A former Angus hotelier and community figure has died peacefully at the age of 87.
Elizabeth Yeaman, known as Betty, was active in business with her husband Maurice and also worked in the community over a number of years.
Mrs Yeaman died in Strathmore Hospice after battling illness for several months.
Born in June 1924 in Victoria Street, Forfar, Mrs Yeaman went to Forfar North Primary School (now Wellbrae) and Forfar Academy. On leaving school she joined the British Army as a wireless operator towards the end of the Second World War.
Training and subsequent wartime operations took her all over the UK.
Mr Yeaman was a soldier during the war and met his future wife on returning to civilian life in Forfar. Although a Dundonian, his father owned the Royal Hotel.
Mrs Yeaman worked in the pension service office above Martin’s the grocers in Castle Street, what was most recently Woolworths.
The couple married on November 30 1950, before moving to Australia after a nomination by Mrs Yeaman’s uncle.
They returned after a family illness and stayed to have two children, Craig and Ailsa-Kim.
After also acquiring the County Hotel on Castle Street, the Yeamans took over the Bruce in Carnoustie and Seaforth in Arbroath. They ran a successful outside catering business in Dundee for many years.
Mrs Yeaman became involved in community work in the early 1960s, first as secretary to the Rotary Club’s Inner Wheel district for North-East Scotland, then as an RNLI committee member.
Her services to the lifeboat institute earned a gold medal at a Glasgow ceremony some years later.
A founder member of the Luncheon Club of Forfar, Mrs Yeaman was its first president for two years.
As well as being a lifelong diarist, she shared in her husband’s passion for sailing, and the couple owned two boats. The second, Lappie Dub, took them around the UK and to the Mediterranean in 1984.
The couple named the boat after the colloquial name for St James Terrace, now St James Road.
Mr and Mrs Yeaman kept a holiday home in Spain and travelled there often in their retirement.
Mrs Yeaman’s funeral takes place at noon on January 4 in St Margaret’s Church, Forfar, before moving to Newmonthill Cemetery.
She is survived by Maurice, son Craig and daughter Ailsa-Kim, seven grandchildren and one great-grandson.