Fond memories
Nicholas MacLean of Pennycross is to be congratulated on his erudite and very readable obituary of Elizabeth, Lady Maclean of Duart, who was no distant figure on the island of Mull (Oban Times, February 14). I had the pleasure of meeting her and her husband several times, and have memories of their directness, fun and hospitality.
The first occasion occurred during a visit with some guests. My boots were dirty. After walking across the courtyard and before entering the keep, I naturally removed them as I would do on anyone’s doorstep, when I heard a voice shouting from outside the door leading to the families’ private quarters where she had been sitting enjoying the late autumn sunshine: ‘Mr Thornber, you are the first visitor I have ever seen entering this place who has ever done that. Go down to the tearoom and ask for anything you want and tell them I sent you, and there will be no charge.’
The second occurred shortly after her husband’s death in 1990. I happened to be living at Glensanda at the time and taking a particular interest in Glensanda Castle, which had been a Maclean stronghold. There was a flagpole in these days, which has since been removed as it was weakening the structure. Daily we flew the St Andrews cross. Thinking it would be a mark of respect to fly it at half-mast on the death of the chief, I did so and it was left until after his funeral.
But when I related what I had done, I was told in no uncertain terms this wasn’t the done thing and never to do it again –‘The Chief is dead, long live the Chief’. Quite right!
Once I was travelling on the MV Columba between Oban and Craignure in company with her husband. As we sailed past Duart, which was not open to the public at the time, we overheard an overseas visitor say to her companion: ‘I wonder what ruin that is?’
Giving me a broad wink, he sidled up to them and said in a loud voice, eyes twinkling: ‘Madam that is no ruin but my ancestral home’, following on with an invitation to have tea with he and his wife the next day when he would show them round!
Iain Thornber, Knock house, Morvern.