Mystery over vanishing cemetery vase

Ishbel Metcalfe with the vase which mysteriously reappeared at her mother’s grave.

THE case of a remote Inverness-shire graveyard’s vanishing vase is proving a puzzler for 86-year-old Ishbel Metcalfe.

She was left heartbroken when the ceramic ornament, etched with an inscription to ‘Mum’ and containing tulips and daffodils, disappeared from her mother’s headstone at Eskadale Cemetery, near Beauly.

Mrs Metcalfe, in an annual ritual going back more than 50 years, ensured fresh flowers were always placed on the grave to mark the anniversary of the death of her mother Margaret West.

This year she had been unable to get to the cemetery, so last month asked her brother to put the new vase and flowers by their mother’s graveside.

But she was distraught when, within days, they went missing and artificial flowers and a plastic green container put in their place.

The parish priest even helped scour the cemetery, as did Mrs Metcalfe’s relatives and friends, but concluded they had been stolen.

But in a bizarre twist, a few days later Mrs Metcalfe was baffled to see the vase had mysteriously reappeared beside the headstone and the green container gone.

"It is very peculiar and makes you wonder how it has appeared again," said an emotional Mrs Metcalfe, from Newton Park Court, Kirkhill.

"I had told lots of people about it and the area was searched. I wonder if somebody has noticed something?"

Mrs Metcalfe did not report the disappearance to the police or Highland Council, which maintains the cemetery, but spoke to Father Colin Davies who preaches at St Mary’s Eskadale.

"I had been up at Eskadale but I couldn’t see anything," he said.

"It is a sad day when somebody puts flowers and a nice vase or container down which isn’t there later — you hear of things like this happening in cities."

Sprightly Mrs Metcalfe lived and worked in London for 48 years for before moving back north to Kirkhill with her husband in 1994.

Her mother, who lived in the nearby village of Struy, died at the age of 57 in 1958.

Mrs Metcalfe would annually send freshly picked roses from London to be placed at the grave by relatives.

Close friend Marjorie O’Connor, of Bonnyview, Tower Brae, Westhill, said there was no sign of the vase or fresh flowers when initially she visited the cemetery to check.

But was delighted it had reappeared because she knew how upset Mrs Metcalfe had been.

Mrs O’Connor was fostered as a baby by Mrs West and described Mrs Metcalfe as a "second mother" to her.