Great great granny dies aged 108

Mrs Cockburn's husband George died in 1950

One of the oldest people in Scotland has died at the age of 108.

Elizabeth Cockburn, who lived to see six generations of her family grow up, passed away in Aberdeenshire on Sunday, 59 years after her husband.

For 78 years, she had lived in a remote croft with no electricity or running water near Turriff, but moved to a modern home before her 101st birthday.

She is survived by seven grandchildren, 15 great grandchildren and five great great grandchildren.

Grandson Norman Cockburn, 53, said: "As every year passed by, we kept wondering how long she had left. But she would just keep on going.

"She carried on her hobbies and was still knitting away three weeks ago. I couldn't say what the quality of the knitting was like, but she kept it up to the end.

She used to have an old fashioned radio powered by a battery Norman Cockburn

"She had lived in her croft for 78 years so we got a shock when she finally agreed to stay in sheltered housing. Until then, she had never used a TV before but took to it straightaway.

"She was also very taken with having a bathroom inside because she had used an outdoor toilet all her life."

Elizabeth met her late husband, George, when she worked at the croft as the family housekeeper.

They later married and brought up four children together, until his death in 1950.

Mr Cockburn put his grandmother's long life down to working at the croft, carrying out tasks which most people take for granted, such as walking for half a mile just to get water from the nearest well.

'Very restricted'

The family had to walk another mile to the nearest garage to charge up their house battery for power, they also kept vegetable plots and some cattle on the farm.

"She used to have an old fashioned radio powered by a battery," Mr Cockburn said.

"The battery used to take three days to charge and we were very much restricted to how much radio we could listen to because of the cost of the batteries.

"When electricity came in, it was going to cost her £500 to get it installed. She couldn't afford this so just carried on living the way she was."