Another special birthday boy for Badenoch
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The strath has notched up another remarkable birthday, albeit quietly.
Kingussie centenarian Eric Furness marked his 101st year in May, with " a small gathering" for the members of the family who could make it "home" to Ardbroilach Road.
At last year’s official centenary, they celebrated the fact that the Furness clan were alive at all, with Professor Furness confirming that the family line went all the way back to Richard, who lived in the little Derbyshire village of Eyam as long ago as 1540.
Eyam was the "plague village" which chose to isolate itself when the illness was discovered there in 1665, rather than let the infection spread. The pestilence had been brought to the village in a flea-infested bundle of cloth delivered to a tailor. Within a week he was dead, and after more deaths, the whole town chose to quarantine itself.
The plague raged there for 14 months, and only 83 of the 260 villagers survived.
"Fortunately, we did!" said the birthday boy.
Prof Furness still thrives on a regular glass of red wine and the ‘Times’ crossword.
Born in Japan, where his parents had been posted, he travelled with them around the globe but spent most of his childhood in London, and did his military service in Burma with the Royal West Africa Frontier Force – with whom he rose to the rank of Major – and Glasgow, where he taught economics in the college which was to become Strathclyde University.
He also taught for three years at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, as revolution raged in the country, and at one point had to lie low at the top of the Post Office building.
Another African adventure involved the tricky job of persuading the Botswana government to invest its new-found diamond wealth in the British pound.
A keen mountaineer, he enjoyed a long love affair with the Highlands, both in the west and in the Cairngorms, and was one of the early pioneers of opening the country to skiing.
He retired to Kingussie in 1976 with his beloved wife, Enid, who died in 1988.
