The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Model, war time plane mechanic and writer dies at 96
In the 1920s, Silvie Taylor, who has died aged 96, modelled clothes for magazines and went on to develop a love of the performing arts.
She later became an adjudicator at poetry and drama festivals across the world, as well as becoming an author in her own right.
During the war she served as a flight mechanic with the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.
Her son, Roddy, said during the conflict she kept a poetry diary of her experiences.
“It was laced with pathos and humour and interspersed with many Doric words,” Roddy said.
Ms Taylor, whose late husband Innes was outdoor engineering manager at Caledon shipyard, Dundee, died on April 4.
She was born in Dundee in 1925, the daughter of Jasper Stewart Fraser (Jack) and Jean Mcintosh.
Jack Fraser had trained as a picture framer and guilder before becoming a press photographer with DC Thomson and Co Ltd.
Her mother, Jean, was the daughter of James Mcintosh, beadle at St Andrew’s Church, and one of the founders of the church’s independent Boys’ Brigade company.
Mrs Taylor was educated at primary and secondary level at Morgan Academy, Dundee.
As a child, she modelled the latest fashions in magazines published by DC Thomson.
When she left school she got a job at DM Brown but did not take to department store life. So she enrolled at Paton’s commercial college and gained skills that landed her a job at WB Dickie and Sons solicitors.
She volunteered for firewatching duties and spent nights on the roof of her work place and was later awarded the Civil Defence Medal.
Mrs Taylor then joined the WAAF. She later qualified as a physical training instructor with the air force.
When she was demobbed in 1947, Silvie returned to Dundee and a job at UK Time (Timex) where she became PA to the managing director, a former US army major.
It was on a family holiday to Aberdeenshire that she met her husband, Innes Taylor, who worked in marine engineering at shipbuilder Alexander and Hall, Aberdeen, later to become Hall Russell.
The couple were married at St Andrew’s Church, Dundee, in 1950.
After a spell working as a draughtsman in Grangemouth Mr Taylor took a post at Caledon in Dundee.
They set up home in the newly-built Fintry scheme where sons Roddy and Keith were born in 1952 and 1955.
In 1967, the family moved to a home in Broughty Ferry where Mrs Taylor remained until her death.
When her boys were young, Mrs Taylor began taking music, drama and elocution lessons, eventually becoming a Fellow of Trinity College London.
In the early 1970s she began adjudicating professionally at poetry and drama festivals around the world and continued to do so until about two-anda-half years ago.
For 40 years until 2017 she wrote the March of Time in her church magazine, a role that has now been taken on by her son Roddy, a retired civil engineer with Dundee City Council.
Mrs Taylor was a regular contributor to The Scots Magazine and had a serial, the Flax Spinners, published by The People’s Friend.