Kingussie heroine receives British Empire Medal on global screens
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In a unique celebration today (Saturday, June 27) – Armed Forces Day – relatives from around the world tuned in on Zoom to congratulate a 'truly selfless, compassionate, hero of the Royal British Legion Scotland' on receiving her BEM.
Isobel Harling, officially cited last December in the New Year Honours, could not receive the medal during the Covid-19 lockdown and only this week received it through the post.
But family, friends and, especially, the military decided that was simply not good enough and a special celebration was lined up for a very select, socially-distanced few in the Badenoch capital's Memorial Gardens.
And with the internet acknowledging no 'lockdowns', relatives of some four generations, friends and fellow legionnaires were able to join in on line from thousands of miles away.
Two of Isobel's Australian-based kin admitted: "It's 2.30 in the morning here, we're still in bed!"
Mrs Harling herself, after speeches from Army, Navy and RAF chiefs along with Legion heads both national and local, sat aghast holding her celebratory drink and admitted: "I'm in a daze."
The 96-year-old star of the day told her global audience - in Australia and Scandinavia, Glasgow and other areas of Scotland and even in the depths of south-east of England – that she was so surprised by it all that she was not "thinking straight".
Yet she in turn toasted all those who had 'turned out' to congratulate her on a lifetime of service to the British Legion and, especially, to tending the graves of the Indian soldiers – members of the K6 Force – who perished in the Cairngorms while training to help the Allied cause.
For 75 years she tended nine graves in Kingussie Cemetery since, she knew, there was no chance of their families ever being able to do the job.
"I had lost a brother in Belgium in the war and people there knew I couldn't go and tend his grave, so they did it for me.
"It's what you do and it's what I did for families of 'my boys' from India."
Colourful Heritage, which represents the cultural links between the sub-continent and Britain, sent more thanks and hearty congratulations to their hero today.
Isobel's family, in turn, thanked Major Heather Lawrie of the Royal Corps of Signals, for organising her immensely special day.
More of this story, and that of the K6 Force, will appear in this week's Strathy.
