Terry Brewis
Lord Lieutenant of Wigtownshire. Born: September 5, 1939; Died: December 31, 2014
TERRY Brewis, who has died aged 75, had an insatiable zest for life and determination that ultimately led her to a Government job, where she rubbed shoulders with luminaries including former Chancellor Kenneth Clarke (“impressive”) and ex-junior health minister Edwina Currie (“ghastly”). She was also the Lord Lieutenant of Wigtownshire, standing in for The Queen who made her a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order for her personal service to the monarchy.
Born in High Wycombe, in the first days of the Second World War, she was the daughter of hospital porter Robert Anderson and his wife Ann but was soon separated from them both.
Her father was posted abroad to serve with the RAF and after her twin brother died in infancy her distraught mother was unable to cope. As a result young Terry spent three years in an Irish orphanage, an experience she rather enjoyed and which left her less than enthusiastic about the prospect of being reunited with parents, whom she hardly knew, when the war ended.
All that changed however with the arrival of her younger brother Robert when she became a devoted and loving big sister.
A bright girl and talented musician, she was educated at the Convent of Sacred Heart High School in Hammer- smith and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music to study the cello but, because her family was so poor, she did not take it up and went out to work instead.
She began as a switchboard operator but life held greater opportunities for the steely young woman who went on to pass the civil service exams and join the Department of Health. There she worked her way up to become an executive officer, a role that involved her meeting and working with many eminent politicians. The job also introduced her to her another Department of Health employee, Francis Brewis, a young man ten years her junior who would become her husband.
They married in 1981 and, after the death of her father-in-law John, the couple moved to the family home at 18th century Ardwell House near Stranraer in Wigtownshire. Terry gave up her civil service career in 1989 to assist with the running of Ardwell Estates, helping her mother-in-law Faith develop the house and gardens, whose grounds are open to the public.
She continued her mother-in-law’s work although she always insisted she hated gardening – much to the amusement of at least one magazine feature writer who assumed she was joking.
Mrs Brewis, who was also lay chairman of the NHS Appeals Tribunal and a much respected Justice of the Peace, threw herself into life in the local community where she supported many organisations including the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the Girl Guides, the British Legion and the Rhins of Galloway Pipe Band.
In 2006 she was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Wigtownshire, declaring herself flabbergasted when her name was put forward by her friend Major Edward Orr-Ewing as his potential successor.
Her late father-in-law had held the position in the 1980s and so she was familiar with the honour and the duties it entailed. She fulfilled the role with great skill and aplomb, mixing easily with those across the social spectrum from Her Majesty, with whom she shared a love of dogs, to centenarians.
She received the Princess Royal during a visit to Wigtown Agricultural Society’s 200th anniversary show in 2011 and the following year took the salute on behalf of The Queen at a garden party in Lochinch Castle to mark the monarch’s diamond jubilee.
In her private life, she was an enormous support to her husband, alongside whom she was a generous host and entertaining company. She was devastated when, in 2005, her 57-year-old brother, plate butler to the Lord Mayor of London, died of cancer. She suffered a second heartbreak with the death of Francis last February.
She herself was no stranger to hospital, having been rather accident-prone over the years. While rushing to a keep fit class she fell down the back stairs at Ardwell and knocked herself out on the concrete floor but, with typical resil- ience, drove herself to hospital, determined not to call for help.
Having been diagnosed with cancer and, in 2013, given only a few weeks to live, she faced the prognosis defiantly, undergoing chemotherapy treatment that extended her life. After Francis died, she refused to let anyone down, continuing with her duties as Lord Lieutenant and fulfilling her husband’s last wishes, commissioning a memorial to him in the garden.
Last November she threw a party for friends in London, entertaining them to dinner at the Caledonian Club, after she had been to Buckingham Palace to be made a CVO, and had been determined to survive until 2015.
She did not quite make it but had succeeded in living, feistily, for nearly five years with a virulent form of leukaemia.
Among her many interests was singing, a talent she retained from her days in London. Though untrained it was said her voice was of a professional standard and she had been a member of choirs including the Brompton Oratory, the Taverner Singers, the New London Singers and the Scuola di Chiesa. In Scotland she lent her beautiful voice to the choir at Ardwell Church where her life was celebrated, as she had lived it, joyfully and with a touch of irreverence. Mourners were affectionately dismissed in the words of the catchphrase she frequently used to determine a discussion had gone on long enough: “sod off”.