A PAST LIVES SPECIAL: Isobel Harling BEM
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The funeral of Isobel Harling BEM (b18.4.1923, d30.11.2023) took place at Kingussie Parish Church on Tuesday, December 12.
The family eulogies caught the true character of one of the strath's finest:
Isobel was a true daughter of Kingussie and of the Clan Macpherson – and lived a life based on love, loyalty, integrity and Hospitality with a capital H, no matter what she was involved in.
Family, work or service: her mantra was ‘Do the right thing’.
She also loved to dance and in her younger years would often be found at the Saturday night dances in either the Victoria Hall or in the Drill Hall at the bottom of the drive just by Kingussie Parish Church where her life was celebrated on Tuesday, December 12.
She was an excellent ballroom dancer and was rarely off the floor.
Being on the planet for over 100 years, she was a busy lady with a wealth of stories to tell.
Her uncanny ability to retain in her head all the relationships and connections between the folk and families of Kingussie always threw family members.
Grandson John recalled: “You would just have to mention some small insignificant event or some person that you had just met and she would give you a full run down of the genealogy of the person and their relationship to you and other members of the community and wider valley.
“It really was astounding what she retained right up to the end of her time here. I guess she retained it because she cared.”
During World War II Isobel joined the WRENS and was posted to London, where she served as an ambulance driver during the Blitz, exposed to all the horrors of that savage theatre.
“I did not know about this as it was never offered in general conversation,” John told the mourners. “I found out only when as a young lad off to make my presence in the world and living in Streatham in London.
“I was amazed at her knowledge of the area. It transpired that she lived just half a mile from me in Crystal Palace.”
She was always ready to embrace and solve challenges, ever the most helpful of people.
During the war and after her time in the London Blitz she was posted to Invergordon, which at that time was a major base for the Sunderland Sea Planes used in coastal defence.
One evening, she was dispatched to Raigmore Hospital to transfer a badly injured patient to the naval hospital at Invergordon.
The patient was in severe pain with broken limbs and burns. When she saw just how poorly the chap was, and was concerned about moving him to a stretcher and the subsequent journey over poor roads, she asked the nursing staff for a measuring tape.
Bemused by the request they did produce the tape. She measured his bed, then the inside of her ambulance. She then dismounted all the stretches and arranged for hospital porters to push/carry the seaman in his bed to her ambulance.
This had never happened before. Such was her thoughtfulness and care. She promised she would return the bed to Raigmore the next time she was down.
Then she drove very slowly to Invergordon. When she arrived in Invergordon she was met with disbelief by the hospital staff – and had been away so long they thought she had gone AWOL.
The bed was, of course, duly returned to Raigmore.
After the war she worked at Mackies, which became Murchies, then the Coop, driving the grocers van to all the outlying communities and farms.
She started her own ladies outfitters in the shop that is now the Cheese Neuk. After that she worked as book-keeper in McCormacks Garage and then at Peter Fosters Garage on the High Street until retirement.
Throughout her working years Isobel was heavily involved with Kingussie Council and along with Tommy Wade was instrumental in the realisation of a local care home for the elderly.
Thus the Wade Centre came into being along with many other community projects. It was only fitting that at the end of her days she was allowed to benefit from that wonderful facility.
Isobel was a member of the Kingussie branch of the Royal British Legion Scotland, serving as their secretary for many years and instrumental in organising the relocation of the war memorial to the now memorial gardens.
At the end of the war she began to take care of the K6 Indian War Graves and continued to do that until she could no longer do so. She bequeathed the responsibility to grand-daughter Geraldine.
Now the War Graves Commission has taken rightful ownership of that respectful task.
Isobel received the British Empire Medal in June, 2020 for her dedication to ‘her boys’.
