A Renfrewshire resident who lost five family members within a relatively short period of time has developed his digital memorial idea into a small business.

Following the death of his parents, sister, mother-in-law and his wife’s cousin, David McKie felt there was more he could do to remember them properly than attending their funeral and having a headstone prepared with a few words about them.

With a long-standing background in IT, he decided to create a plaque with a QR code that could be placed discretely on their headstone and would link to a web page with stories about their life, their history and a selection of photographs.

Anyone now passing their headstone can simply scan the plaque and they will be taken to a summary of his parents’ lives, including their wedding photographs, photos of them growing up, stories about how they met, where they were married, where they lived and what they worked as.

David from Howwood said: “My wife Pamela lost her cousin Tony Connery in 2018 and before he died he told Pamela that he had written a book about his life.

“It was full of fabulous stories about growing up, early memories, school days, favourite sweeties, first loves, trips abroad, his working life, his journey to Australia, working in hotels, following the Scotland football team and hill walking with his dog Shona.

“The book is filled with lots of photos of his journey through life and is a fabulous read.

“It was a shame that no one was ever going to see it.

“Now, you can link to the book from the plaque on Tony’s grave in Johnstone’s Broomward Cemetery and read all about his amazing life.”

No sooner had David created these for his loved ones that he started getting requests from friends and relatives asking if he would create something for them.

He was delighted at how pleased people were with the finished result and the happiness it brought them to see their loved ones remembered properly with stories and photographs about their lives.

From this, he then decided to turn the idea into a business called Loving Memories.

On his website, David has also added the location of the headstones as well as linking the profiles within it to other family members.

“I feel that this will be of huge interest in years to come when people are tracing their family trees,” added the 61-year-old who served on Howwood Community Council for a number of years.

“My ambition is to see every headstone in every graveyard with a plaque on it telling the proper story of people's loved ones.”