A LADY AT LEISURE
Fiona Armstrong sings the praises of her fabulous late mother-in-law
It is official. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I am on the board of a university and have just had the task of helping decide on the design for a new campus building. Seven designs were on offer and for several weeks we pored over architectural offerings, some more monstrously carbuncle-like than others.
Yes, Prince Charles would have been in his element. And he would most certainly have done a better job than me. As it turned out, the building I liked the best was the one the rest of the panel considered to be the absolute worst.
Then, let’s face it, what do I know? I have a degree in German and a career in speaking to people. Most of my fellow judges came with doctorates in planning and construction. And architect talk is a law unto itself. I thought a ‘porous ground floor’ was one that soaks up water. Good idea in a wet weather area. It is, in fact, one that can take a lot of people walking through.
Architects have their own language. They use clever words like massing, modular and Miesian. Or charrette, cantilever and curvilinear. Because architects don’t do normal. They like quirky and extraordinary. They like permaculture and sustainability. Then there is the money side. Nothing ever gets built on schedule or on budget.
I am perhaps being unfair and this new design will probably not exceed the budget by a penny. It will also be jaw-droppingly avant-garde. The students will love it and I will sneakily
‘ This was a woman who carried her diamond tiara to America in a paper bag, on the grounds that no-one would want to steal a paper bag’
claim some sort of credit in years to come.
On a sadder note: the chief ’s mother has just died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. Fanny, Lady MacGregor of MacGregor, was a formidable woman. Southern-English born and bred, she came to Scotland back in the Fifties after marrying my late father-in-law. A dashing army officer, he swept her off her feet and up to his estate in deepest Balquhidder.
For an Essex girl you can imagine t he contrast. As a west Perthshire winter came on, she found herself being driven along potholed tracks, rain lashing down and the loch obscured by a clammy mist, in all ‘a very gloomy sight’. On arriving at the cold, bleak mansion house she was greeted by her tweed-skirted and sensibly-brogued mother-in-law who took one look at her chic London heels and pronounced them quite unsuitable.
Then there were the trials and tribulations of being wed to a clan chief. For half a century Fanny dutifully wore the tartan, but somehow she never took to the pipes. ‘It all sounds like the same wail,’ she wailed, as her husband tried to explain the difference between a pibroch and a reel.
Despite that, she always rose to the occasion: unfailingly courteous when telling overseas’ Scots about their Clan Gregor roots. A stickler for custom and manners, it had to be right. Ladies did not wear kilts. Ladies wore tartan skirts. One did not reel. Only drunk people reeled. One danced reels.
This was a woman who carried her diamond tiara to America in a paper bag, on the grounds that no-one would want to steal a paper bag. This was the lady who danced with the Duke of Edinburgh at a military ball. She followed her husband around the world, hosting Scots Guards receptions from Greece to Malaya.
Highly traditional, I do not think she would have made much of the futuristic designs on offer at the university. But one thing is certain, she was a wonderful one-off, and we will miss her terribly…