An Edinburgh woman has been praised by Princess Anne as she turns 101 after her incredible charity efforts over the years.
Charlotte Fabian, was honoured for her incredible efforts for the the Mission to Seafarers, Scotland, after knitting woolly hats for workers for decades.
Growing up in Fife before moving to Edinburgh many years ago, Charlotte's passion for knitting as a child has now seen her create thousands of hats for those who need them.
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Despite being over a century in age, the local volunteer was still working away with her knitting needles as she turned 101 on Friday, October 14.
Receiving a Certificate of Recognition signed by HRH The Princess Royal, who is President of the world-wide Mission to Seafarers, the paper marked her dedication and commitment to seafarers' wellbeing.
Charlotte’s early childhood was spent near the sea, at Kinghorn on the Fife coast – she remembers taking boat trips to Inchkeith island, where her father worked – and she was taught knitting when she was just six years old by her aunt during summer holidays spent in Motherwell so that her own mother could carry on working as a tailoress.
Charlotte recalls how, years later, a friend, another knitter, told her “I could give you something to do” and gave her the pattern for what she called ‘fishermen’s caps.’
She said: “The friend I was with brought me a huge bag of wool in 100-gram balls of different colours.
“I just went on knitting. I gave them to Isobel, who passed them on to somebody else, who passed them on to someone else (it was like a conveyor belt) and he was the one that had contact with the Seafarers’ Mission.
“So they really were for all seafarers, not just fishermen. A lot of them went to the crews of the big cruise liners… when the cruise liners went up into the Arctic (that’s why you knitted them so long) they doubled them up!”
David Graham-Service, the chair of Mission to Seafarers Scotland, who presented her certificate today, said to Charlotte:
“We do so appreciate that you have made these for us, and they will certainly help to cheer our seafarers when they are so far from home.
“I am reminded of the words one of them once said to me:
‘It is good to know that others take the time to knit for us, helping to keep us warm and dry at sea; it is amazing that someone cares enough to do this, especially when we are feeling homesick and missing our families.’ ”
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