I have written before about my affection for Northumberland and, in particular, my love of Alnwick which is probably my favourite town. So, I was very sad yesterday when Mary Manley - of Barter Books in Alnwick - tweeted that the Dowager Duchess of Northumberland had died at the age of 90.
What an extraordinary person Elizabeth Northumberland was. She was a debutante during the last season before the War but left that world of unbelievable privilege behind to serve in the WRNS both as a codebreaker and then at sea, dodging u-boats and torpedoes (and, as you know from a previous post on that subject, I have nothing but admiration for those who served at sea during the War). She came back from the WRNS having learned much and felt she had become a person in her own right rather than being, as she put it, "somebody’s daughter or somebody’s sister”. More that sixty years of charitable and community work followed. Yes, that's what I call a Duchess.
The Northumberland family have close ties to Fochabers. Duchess Elizabeth's mother-in-law was a 'weel-kent' face in this neck of the woods because she was Gordon Lennox of Gordon Castle and had a house in Fochabers. She was a regular at Gordon Chapel and I have a photograph of the congregation in the 1950s which includes her.
Duchess Elizabeth died on Wednesday "after a lovely walk in her garden" according to her son. I can't think of a better way to go.
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