Tonight I have a very sad announcement to make. Our longstanding committee member, Ross Couper, tragically passed away two weeks ago in Raigmore Hospital. We truly missed him at the last couple of meetings and had hoped that we would see him back taking charge of all our technical needs again. Sadly that wish wasn’t fulfilled, as Ross’s health deteriorated rapidly in the end. As you would have wished, I sent a condolence card to his family on behalf of the society.

Ross lived in Cromarty for many years and enjoyed being part of the history society. As well as being a committee member since 2011, he also happily undertook research to present some lectures. His last talk was in relation to his own family history, in particular his grandfather and great grandfather. He managed to weave such an interesting tale of these 2 Cromarty men, while also giving an insight to life in Cromarty during their lives as well as enlightening aspects of the wider world at the time.

Further back, he gave a talk called “Nigg and Rigs”. With the benefit of his engineering training, he gave his audience a comprehensive background to the history of drilling for oil in the North Sea and Nigg’s part in that history.

I remember when several committee members presented short talks for one of our Christmas meetings. Ross and I collaborated to tell members about a Dr. Elizabeth Fraser, the first woman to hold a professorship at Aberdeen University. We read extracts from an account of her young life in Cromarty. Ross was enthusiastic in the research and determinedly embarked on finding all the photographic interpretation needed to illustrate the presentation.

A lot of what Ross did was behind the scenes, I can’t tell you how many times I came into the hall (both the West Church and this one) to find that Ross had already put out all the seats and tables and was busily getting the equipment set up. He was practical and inventive and looked for best value and often idiosyncratic solutions to any problems. He just quietly got on with things and as I have mentioned before, it’s only when someone isn’t here, you truly appreciate what they actually did. We’ll miss Ross as a loyal member of our society and also as a friend.

A service of celebration of his life will be held at the East Church, where he was a keen volunteer, on Monday 1 December at 1.00pm.