Hi Folks, only a few of you will know who Ruby Wilson was, about 4 years ago I received a phone call from her, she wanted to help the Greyhounds!

She offered her fundraising assistance to GAL and to be honest we never looked back, along with her good friend Anne they became our 'Edinburgh' Ladies. Off they went and started fundraising in earnest for GAL, they didn't ask for anything in return for their services, just the odd leaflet and an occasional request for a dog to attend their many coffee mornings. As I was living in Edinburgh at the time I usually went along with whatever foster dog was in residence at the time. The coffee mornings were great fun and it was lovely to see the looks on the old ladies faces when they greeted the dogs I took along.

Ruby and Anne's fundraising activities didn't stop there, Ruby in particular was a stalwart at the various Gala's and fetes in and around Edinburgh and every few months GAL's coffers would swell by a few hundred pounds that they had managed to raise.

A couple of years ago Anne moved to London but Ruby continued in her one woman quest to help her beloved dogs.

Over this time I became great friends with Ruby, she was committed to helping GAL and worked tirelessly for us. She never passed up a chance to raise a few extra pounds for GAL and I remember her once stopping and picking up a 2p from the ground - it all helps she told me.

Ruby was a great old character, she never let on to me her age, that was her little secret, she smoked like a chimney, had an opinion on everything and wouldn't stand fools easily. She always put a smile on my face and I so admired her commitment to the Greyhounds.

Ruby never liked technology, computers or phones, she liked the old fashioned paper and pen approach to talking to folks, her last letter to me summed her up to a T, it was written on the morning after the recent BBC documentary had been shown, Ruby hadn't slept all night so angry was she about the program and it's lack of information about GAL and the Greyhound Rescue 'scene' in Scotland. Her letter contained a whole list of complaints which she was going to include in a letter to the BBC. That was Ruby down to the ground, a very forceful attitude and she didn't care who thought that!

Sadly Ruby suffered a stroke on Monday of this week and I was informed this morning that she'd died in her sleep last night. She passed on quickly and without a fuss, just the way she would have liked it.

Ruby will be missed by me personally and by GAL in general, I felt it appropriate to post something on here about her, I think she would have been suitably embarrased but secretly quite pleased.

Thank you Ruby.