Obituary: Anna Murdoch

She was a daughter of the manse, born in 1924; her father the Rev Robert Robertson was called to Maryfield Church, Dundee. Ten years later Anna attended the city’s Morgan Academy.

The family has close links with the Church of Scotland: her sister Elizabeth is the wife of the Very Rev Professor Davidson, former Moderator of the General Assembly; and brother Mac Robertson was a finance secretary with the Board of World Mission. After call-up in 1942, Anna became a Wren and an electrical mechanic in the Fleet Air Arm. At the end of the war she trained as a teacher and in time was appointed teacher in charge of the village school at Crianlarich, whence Kenneth courted her, haring up and down the A85 on his motorbike.

With her parents living in St Fillans her weekend trip home on a bicycle (with the cat in the handlebar basket) was less taxing when she also purchased a vintage motorcycle.

In 1954 Anna married Kenneth and they started married life in Tayport. In 1960 Kenneth was appointed to Khartoum University and with three children, a Lambretta scooter and a fridge they moved to the Sudan.

Conditions were challenging. With limited equipment and accommodation a much-needed school was started. With the help of other teachers it flourished and grew, attended by children of many nationalities.

The family returned to Tayport in 1965, where Anna was a part-time teacher and peripatetic music teacher. With two sons, two daughters, goats, hens, a pony and a large garden, it was a busy family life.

But time was found to start a youth club. A thrift shop was opened to provide funds and valuable help was given by others. In due course Anna was invited to the opening of the new community building, the successful conclusion after 40 years.

In 1980 an old manse in Glenfarg was seen as a retirement home, but three years later the ruined Methven Castle was purchased.

Home was a rented cottage and for the next dozen years Anna shared in the hard work of restoration until the castle was ready for partial occupation.

In 1993 they took time off to recover from their labours, and walked from John O’Groats to Lands End – three weeks to walk back to Methven, and another six weeks to Land’s End, by which time Anna was a fit and active 70.

While walking and talking, the decision was made to volunteer with Scottish Churches World Exchange and Anna and Kenneth were directed to Pakistan. They worked in a Christian Girls’ School, returning six times in the following years.

In between times she took a dinghy sailing course, cello lessons, and sat a standard grade German exam to help her daughter.

She was the Sunday School Adviser for the Presbytery of Perth, started a resource centre to help teachers, and was twice elected Convenor of the Perth Presbyterial Council of the Guild.

In recent years the castle hall was the venue for numerous musical and other events. In December 2009, an invitation to a concert and celebration of service to mark the Murdochs’ contribution to society listed countless musicians, historical societies, guilds, local schools and charitable trusts who benefited from their hospitality and charitable activity.

Anna had the gift of doing much good for others with natural ease; of her I think it could not be said that – in the words of CS Lewis – “you can tell the others by their hunted expression”.

I joined the Murdochs on their last trip to Pakistan in 2008 when the beginnings of frailty and the unfortunate loss of her spectacles for several weeks meant there was little she could do as Kenneth busied himself building a kitchen in the compound.

But her patience and serenity were unfailing. The school principal, in a grace said the day before our departure, referred to Anna’s “peaceful presence”. This was apt and surely as good an epitaph as any.

Her four children and eleven grandchildren have lost a kind and caring mother and grandmother, and local life has lost a loved and lovely lady.

JUDY NORWELL