Obituary: Lis Brady, 64

Lis Martin was born in Glasgow in January 1948, and educated at Laurel Bank school in the city.

In her early career she was a medical researcher at the Western and Royal infirmaries in Glasgow and in 1973, she married a doctor, Paul Brady.

They settled in Edinburgh and while bringing up their three young children in the Capital, Lis combined parenting with various roles: as a teacher, a medical secretary and latterly as a researcher and writer for the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

She had a wide range of interests. She spoke French fluently and was keen to learn other languages in order to reach out more meaningfully to those she encountered on her extensive travels, in her search for ever-deeper understanding of the world’s civilisations, both ancient and modern.

Lis loved music and was herself an accomplished pianist. She was also passionate about art and throughout her life supported artists with warmth and generosity.

Paying tribute, friend and artist Joyce Gunn Cairns said: “Over a period of 20 years she was the major collector of my own work; while I was honoured to be patronised by a woman of such keen aesthetic sensitivity, I knew, too, that her concern for those struggling on the edges included impecunious artists.”

Perhaps Lis’s most striking achievement, however, was the completion of an MSc in film studies, with distinction, through Edinburgh University, given that throughout the greater part of her period of study she was already terminally ill.

Lis died at home last month.

Lis was an active member of Edinburgh University’s St Albert’s Roman Catholic Chaplaincy in George Square. And it was there that her funeral service was held.

Joyce Gunn Cairns said: “It was a glorious crisp winter morning when a packed congregation paid tribute to a life lived well, and fully. The end wall of the very beautiful new chapel is glass and we were accompanied in our celebration of Lis’ life by a cat, birds, squirrels – a very fitting chorus for a woman whose heart bled for all creatures.”

She described Lis as ”a brave and generous woman”. She added: ”A prodigious reader, lover of the arts, architecture, poetry and music, and latterly a renowned film buff, Lis felt equally passionately for the plight of all creatures, human and animal, and for the environment.”

Lis’s husband Paul said of her that she “was simply my best friend and mentor for the 44 years we were together”.

She is survived by her husband, Paul, their children, Sarah, Matthew and Gabriel, and a grandson, James.