Helen offers her seat to Aviemore's weary travellers
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Life just got a little bit easier for travellers at Aviemore Railway Station – and Helen Rose would thoroughly approve, after some 40 years looking after everybody.
After the long-serving station clerk's untimely death early this year, two of her best friends, railmen Jimmy Johnson and Brian Dey, decided that their friendship, which had spanned some 30 years, warranted a special memorial, and what better, they agreed, than some much-needed comfort on the exposed platform, for those who needed to wait further away than the waiting room?
Helen’s niece, Laura Cook, told the Strathy: “Helen’s friends and colleagues in the railway contributed money towards the bench and it was expertly fitted by Jimmy and Brian a couple of weeks ago.
“They’ve done a great job. They wanted to have a place where people could sit and think about Helen with a beautiful view towards the hills. We’re very grateful to everyone who made it possible. It’s beautiful and very fitting.”
Helen, from Boat of Garten, died aged 62 on January 2, earlier this year, having bravely fought a brain tumour for three years.
The Covid pandemic meant numbers were restricted to just 20 folk at her funeral service in Aviemore's St Andrew’s Church, but in August a celebration of her life was staged for family and friends on the Village Green with plenty of fun, good company and music, just over the road from the station where she'd first worked in 1980.
She had later moved to Inverness but had returned to the Aviemore station in 2004 to become something of a local legend.
“She was actually everyone’s Auntie Helen – you only had to meet her once and that’s how you would know her," said her Laura. " She was kind, helpful, had a wicked sense of humour and loved any opportunity to ‘parteee’ in her words – often partying a little too hard, shall we say.
“She definitely loved a gin or 10! She loved her family - her sister, nephew, nieces and great nieces and we have fond memories when growing up and our many trips away with her.”
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