Margaret Scroggie, wife and hillwalking companion of inspirational Dundonian Syd Scroggie, has died aged 94.
She first took to the hills as a walking companion of Syd, who had lost a leg and his sight in the Second World War, in the 1960s.
They went on to marry in 1981 and walked the Sidlaw hills around their home in Bridgefoot almost daily.
Highlands
The couple also paid frequent visits to the hills around the Highland shooting estates where Margaret’s nephew, George Loudon, worked as a stalker.
Margaret, nee Loudon, was born in Strathmartine and spent the first part of her career as a chemist’s assistant in Hawick and then Dundee before teaching at Muirhead Primary School for many years.
Sidlaws
George Loudon said the couple would make a local circuit in the Sidlaws almost every day but frequently travelled further afield to walk.
“They wandered the Angus Glens where they knew every stalker and shepherd,” he said.
“It was 1974 when they first started coming together to spend time with us at remote Corrour estate on the edge of Rannoch Moor.
Suilven
“In 1976 I took them back to Assynt estate in Sutherland, where I had worked previously, to climb the spectacular 2,398 foot Suilven,” said George.
“If you know how challenging Suilven is for able bodied people you will understand the challenge it presented to a blind man with a tin leg and my aunt.
“But they made it to the top as this remarkable photograph shows.”
Landmine
Syd had lost his leg and sight in April 1945 when he stood on a landmine during the Italian campaign.
He was only 25 and spent the next three months in hospital in Naples before a spell of rehabilitation in England.
Before the war he had played wing forward for Harris Academy’s rugby team and was a keen mountaineer.
Braille
After the war, Syd’s working life was spent on the switchboard at NCR and he also taught himself Greek using Braille, and wrote several volumes of poetry.
In 1964 he was the subject of the television programme, This Is Your Life.
Margaret died at Cairnie Lodge, Arbroath. She requested no funeral service, just a simple cremation.