Just last month the News put the well-deserved spotlight on Abronhill resident Ann Raitt as she received her third telegram from the Queen.

Miss Raitt appeared in sterling health for a woman of her years, despite not being able to hear or to walk unaided.
She insisted that she would not see another year - but had made that prediction the year before.

Sadly Miss Raitt was correct this time around - after passing away in Monklands Hospital last Monday (May 5).
This redoutable woman who tested Father Time for so long had developed complications following a chest infection and slipped away after a heart attack.

Miss Raitt who never married was North Lanarkshire's most senior senior citizen.

And although she was not the oldest person in Scotland, she was thought to be the oldest still living at home.
Her death has devastated a friend who has visited her every day for more than two decades - Rowan Road resident Anne Walker.

The former school catering supervisor said: "Miss Raitt's death was sudden but peaceful.

"There was a point where we expected her to come home because she had been doing so well...but it wasn't to be."
Anne revealed that super-alert Miss Raitt, who never missed a trick at the best of times may have had some idea that she was experiencing her last few days on earth.

"She was telling her life story - she had a memory of travelling down the Clyde on a sludge boat on her eight birthday for example,'' said Anne whose whole family counted Miss Raitt as one of their own.

"It is amazing how clearly she remembered everything. Just before she died she took off a bracelet made of her father's watch chain which she never removed and gave it to me to take home.

"She also waved goodbye and blew kisses to the nurses when she last saw them that night.
"When I heard about this later I came to the conclusion that she KNEW she was about to die."

When asked to sum up Miss Raitt Anne said: "She was an amazing lady - and I do mean a lady.

"She was a very proper person. Somebody asked me if it was going to be a 'black' funeral for Miss Raitt and of course it was. Miss Raitt would NEVER have gone to a funeral without being dressed in black and without wearing gloves.

"When we were sorting out the jewellery on her last birthday she showed me a ring. She told me it was a mourning ring. She asked me to wear it at her funeral. I have to say I had never heard of such a thing."

But of course Anne DID wear the ring when Miss Raitt was laid to rest after a service at Abronhill Parish Church last Friday.

"She was like a mother to me - and she sometimes scolded me like one! It was just like losing my mother all over again...''

Ann Raitt was born in Renfrewshire in the same year as athlete Eric Liddell, aviator Charles Lindberg and leading ladies Norma Shearer and Tallulah Bankhead.

That year of 1902 also saw Edward VII crowned and the Boer War end.

Not only did Miss Raitt live through two World Wars, she served in one of them as a member of the Voluntary Aid Detatchment of the Royal Navy on Red Cross hospital ships.
After 1945, Miss Raitt continued to find a place in the sun as she accompanied underprivileged Glasgow schoolchildren to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

She worked as a housemistress at the former colony's Fairbridge Memorial College and indeed some of her former charges attended her funeral.

Messages of her passing have been relayed online to those former pupils who intend to raise a glass to this life-loving lady at their next reunion.

After the scheme was wound up, Miss Raitt worked in a very different kind of school - Roedean, the exclusive boarding school on the south coast.

On her retirement she returned to Scotland - and continued to enjoy a fulfilling life among the many friends she made in Cumbernauld.

On every occasion the News & Chronicle met with Miss Raitt, it became plain that this uncannily youthful-looking lady with her keen stare and brilliantly unfaded blue eyes was still very much part of the world she inhabited for such a long time.

Boasting great presence, Miss Raitt always said that her quality of life was high because she was so content on a day-to-day basis and so inspired by her memories.