The family of a high-achieving Angus businesswoman who died suddenly in Australia have paid an emotional tribute to their “little spitfire”.
Carnoustie medical sales executive Lynne Scoular (42) was a fitness fanatic who travelled the world and used her spare time to help and inspire others.
Following her tragic death in Canberra on January 31, her mother Averil (68) has told how she helped to improve and repair a school in Tanzania, snowboarded in Utah, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and mountain-biked in the Outback.
“She was a little spitfire who grabbed life and she pulled other people in too,” said Averil, who joined her daughter on hikes through the West Highland Way and the Great Glen in 2008.
She added: “Lynne always lived her life to the full. She sucked other people into doing stuff they would never normally have considered, even if they didn’t want to. We are laughing one minute and crying the next.”
Lynne is also survived by her father Bill (77) and sisters Aileen (48) and Fiona (45).
She was born in Carnoustie and attended Carlogie Primary and Carnoustie High. After studying business at Dundee Institute of Technology, she started a career in medical supplies, rising quickly up the ladder with a firm supplying hospitals.
Lynne then reached a stage in her life where she had fulfilled all her business goals, prompting a move from her Glasgow home to Australia in 2012.
There she joined a mountain-biking team and quickly made a number of close friends who have paid tribute via the club’s website and blogs.
One member posted: “She was the epitome of a mountain biker, focused and obsessed, she rode for the enjoyment and the company and the freedom that only comes from pedalling and pushing yourself each ride.
“As the sad news of Lynne’s passing slowly sinks in within the Canberra cycling community, the time for reflection is also upon us.”
While in Tanzania in 2010 and 2011, Lynne helped to run a first-aid clinic three days a week and transported critically-ill patients to hospital.
She has left funds for Ikabulu School in her will, and friends are in the process of setting up a memorial fund in her honour.
A colleague who worked with her in Tanzania said: “She did amazing things for this school that time forgot. Sixty kids were sporadically going to school in two classrooms with no full-time teachers.
“Thanks to Lynne’s leadership, there are now 200 kids in full-time schooling, three classrooms and four teachers.”
Fiona said the family are supporting one another as they come to terms with their loss.
She added: “One of her friends described her as a little rocket ad that is pretty much exactly what she was.
“She lived life to the full and beyond and I wouldn’t have had the nerve to tackle even half of the things that she did.”