HEATHER Napier’s travels are extensive enough to fill a row of library shelves.

The retired Dunkeld teacher has been to 122 countries across all seven continents, several of them more than once.

She taught generations of students at the old Dunkeld school and is an icon of the town, attested to by her life membership at the historical museum.

The Spectator caught up with her at a Dunkeld café to learn, not so much the details of her varied journeys, but about the lessons that a life of seeing the world has taught her.

“I taught for four years as a single girl up at the old school,” she said, explaining that the Department of Education decided where she went after she graduated in 1956.

“When I got married you had to resign in those days - no married women teachers.

“I went back six or eight years later temporarily and stayed over 26 years.”

She has always set an example of refinement and grace, but was never one to let appearances get in the way of a job that needed doing.

“I always wore a dress or a skirt as an example to the kids. One day I happened to go in in trousers because I had been out working in the garden, and I heard the kids say, ‘that’s Ms Napier, she’s in trousers!’

“And then another day, there were none of the men about and I couldn’t get the car to start so I drove the tip truck.”

“I am lucky that I am fit for my age. I was not lucky to save money, I just used my brain. So many that I worked with bought flash cars, I used to drive an old car they called ‘the fridge’.

“Then I retired and I took 50 per cent superannuation, and the rest I invested in shares and the dividends keep me flying.”

Her travels began with regular flights to Hong Kong under British rule, which under preferential trade rules was an international fashion powerhouse.

“When I retired I used to do the big bus trips, and you’d get to a city, the guide would say, ‘we’re going to go look at such-and-such a church’ – I loved looking at European churches, they are magnificent. But people would moan, ‘oh, not another church’. So, I gave up on those and started doing adventure trips.”

She does a lot of travel on her own too.

Explorations through South America, Africa and Asia, river cruises through Europe, an expedition to Antarctica, the list goes on.

“People say you’re brave to go to those countries,” she said.

“I don’t do silly things.

“When I was in Israel, I had done the beneath the wall tour and was walking back to the hotel about 9 o’clock. I walk with a purpose so they think I’m a local.

“When I was leaving Munich I tripped over and hurt my elbow, it bled like mad … when I got to one of the German airports we had to go to Budapest and my suitcase didn’t turn up.”

In so many decades that was about the worst thing that ever happened to her.

She already has her next trip planned too, a jaunt over to Easter Island in March – a remote volcanic island in the South Pacific Ocean under Chilean territory.

Discovery of the world’s civilisations is what keeps her on the move. She has a sweet spot for European design – the cathedrals, the canals.

“Truly everywhere in Europe there is history, fantastic history,” she said.

“I have been to various places in South America. I have a friend who lives in Brazil. There were places over there that looked like it could have been in Europe.”

“I’ve been (to Israel) a couple of times and it positively amazed me how well they look after the religious side of things.

“Some of these places I stopped at on this recent cruise were absolutely appalling. The wages they get are nothing. People here complain, but we have welfare.

“They think life is tough here – it’s not at all. They should go to see what life is like in some of these places.”

When she is home, she volunteers at the Dunkeld Visitor Centre twice a month, goes to church in Hamilton, and busies herself with committee work for the Victoria Valley Hall.

One thing she loves is connecting with travellers who come from other countries to visit her corner of the world.

“Foreigners come here for our nature and wide open places.

“I remember before Covid when you were on duty (at the Visitor Centre) you would always ask people ‘Where are you from? Denmark? Whereabouts in Denmark?’ … ‘Copenhagen but I used to live down near the German border’, and I said ‘Tønder?’ and he said, ‘That’s right!’ – because that’s where my friends live.

“Another chap came in, a Frenchman from Bordeaux, I said ‘I’m going there soon!’

“And when you travel, you know then how lucky you are living in this country because we have got everything, haven’t we?”