The Ruby Scott I knew was elegant and sharp in both demeanour and dress, consummately professional, and I’ll never forget the first time we met.

It was 1969, not long after I’d arrived from “Swinging Sixties” London, antennae alert to Bermuda style, the clothes, the beat.

Finally, I felt I was getting somewhere when the door opened and there stood Ruby, elegant, sassy, looking great: “Hey, girl!” Like me, she wrote women’s stuff, and she worked on the Mid-Ocean News.

“Hi, love your dress! (for indeed I did). Where can I get it, I want it!” (My immediate words; how shameful).

“This old thing?” she drawled in that husky, low-key voice of hers that always seemed to be on the verge of a laugh. “Ages old, got it some place, forget where now ...”

Thus began a friendship that lasted right till the end. We were to keep in touch wherever we were in the world, a constant thread being a keen appreciation of style and the broader reaches of fashion. What was in, what was out, what was where and, most of all, when was any of it ever coming to Bermuda, as was often our lament in those early days — that was just a fun part of it.

If we could ever manage a lunch out, free of deadlines and duties, we’d head to the Hoppin’ John down Front Street, forever crowded and most of them saying “hi” to Ruby. Wherever we went, she knew everybody. We’d swap gossip, work stories and the news of the day, but always it was punctuated by mischievous appraisals of people’s garb, Ruby being deliciously sardonic on occasion. Nor would she hesitate to correct my own — albeit rare, I hope — sartorial sloppiness: “Pick up that hem, girl!”

Front Street 1969 was fashion, not finance like today; we were paid in pounds, not dollars, and while effortlessly familiar with every item of stock in Smith’s, Trimingham’s and Calypso, we bemoaned the desirable we couldn’t afford. Yet neither slave nor victim to fashion, Ruby always looked cool and soignée — simply sharp and elegant, ever gracious.

The Bermuda Press was housed then in a Dickensian warren stretching the block from a narrow door on Reid Street (blink and you’d miss it, no frontage) through to Church Street, on which side the heavy metal printing presses rolled.

Using the Church Street exit, as it was handy for the bus station when heading home every evening, Ruby would pass a chorus of friendly, respectful farewells from the printers. Impressive behaviour, I always thought when I saw it, for an impressive lady.

Grabbing a sandwich around the corner in Mannie’s, Washington Lane, or more leisurely over a coffee at the Hog Penny on Burnaby Street, pretending not to eavesdrop on the legals and politicians taking a break from the courts and House near by, we’d flick through the latest Vogue (always a month late to Bermuda) and be freshly inspired for our next fashion feature.

We were in Trimingham’s one lunchtime when she invested in a gorgeous evening dress, a slinky knit metallic number bought for a special occasion with her American husband, George. (They had met when he was stationed in Bermuda with the US Air Force and now worked at Nasa.) I loved the dress, Ruby looked an absolute knockout in it. At the high end, there tended to be only one of any style available then, and this one was hers, no question.

Much later when she was clearing out, the family about to move permanently to the US in 1975, I was stunned when she offered me that dress. I still have it, it hasn’t dated and, best of all, it still fits, which we’d joked about what seems just such a short time ago.

In the States, Ruby had gone on to successfully develop, write and edit a monthly publication for a major travel charity in Washington DC. When years later I visited her at home just outside the capital, she seemed wonderfully the same: the same low-key cool, the same elegance, the same dry humour and gravelly, half-laughing voice. Unhurried as ever, it struck me that I’d never once ever seen her flustered, let alone rush anywhere.

In later years, she was pleased to have more leisure time when George retired, both their children away, married and forging successful careers: daughter Barbara Ann, an employment attorney in California also making her a very proud grandmother; son Michael an international branding and identity specialist in New York City. There was more time to read, garden and listen to the jazz she loved so much, Dave Brubeck among her favourites. Ruby, you were such a special friend and workmate during those magical Bermuda years, morphing into a fun pen pal with a fine line in chic. Take Five (the eternal arrangement) hit on you all too soon — and you never did tell me where you got that dress.

Eileen Orr (née Dodds) wrote for the Mid-Ocean News and then worked at The Royal Gazette. After leaving Bermuda in 1977, she worked on magazines in London, including Elle, and as a freelance contributed to Vogue, The Sunday Times and other titles. She now lives in Wrexham, North Wales