Dessa never really left school. After formal education, she trained as a nursery school teacher, working first of all in Kelty. She always had a great love for children, and she became well known and well loved by many youngsters throughout the years. After some years in Kelty she went to work in Crosshill.
In those days Dessa was a very musical person with a beautiful singing voice. She was a member of the Kelty Musical Society and later of the Dunfermline Society, as well as the Dunfermline Amateur Operatic Society. In 1955 Dessa came back from a holiday in America to be offered the lead part in the musical Brigadoon. She was to act and sing opposite the leading man, Alec Seath. In true show-business tradition the leading man and the leading lady fell in love - off-stage as well as on, and two years later they were married, despite Alec's sister Daisy telling Dessa that she didn't know what she was letting herself in for.
It turned out that both Dessa and Alec were letting themselves in for 37 years of great happiness together. Their first home was in Rose Street in Dunfermline, where they stayed until 19 years ago, when they came to Townhill.
Dessa gave up her work in teaching for a time. In 1959 Craig was born, and it was only after he was old enough to go to school that Dessa went back to work. She now worked in the Pitcorthie and Abbeyview Playgroups, and, when she went out speaking to people about starting a Playgroup she used to open her address by announcing that she had sixty children. Through the years Dessa came to know hundreds of children, and I know that their young lives would have been partly shaped with that great love which she showed them all.
You often find that a woman who is busy outside the home is also busy inside the home, and so it was with Dessa. But she wasn’t the kind of woman who always had to be doing something. She could sit in a chair, announce that she was going to have forty winks, and be out like a light before Alec could answer her.
However, Dessa was very much a family woman. She lived for Alec and Craig, and for her parents. For a good number of years she looked after her mother in Kelty, travelling there and back faithfully each day until her mother died four years ago. That took its toll on Dessa's health, though she never once complained. Complaining wasn't in her nature.
Shortly before that, she was involved in the preparations for Craig and Angie's wedding, and that was a day she really enjoyed.
Besides her love of music Dessa enjoyed a game of bowls when she was more able, and she liked to knit. Her love of knitting was instrumental in her becoming one of the founder members of our Dorcas Group, and she had great fun with the ladies of that Group at their monthly meetings and at their sales in and out of the village. An active Church woman over many years, Dessa was a faithful member of the Woman's Guild. And in her spare time she would be found helping others or enjoying the company of children.
What kind of person is Dessa Seath? To quote Alec, "What You never found Dessa in a bad mood; she was so even-tempered and placid, showing true contentment. She was a woman who lived life to the full and put a great deal into it. Pleasant to everybody, she always had a welcome for anyone who came to her door and she got on with all kinds of folk.
You could truly say that Dessa was a genuinely nice person.
For the past ten months Dessa had increasing problems with her health. She was pretty much confined to the house for that time, with just an outing with Alec in the car. But even then she never complained. She always said that there were lots of people much worse than herself And she meant it. The only time she complained all through her illness was in hospital. But she appreciated very much all that the doctors and nurses in Kirkcaldy and in Edinburgh did for her.
Yet, even in her last weeks, when she knew that she would be going home to her Lord, her one concern was for Alec and the family.
Dessa was a woman of strong faith in God, and her faith gave her a courage that we could only admire.. She knew that death would not be the end for her, and so she faced it without fear.
Today we thank God for Dessa and for having known her, for that was and is our privilege. And we thank Him for His goodness to Dessa and to Alec and the family throughout the years, especially in these last days. We ask that God will continue to comfort Alec, Craig, Angie and all the family in the days to come and will keep them in His everlasting love.