A Fife great grandmother who served as a radio operator with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) during the Second World War was guest of honour at Leuchars Station to celebrate her 100th birthday.
Cathy Drummond, who turns 100 on April 7, was hosted in the officers’ mess on Wednesday March 30 by Lieutenant Colonel Graeme Craig, commanding officer of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and Head of Establishment at Leuchars Station.
The lunch trip was organised by Royal British Legion Scotland.
Chauffeur driven
The special occasion began when Cathy and her daughter Catherine Johnstone were picked up from their home in Freuchie by the commanding officer’s staff car.
They were then taken to the lunch at Leuchars where a piper played ‘Happy Birthday’ and the Army presented her with some personal gifts.
Cathy, who specialised in Morse Code with aircraft from her coastal command centre in Oban during the war, has remained an active member of the veterans’ community.
She was recently mentioned in Lucy Fisher’s newly published book “Women in the War” describing the importance of the work she carried out.
The centenarian, who became a war widow aged just 22 while pregnant with an unborn child, told The Courier she “never envisaged” the day she would reach 100.
She says she is lucky to be in such good health for her age and puts it down to a life of hard work.
She also said having a very loving family, being a very sociable person and her love of travel round the world has helped keep her mind very active, along with a good sense of humour.
However, while she said it was a “great honour” to be invited to Leuchars, she said she was surprised all the same and said: ”Why me?”.
She added: “I am just an ordinary person but being a veteran I am thrilled to bits to be visiting what was originally an RAF base being in the WAAFs myself.”
Audience with royalty
Cathy is no stranger to special occasions.
In a feature interview with The Courier in November, Cathy told how she had been invited to Clarence House in London just the week before for an audience with Prince Charles and Camilla.
The future king listened intently as she told him the remarkable story of how she was on duty as a wireless officer the night the Duke of Kent’s plane came down during the Second World War.
On August 25 1942, four months short of his 40th birthday, Prince George, who was the king’s brother, was killed when the RAF S. 25 Short Sunderland Mark III flying boat he was in crashed into a hillside near Dunbeath, Caithness, in the far north of Scotland.
Attending an event organised by the War Widows, Cathy explained how she and her friend Margaret, from Kirkcaldy, were on duty that night at a wireless station in Oban.
The Duke of Kent was being transported from Easter Ross to Iceland when disaster struck.
Cathy, who attended the Clarence House event with her daughter, said Prince Charles thanked her for sharing the story about his uncle.
Widowed at 22
However, he was also interested in Cathy’s own experience of wartime tragedy that saw her get married at the age of 21 – and become a war widow at the age of just 22 with an unborn child.
Coatbridge-born Cathy, who grew up in Bridge of Allan, had enjoyed just 10 months of marriage to John Boyd, a dashing Northern Irish RAF gunner, before his plane crashed off the coast of Italy in 1944.
It was a devastating shock for the young Scotswoman, who was forced to bow out of the war effort as the birth of her daughter drew near. Catherine, of course, also never got the chance to meet her dad.
‘Special lady’
Peter Kerr, veterans community support coordinator for the Angus, Perthshire, Fife, Stirling and Clackmannanshire areas of Royal British Legion Scotland said: “Royal British Legion Scotland (Unforgotten Forces) would like to thank Leuchars Station officers’ mess, Lieutenant Colonel Graeme Craig, head of establishment, for the kind invitation inviting Cathy and her daughter Catherine back into a forces environment to mark the special occasion.
“A special lady, well respected, well deserved and most importantly “Happy Birthday” from one and all.”
‘I often wonder how my life might have been if John had come home,’ says 99-year-old Fife war widow
