meeting up on Donside, through the years as friend and, for a while, neighbour, to your visit to Drumtochty just before I moved south.

I think of her often – her friendliness, her humour, her straightforward common sense that could cut to the heart of a problem, her bravery in the face of the worst that the universe could throw at her.

But above all her empathy. She came to visit me in hospital in Dundee on a very hot afternoon a few days after a chunk of my insides had been removed. I was not entertaining company – I wasn’t even capable of sitting up and a naso-gastric tube had reduced my communicative ability to the occasional grunt. Many people would have stayed for ten minutes or so and then departed, having done their duty. Not Kathy. She sat with me for the whole afternoon and her peaceful, empathetic presence provided great comfort at a time that I desperately needed it.

The memory of that unique presence, and that of other friends who are no longer with us, will remain a part of me as long as I live.

“And it’s just a box of rain, I don’t know who put it there,
Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare,
Just a box of rain, or a ribbon for your hair,
Such a long long time to be gone and a short time to be there.”

Robert Hunter

By: Rayan

Rayan — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 23:17:44 +0000

I have only joiful and happy memories of you and I wish that I had been able to spend more time with you and gotten to know you better, you are greatly missed and you will always be remembered.

By: Silkie

Silkie — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 19:00:14 +0000

“Two kinds of women take to boats – those who like it and those who fear to be left behind”

Kathy was always a bold voyager in the former category but it’s not only her own strength that makes me miss her far more than is reasonable for someone I had only known eight years. Above all it’s the open-hearted support and encouragement she gave to others that makes her shine in my memory as a truly good and generous human being. A wee memory..

Cruising in company with Fairwinds and others on the west coast of Mull one year I was more than a little trepidatious about going out single-handed in my wee boat in the face of a dodgy forecast. She wasn’t the only one but it was Kathy’s calm assurance “So what if it’s F6/7? – it’ll be downwind – it’ll be fine.” that tipped the balance for me. It was fine and I still consult her sometimes before weighing anchor.

Miss you babe.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sun, 08 Feb 2015 12:20:00 +0000

It hardly seems necessary to say that we all miss you, but perhaps I may be permitted to add that a light has gone out in the family and taken with it an overly large share of coolness, kindness and good old common sense.

By: Jack

Jack — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 13:21:18 +0000

So many fond memories since the old days at Auchinclech cottage-scene of legendary parties that Kathy was a keen participant in.

We always visited Nick and Kathy as they moved around the mearns and Kathy was always keen on gardening and gave me many good tips over the years.

To be honest its really hard to think she has gone but her spirit surely lives on.

By: Debbie Joy

Debbie Joy — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 12:05:54 +0000

It is hard to think of the right words or a single memory from all the years. Kathy had a calm quiet strength and confidence I greatly admired. She didn’t choose her words or the timing of her pithy comments carefully, everything was just the way she was. Wherever she was with Nick was “home” whether a dubious bedsit in inner city Glasgow or the island. Everything she was and did lives on through all of us but especially Nick, Jeff and Adam.

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 11:28:35 +0000

Doesn’t seem like a year! The good ones always seem to go too early. Kathy was a saint to have loved Nick for 40 years! I shall always remember her complete calmness in moments of crisis when all (Nick) around her were panicking and shouting, and then the complete lack of resentment or anger for having been wrongly accused with little thanks for having “saved the day”! That was a love that only a few are lucky enough to receive.

For a season there must be pain
For a little, little space
I shall lose ‘the sight of her face,
Take back the old life again
While She is at rest in her place.
For a season this pain must endure,
For a little, little while
I shall sigh more often than smile
Till Time shall work me a cure,
And the pitiful days beguile.

For that season we must be apart,
For a little length of years,
Till my life’s last hour nears,
And, above the beat of my heart,
I hear Her voice in my ears.
But I shall not understand –
Being set on some later love,
Shall not know her for whom I strove,
Till she reach me forth her hand,
Saying, ‘Who but I have the right?’ .
And out of a troubled night
Shall draw me safe to the land.

By: Paul The Westbound Adventurer

Paul The Westbound Adventurer — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 23:25:06 +0000

So many adventures and so many miles on Fairwinds . Your spirit soars and should inspire us to make time for those experiences which money cannot buy.

By: Debbie

Debbie — Fri, 06 Feb 2015 23:22:30 +0000

I have never been very good with words and fine it difficult to express what Cathy and Nick meant to me. The first time I met Cathy she was chopping wood and I came along trying to sell her a fire extinguisher (crazy job I had) she welcomed me into her house for a coffee and I stayed for nearly a year and became part of a fantastic family. I will always be very grateful and feel blessed that I met such a beautiful soul as Cathy xxx