Tributes are paid to heart and soul of Lovat Shinty Club
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Tributes have been made to a treasurer who was described as Lovat Shinty Club’s heart and soul after she passed away last weekend.
Maryann Henton (80) died suddenly at her home in Kiltarlity on Sunday afternoon.
Her funeral will take place tomorrow where a planned cortege will see her driven past Balgate shinty park one last time.
Nephew and Lovat club president John MacRitchie said she was a woman who will be remembered by everyone involved in shinty.
“She was well-known and respected throughout the whole shinty world,” he said.
“She was full of life and had not a bad word to say about anybody. She was well respected and loved by everyone in the shinty community.”
Maryann first got involved with the club through her husband Jackie, who played for Lovat during the early 1960’s.
She was a teenager when Lovat won the Camanachd Cup in 1953 and despite having to wait 62 years for their next victory, MacRitchie says Lovat winning the cup in 2015 was one of her happiest moments with the club.
In 2014, she was awarded the British Empire Medal for her services to shinty.
To mark her 80th birthday last August, players at the club raised money for a carved seat to be placed at Balgate, which had inscribed on it ‘Maryann Henton, Lovat’s Heart and Soul’.
She is survived by sister Catherine, who is also associated with the club, and brother William, who lives in New Zealand.
Her funeral takes place tomorrow at noon at the William Fraser funeral home in Inverness. The cortege will stop at Balgate at 1.10pm before heading to Tomnacross Burial Ground.
Camanachd Association president Keith Loades also paid tribute. He said: “Maryann was a patron of the Camanachd Association and epitomised everything good about our game.
“She gave outstanding service to shinty, locally as a fundraiser and committee person, but also to the disciplinary committee and behaviour in sport committees where her wisdom and knowledge of the sport’s governance was invaluable.”
