CATHERINE Manby, who has died aged 94, worked for many years in the Skipton ironmongers, Fred Manby & Brother.

She was born Catherine Jones in Cleator Moor, Cumberland, to stalwart country stock. Her Hebridean mother, a MacIver from the Isle of Lewis, and her father from Shropshire, each lived to a healthy old age.

She spent her first 20 years north of the border, leaving her proudly with its accent and an affinity for the rest of her life. At a funeral service last week, her coffin was walked to the grave accompanied by a piper playing the Skye Boat Song.

To her Scottish friends and relations, Catherine was forever Renee. Her father, William, worked for the McAlpine construction company on road projects throughout Scotland, taking her to schools as far north as Wick.

Wartime service in Leicestershire as a Lance Corporal with the women’s branch of the British Army, the Auxiliary Territorial Service, changed the course of her life.

She met Freddy Manby, serving with the Duke of Wellington’s regiment, at a dance and they were married in the spring of 1945 in Glasgow and the rest of her life was spent in Yorkshire. Within three years they had a son and daughter, living first in Draughton, then Skipton and Snaygill.

She managed the houseware section in the family business, until it closed 30 years ago after 170 years in the town. She had dabbled at golf (her uncle manufactured the Donaldson Rangefinder brand in Glasgow), was a member of the Soroptimists and enjoyed holidays at the farthest reaches of the British Isles – in St Ives or with relatives in Stornoway.

From 1960, as post-war austerity faded, they were off on pioneering holidays in Europe with friends in a convoy of caravans. All this before the arrival of motorways, credit cards and easy money.

It was a full and happy life enriched by dances, a few gin and tonics and at Snaygill barbecues, when, faced with dismal weather and wet coals, she would say: “I think it’s clearing up.” Sometimes it did.

Freddy died in 1988 and she moved to Gargrave in 1992. Soon afterwards, faced with severe stomach cancer, she decided to try alternative therapy. She spent more than a month in cancer clinics in Mexico and was eventually cured. In Gargrave, she tried a few seasons with the bowling club, helped with the Over-60s and the parish church and was a valiant improver in its art classes.

She is survived by two children, four grandchildren and three great grandchildren. Her younger sister, Marie MacMillan, died two days before her and was buried last weekend on Lewis.