GAYNOR COOK stayed up all night after her husband’s sudden death on a Scottish mountain, pouring out her heart to two virtual strangers at the Highland holiday lodge where they were staying.

Mrs Cook, 49, was “absolutely distraught and very much alone” when she returned to Scourie Lodge, in Sutherland, accompanied by a policeman.

When the constable left, she was reluctant to go to the room she had so recently shared with Mr Cook, which has views to the distant peak of 2,365ft Ben Stack, where the former Foreign Secretary collapsed and died on Saturday afternoon.

Gerald and Penny Clyne, who own the lodge, said that they stayed up to comfort Mrs Cook as they waited for her friends to arrive on Sunday morning.

Mrs Clyne said: “We just talked about Robin and their times together. She hopefully took comfort in that. One can only imagine what she was feeling. She had just seen her husband die. She was all alone but for us, so we looked after her, although we’d only met her the day before.

“I tried to comfort her. It is difficult. What do you say to a woman who has just lost her husband? But I did my best.”

The Cooks had booked in to the lodge, built as a coaching inn by the second Duke of Sutherland, on Friday as part of their two-week touring holiday of the Highlands and Islands and had been in high spirits.

They had dinner with their hosts on Friday and discussed their plans for the day over breakfast next morning.

“They were deciding what to do, whether to go hill walking or to visit Laxford Bridge,” Mr Clyne said. “They decided to do Ben Stack and set off looking very happy.”

Yesterday Mrs Cook broke her silence over her husband’s death. In a statement, she said: “His love was the greatest gift I will ever receive. I loved and admired my husband — for his generosity, his tolerance, his integrity and his great joy in life. “At this terrible time I have been deeply touched by the many, many messages of support I have received.”

She said that together with Christopher and Peter, her husband’s grown-up children by his first marriage, she wanted to thank everyone who has given and offered help.

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