A BELOVED Barrhead teacher and regular newspaper columnist has passed away.

Patricia Doyle, who died aged 71, was a teacher and columnist widely known in education circles throughout Scotland.

She was a primary school headmistress in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, and later a lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Glasgow. She also wrote humorous columns for magazines and newspapers, including The Herald.

She was educated at St John’s Primary School, Barrhead, and Notre Dame High School for Girls in Glasgow, and after graduating from Notre Dame College, took up a post at St Roch’s Primary School in Glasgow’s Garngad district.

However, she spent the vast majority of her teaching time in Hamilton.

She taught at Our Lady and St Anne’s, eventually becoming a head teacher, as well as at St Paul’s, and then became head teacher of Our Lady.

Even after she retired, she remained involved in education, working for the bishops in the offices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Motherwell.

Her son Andrew said: “She found a new lease of life when she joined Glasgow University’s Education Department, where her wisdom and experience were passed on to future generations of teachers. She lectured in mathematics there for 10 years.”

"Presentation was her great forte. Always glamorous, it was unusual to see her outside the lecture room without a pair of Jackie Onassis sunglasses, even in the dreichest weather."

She also used her journalistic and public relations skills not just to raise money for charity but to ensure the achievements at her schools were always recognised, and to give pupils and their parents pride in themselves and their schools.

She was extremely proud of St Anne’s academic and sporting achievements, such as winning the Scottish Primary Schools’ Football Championships not once, but twice.

Mrs Doyle, who was also a member of Hamilton Civic Society and Saffronhall Art Club, organised a charity fashion show in aid of the Third World at about the time of the Ethiopian famine.

Her media savvy, borne from her occasional side-line as a columnist for The New's sister title The Herald in Glasgow, impressed editors.

She often declared that modern super-women were unrealistic role models and demonstrated her wit and insight on the plight of the modern, fashionable working mother.

Mrs Doyle met her husband, Harry, a teacher and college lecturer, at a dance at the Strathclyde University Union in 1966, and two years later the couple were married in St Vincent de Paul parish church in Thornliebank, Glasgow. They were married for 48 years.

Patricia Doyle, who was one of three daughters born to Jim and Philomena Watters, is survived by her husband, Harry, sons Harry, Gregory and Andrew, daughters-in-law Lara and Rebecca, grandchildren Gabriel, Olivia, Patricia, Teddy, Max and Isabella, and her sister Margaret.