Oldest surviving former Stroma islander celebrates 100th birthday
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The secret to longevity is a healthy lifestyle and an active mind, according to the oldest surviving former Stroma islander who celebrated her 100th birthday at her home in Thurso.
Jean (Cis) Robertson received good wishes in the form of cards, flowers, gifts, phone calls and Facebook messages and was also delighted with her special birthday card from the Queen.
Everyone who has met Jean knows about her love for her former island. She was very much involved in providing information and photographs for the definitive book on Stroma, edited by the late Donald Young and published in 1992.
To this day, ex-islanders from near and far turn to her for information on genealogical links, helping them to compile family trees and identifying family members from photos taken as far back as the late 1900s.
Jean was born on Stroma in 1921 to Jeanie and William Bremner. She often reminisces about an idyllic childhood in the company of her sister Mary and brother Sinclair at their home Glencairn and her school friends.
After an education at Stroma Public School, she worked briefly at Thuster Lodge on the mainland, returning to the island to help out on the family croft. Simultaneously she worked in one of the three island shops for several years.
During World War II she worked as a postwoman, delivering mail around the island on her bicycle. She still takes pride in being Stroma’s last postwoman.
A keen musician with a lifelong love of music, she played the melodeon, accordion and organ competently, taking part in island concerts and dances, and helping to raise money for the war effort. Her charitable deeds also involved knitting socks for the same cause.
In 1946 she married “the boy next door”, Frank Robertson, and over the next few years they raised their children, Jackie, Sheena and Billy, on their croft, Bellevue. The family moved reluctantly from their island home to Thurso in 1957 due to the closure of the school where their older children were the last pupils.
Frank became well known in the farming community as a livestock inspector with the Department of Agriculture. After 40 happy years of marriage, he died in 1986.
In her later years Jean was a member of the Church Guild and Friendship Club.
When asked what her secret of longevity is, she said: “I’ve always maintained a healthy lifestyle and still keep an active mind, watching quiz programmes on television and doing crosswords.
"I am still passionate about researching facts about Stroma and its former inhabitants. I also take a keen interest in the lives of my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. All in all, I would say that all these things contribute to my inner contentment."
