Crane heads funeral cortege for popular Carronshore driving instructor Mary Reid

A cortege headed by a Horizon crane and followed by a long line of driving school cars headed to Falkirk Crematorium for the 69-year-old’s funeral service.

For 18 years she and husband Brian ran Reid’s Driver Training helping fledgling drivers gain enough confidence, skill and knowledge to pass their test and hit the open road.

The Carronshore couple launched the business in 2004 and since then built it up to be the biggest independent driving instructor firm in the area.

Sadly, Mary was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer eight months ago but kept teaching until three weeks before her death on February 17.

Husband Brian said: “Mary loved her job and the people she taught loved her.

"We were both supposed to be semi-retired but now, sadly, we won’t be able to enjoy it together.”

Born in Camelon, Mary was one of six children – sisters Marion, Helen, Patricia and Ann, who has sadly died, and brother Peter, who also died a number of years ago.

She had many jobs including a seamstress in the Camelon Wrangler factory, a bus cleaner, a car valeter with Square Deal Motors, Union Chemicals and it was while she was a delivery driver with Lucas in Bankside she met Brian 38 years ago. The couple have been married for 36 years.

Working at electronics firm Exabyte in Larbert saw Mary given the opportunity to go to America for three months. She discovered a forte for helping people to pick up driving skills as her colleagues struggled to get to grips with the hire cars they were using.

Brian said: “Someone said that she should become an instructor and, a short time later when Exabyte announced it was closing, that’s what we both decided to do.”

The couple trained for 18 months before launching their own company. One of the first things they did was run a competition with The Falkirk Herald to offer ten free lessons to one lucky winner, but they also gave one free lesson to all those entering.

Thank you for reading this article on our free-to-read website. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

Please consider purchasing a subscription to our print newspaper to help fund our trusted, fact-checked journalism.

https://www.localsubsplus.co.uk/nord/dm/FKH/V