Obituary: Miss Melita Lee – stalwart of local school and farm

Miss Lee celebrated her 100th birthday last year and was overwhelmed by the number of cards she received, especially the one from the late Queen which was personally delivered by Aberdeenshire Lord Lieutenant, Sandy Manson, whose late mother was one of her former pupils.

Brought up on the farm of Whitestripe, Strichen, where she stayed all her life until a fall necessitated a move to St Modans in November, 2019, Miss Lee was a stalwart of the local community throughout her life as a teacher and friend to many and her life-long interest in farming and the Aberdeen-Angus breed of cattle.

Born at Whitestripe on March 19, 1922, the young Melita was a premature baby at seven months and only survived by being wrapped in cotton wool for the first few months of her life by worried parents, John and Ethel Lee.

She grew up to have a happy childhood on the farm with her orphan lambs, hens and other livestock and loved the simple pleasures of rural life with her older siblings, Alec and Gertrude.

Strichen School, which in those days went to secondary level, gave her the grounding for her chosen career of teaching and she encountered the blackouts and bombings of the wartime years to attend teacher training college in Aberdeen, arriving one day to find all the windows in the college shattered as a result of the previous evening’s attacks.

Her first posting was to Peterhead North School, where she faced a class of 50, with no free periods, teaching handicrafts and physical education as well as the three Rs – reading, writing and arithmetic. It was a demanding debut for a young teacher just out of college but Melita always said this tough experience stood her in good stead.

After two years, she was transferred to Strichen School, teaching primary six and seven and also maths, and remained there for almost 40 years until her retirement in 1982.

She was a teacher of the old school and a strict disciplinarian who didn’t stand any nonsense, although always fair. She was held in the highest esteem by her former pupils, teaching two or three generations of the same families and this was borne out by the number of former pupils at her funeral.

Miss Lee had a great interest in local history and one of her classes won the Aberdeenshire Heritage Trophy. Her interests outwith the school included teaching Scottish country dancing and membership of the Buchan Field Club.

Summer school holidays afforded the opportunity of travel and over a period of years in the late 1950s and early 1960s she visited uncles and aunts and their families in Canada, USA, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, as well as in the UK and Ireland, and continued to maintain contact with their grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The Whitestripe Aberdeen-Angus herd, founded in 1918 and Border Leicester sheep flock, were amongst the most prominent in Aberdeenshire in her father’s day and were carried on by her sister, Gertrude, 13 years Melita’s senior, until retiring after breaking her hip in a fall in the late 1980s.

Aberdeen-Angus from the herd were exported to Argentina and the US in the heyday of the breed and in one halcyon period the Border Leicester ram lamb class at Reith and Anderson’s annual show and sale in Aberdeen was won by Whitestripe Border Leicesters for five years in succession, one selling for the then record price of 80gns (at a time when the going rate was 8-12gns).

Melita maintained an active interest in the farming business, keeping the books and naming all the Aberdeen-Angus calves and continued to run the farm with the help of her great-nephew, Lee Walker, following Gertrude’s retirement.

Both Gertude and Melita were founder members of the North-east Aberdeen-Angus Club in 1972 and took part in many of the club’s annual summer tours to view leading Aberdeen-Angus herds around the country, the Borders and Orkney being favourite destinations.

Melita also visited Denmark with the club in 1983 and particularly enjoyed a visit to the then Prince of Wales’ Highgrove herd, in Gloucestershire, where they were greeted by his Royal Highness who asked Melita what she thought of his cattle. “Better than expected,” was Melita’s curt, but honest observation.

She also served for many years as treasurer of the club and was latterly made an honorary vice-president in recognition of her service to the club.

Miss Lee maintained a keen interest in the farming activities at Whitestripe and the successes of her relatives in the pedigree sheep world until the end, and was particularly proud of her recognition by the Queen on her 100th birthday in March.