There was little need for face time or emails as friends and family gathered around Arbroath centenarian Ann Mackintosh to wish her a happy 100th birthday.
We recently told how Mrs Mackintosh was an ace with the iPad and even tunes in to watch the Sunday service at her local church. But there was no need to check the wifi as her house filled with wellwishers.
Mrs Mackintosh and her children Ronald, Douglas and Margaret, along with younger generations of her family, were joined by Angus Provost Helen Oswald and Lady Fraser of Carmyllie, and her daughter Katie, who both cherish a long friendship with Mrs Mackintosh.
Lady Fraser said: “She is a lady who has played a very important part in my family’s life. When my late husband Peter became the prospective Conservative candidate for South Angus back in 1974, Mrs Mackintosh was chairman of the local Conservative branch and we got to know her and her late husband, Willie, well.
Mrs Mackintosh, or Mack as the Frasers affectionately call her, offered to help with the children as the family settled in the area and Peter Fraser was elected as an MP.
Lady Fraser added: “We had moved our family home from Edinburgh to Carmyllie and didn’t have any relatives to stand in.
“I shall always be grateful to her for making sure that my children led a very normal and happy life, while we carried on with what was sometimes a frantic schedule.”
Mrs Mackintosh later attended Lord and Lady Fraser’s son and daughter’s weddings, as well as the christenings of grandchildren in the House of Lords one of them when she was in her 90s.
Born in Forfar in 1914, Ann married Arbroath solicitor William Mackintosh, of W&J Mackintosh, in 1944. The couple lived in Carnoustie before moving to Arbroath about 60 years ago.
As befits an extra-special birthday, the celebrations for Mrs Mackintosh’s centenary began early with a family gathering at the Ardoe House Hotel in Aberdeen, with some of her relatives flying in from England and Norway.
She has six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.