Nairn woman worked for Churchill

Louisa McNair, who has died aged 103, attributed her longevity to plain food, good genes and the Nairn air.

Her sisters, Emma and Mary, both lived until they were 102 and her eldest sister, Edith, died aged 96.

Mrs McNair, nee McDonald, also loved exercise, tended her vegetable and flower garden and cooked her own broth until she was 99.

As a young woman in the 1930s, she went to work in the kitchens of Winston Churchill’s London home on the recommendation of a Highland landowner.

She then went to work for the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, before returning to Nairn to join the Land Army at the start of the Second World War.

She was born in Cluny, Aberdeenshire, in April 1918.

Her father was a forester at Cluny Castle but her mother was asthmatic and advised to live near the coast so, in 1933, the family moved to Nairn.

Mrs McNair left school at 14 and worked in farm kitchens for £6 a month but then secured a job with Sir Alex Grant at Logie House, Dunphail. Her cycles from Nairn to Logie House would engender a lifelong love of keeping fit.

In 1936, on the recommendation of Sir Alex, she moved to London to work in the kitchens of Winston Churchill’s family home.

After her spell on the Duke of Devonshire’s staff, she worked on farms across Nairnshire as part of the Land Army and forged lifelong friendships.

After the war she met and married agricultural contractor, Alex McNair, and had two sons, Angus and Roddy. In 1952, the family moved from Newton Park, Nairn, to Auldearn.

From the 1970s until the 1990s, she and her husband won many awards at fruit, flower and vegetable shows, and she continued to dig and cultivate her own garden after being widowed in 1994.

Angus said: “She said there was no secret for living a long time but believed a good diet with plain food was a big factor, coupled to good family genes, a common factor, as her sisters reached similar ages.

“She credited plenty outdoor activity as therapy as well as cycling to get the heart pumping.”

Gardening enthusiast Louisa McNair has died aged 103.