Sheila Tosh, lecturer who taught generations

Sheila Tosh, who lectured tens of thousands of students at Dundee College of Commerce over her career, has died aged 89.

She taught at the college sites on Graham Street and Constitution Road from 1970 until 1993.

Sheila also taught many young press reporters the art of Pitman shorthand which she used herself well into her 80s.

Outside work Sheila and her husband Ian, who died in January, were devoted to their garden. They created what they called a secret garden overlooking the Tay at their Kingoodie home.

Sheila had also been a keen fly-fisher in the lochs and burns of Angus, a pursuit passed down from her father.

The youngest of three Rodger siblings after Alma and Jim, Sheila was born in January 1933 and brought up in Pitfour Street, Dundee.

Both parents worked hard, her mother Amy in the mills and her father Alexander (Sandy) as a shipyard engineer.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Sheila was evacuated to Glamis to stay with her Auntie Ina and her cousins Ian and George Minto.

She was educated at Blackness Primary School and Logie Secondary School, Dundee, and from an early age developed an interest in business and secretarial studies.

Her father was badly injured during the war and on return to Dundee was offered a job as the estate manager of the Scottish Horticultural Research Institute at Invergowrie, which was officially opened in 1951.

The family moved to a cottage on the site. Sheila’s mother Amy became a cook at SCRI and worked there well into her 80s.

Sheila got her first job there as secretary to one of the research professors. Her next job was in a solicitor’s office in Dundee where she renewed acquaintance with Ian, whom she had met when she was younger.

The young couple resumed their relationship, spending many happy weekends driving around the Angus Glens in Sheila’s first car which she had saved so hard to buy.

Ian and Sheila were soon engaged, married in July 1960 and set up home in Longforgan where, the following year, their first child, Elaine was born. In 1959 work commenced on building a new village at Kingoodie and the family later moved into a new home at 12 King’s Mason where they formed lifelong friends with neighbours.

The young family were soon joined by daughter Laura and eight years later the family was complete with the arrival of son Greg.

Ian was working at NCR and Sheila had started working part-time as a college lecturer in the evenings.

She then took the decision to train to lecture full-time and, over a threeyear period, travelled to Jordanhill College in Glasgow to study.

In 1975 she qualified and began work at Dundee College of Commerce where she lectured until her retiral in 1993. Her teaching career spanned the spell when the secretarial world transitioned to the new digital age.

Sheila and Ian enjoyed a happy retirement, doting on their grandchildren, bowling, hillwalking and travelling.

The couple were married for more than 60 years, receiving a telegram from the Queen in 2020 in recognition of the preciousness of their years together and to acknowledge their diamond wedding anniversary.

A celebration of Sheila’s life will be held at Dundee Crematorium today at 1.30pm, to which all family and friends are invited.

Sheila Tosh.