Ann "Scottie" Doyle - Tuesday 22nd May 2018
Tribute to the late Ann ("Scottie") Doyle: 1941-2018
Ann was born and brought up in Carluke, Lanarkshire, where her mother was a nurse, and her father Rev. David Walker, a much-loved, highly respected Free Presbyterian Church minister and that year (1929) it’s Moderator, bent on persuading his fellow secessionists to return to the Church of Scotland.
This he did in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland when, much to everyone's amusement one delegate asked if Mr Walker was the only Secessionist there, whereupon close on 200 of them and their wives rose from their seats and walked to the front to tumultuous applause and laughter.
Ann spent her whole working life in the Civil Service, usually Benefits and Grants and even in her retirement was to be found advising and helping fellow church members as well as those attending Maggie’s in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
In her pre-retiral years she regularly went to Newcastle and many places on the East coast, directing training and running courses.
It would be safe to say that never a day passed, particularly in her retirement, when she was not planning or doing something for her church, its members and others it sought to help.
This might be a club for the elderly, a meeting for those with dementia, planning for trips to Zambia where her church, St Anne’s is so happily twinned with St Andrews Church in Lusaka, the Friends and Neighbours (FAN) club to which she devoted herself with such success or her church's Carers Support Group working with her husband, Derek, himself an ex-medical missionary and long-time friend and co-worker.
Of Ann it can truly be said that every minute of every day she was conscious of her Lord or his people in need.
She loved "simple" worship and presentation of His Word, grieved the loss of children from family worship and Sunday School (after all, she had been Sunday School Superintendent with 750 children in one of the churches she knew well).
She died less than two years after she and Derek married, but more than 45 years after they had first met on an Elders' Training Course (where both were tutors) and both having lost their partners.
In her inimitable way she said she had felt sorry for Derek and saw he needed help!
As always, she was right.
Only weeks before her death she was told that time was short for her.
She turned to Derek and said " That means I shall meet Him before you do !"
Thank God for Ann.
