Ishbel MacAskill

Some days after the event, I've just heard that a light of life for many and one close to me personally, has gone out.

Angus MacNeil, MP for the Western Isles and the SNP's spokesman on Gaelic for the UK Parliament, came close to summing Ishbel MacAskill up when he said: "Not only was she a lovely lady but she had a unique voice with a wonderful warm quality, which matched her own personality. She will be a huge loss to Gaelic culture. Ishbel was a tremendous ambassador for the language." Tom Morton once wrote in The Scotsman that she was "arguably the world's greatest Gaelic singer".

Her interest in music went beyond the Gaelic, however: she turned me on to the early recordings of Ray Charles, for instance. I still have that record.

Ishbel MacIver was born and raised on Lewis, moving with her family to the island's capital, Stornoway, at the age of 12. Growing up, she moved south to the Big City, Glasgow, where she married Bill - from Lochinver - and worked for some time at British Rail. Her husband introduced her to fellow whisky lovers, Robin Hall and Jimmy McGregor, who tried to get her to join them professionally after hearing her sing at a party. But she didn't take up singing full time until 1979, when she was 38, and she appeared at a Mod fringe event. It wasn't long before her career took flight, and she swopped her 'lowland' name Isobel for the Gaelic original.

After years of globetrotting in pursuit of her muse, she died after hitting her head in a fall at her home in Inverness.

I'll remember her as always being full of love for everyone, vibrant with life; regardless of her size, a little larger than life itself.