Obituary: Virginia Westwater managed Post Office branches across Fife

Virginia Westwater, who managed Post Office branches across Fife during her long career, has died suddenly aged 78.

She ran the main Post Office in Dunfermline, Cupar and Cowdenbeath and had secondments at other branches across the Kingdom.

Outside work, Virginia, known as Gintie, had a lifelong association with Culross Abbey, and had been a founder member of Cairneyhill Guides.

Virginia, who died while on holiday in Duns, was born in Dunfermline maternity home and was the only daughter of William Turnbull Riddler and his wife Marjory (Marshall).

Early years

The family lived in Culross and her father was the foreman painter with the Co-op. Her mother was the manager of the Co-op restaurant in Dunfermline.

Some of Gintie’s earliest memories were of attending Culross Abbey where her father was session clerk and where her mother was among the first group of women to be ordained as elders in Scotland.

Gintie was educated at primary level in Culross before moving on to Dunfermline High School.

During her school years she took a Saturday job at Woolworth’s to contribute towards the cost of a school holiday to Europe.

Career begins

She was offered a full-time job in the store when she left school but opted to join the Post Office and began work in Edinburgh’s West End branch.

Gintie would travel by train to and from Edinburgh daily and, after two or three years, a vacancy arose in Dunfermline Post Office and she transferred.

It was through the Post Office that she met her husband, Robin, a postie.

Their paths had crossed over the years but they got to know each other while in the canteen at the Post Office and sorting depot at Cowdenbeath and married at Culross Abbey in 1991.

Promotions

Over the years she worked on the counter and in the personnel and wages department and rose through the grades to become a manager.

In a career spanning 43 years with the Post Office, she went on to manage the Cupar branch and branches across Fife on a supply basis.

Gintie’s final charge was in Cowdenbeath where she retired after an illness.

You can read the family’s announcement here.