Oh lord! Steel’s wife has a jaguar tattoo for her 70th
MANY of us might arrange a personal treat for ourselves when we reach our 70th birthday, particularly if we were the wife of a peer of the realm.
But not everyone would opt for the item chosen by Judy Steel, the wife of former Liberal leader David Steel.
She had a leaping pink jaguar tattooed on her left shoulder – to the apparent shock of her husband.
‘It was very liberating because it was sort of proving that you’re never too old to do mad things,’ said Lady Steel, who has only just given the body art a public showing, two years after having it done.
The image of the jaguar – which she describes as ‘not very obvious unless I give somebody a little showing’ – is taken from the coat of arms of her husband, who is Baron Steel of Aikwood.
Lady Steel took a framed print of the heraldic image into the Time Bomb tattoo parlour in Selkirk, Scotland, so that the three-inch tattoo, costing £30, would be accurate. But she did not tell her 74-yearold husband about it beforehand.
‘David would definitely have tried to talk me out of it,’ said Lady Steel, a mother of three and grandmother of eight, who used to work as a theatre director and producer.
And its first unveiling to Lord Steel did not go well, according to his wife. She said: ‘When he saw it, he said, “I assume that’s a transfer.”
‘He’s still uncertain about it, and I don’t think he’s convinced. Some of David’s friends think it’s perhaps not suitable.
‘But when you’re getting old, you can be more eccentric.’
Tattooist Struan Lacon, 22, said he had been unaware of the identity of his customer, adding: ‘She was a very nice lady and seemed very interested in the process of tattooing. I was pleased with it when I finished – it looked good.’