100th birthday celebrations for Leslie woman who worked at Innes Johnston

Catherine “Kay” McLeod, nee McGregor, of Glendevon Road, Glenrothes, celebrated her 100th birthday on Friday, April 19. Visiting to mark the occasion were Councillor Ross Vettraino presenting flowers on behalf of the Council and Linda Bissett, Deputy Lieutenant, representing the Fife Lieutenancy.

Originally born in Leslie, she lived for a period on her grandma’s farm in Star. A bad sleeper as a child, it was the slightly unusual method of being taken around the fields in a motorbike sidecar that helped her off to sleep.

She then left the farm and moved with her family to Kennoway when her father became the bank manager there and went to Kennoway Primary School and later to Buckhaven High School.

Aged 12 she moved back to Douglas Road, just a few doors from where she was born. She left school at 14 and first worked in a shop then got a job with De La Rue, the pen factory, in Leslie. She then attended night school to learn shorthand and typing.

Aged 16 she met Jim McLeod, but then came the Second World War. He went to Africa and Italy with the Royal Engineers and Kay stayed at home working in an air raid office and carried out air raid warden duties.

Her role at De La Rue, where she now worked as a secretary, meant that she moved to Glasgow and Newcastle. She returned to Leslie after the war and Jim came home and was demobbed.

Three years later, in 1948, they married and initially lived in Freuchie but returned to Leslie a few years later. They had two children - first, Fiona in 1955 and then Euan in 1961. Later she worked as a legal secretary in Leslie and Kirkcaldy before she finished her career working with Innes Johnston Solicitors.

Kay now has seven grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren, all of whom celebrated her birthday with her at the Laurel Bank in Markinch over a birthday lunch and celebration.