Sean Connery, Bob Maclennan, And Maria Fyfe Among Notable Figures Who Died In 2020 And Have Been Added To The Oxford Dictionary Of National Biography
10th April 2024
Born in Edinburgh, Sir Sean Connery (1930-2020) left school at thirteen, taking a succession of labouring jobs, joining the Royal Navy, and winning a bronze medal in the Mr Universe contest before finding his metier as an actor. Two years touring in South Pacific led to roles, small at first, in theatre and on television before he got his big break when selected by Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to play the ‘spy' James Bond in the first film starring Ian Fleming's character, Dr No (1962). Connery appeared in six more Bond films (including Never Say Never Again [1983], for different producers). Determined not to be typecast, he appeared in a large number of other films and founded his own production company, Fountainbridge Films. A proud Scotsman, he started the Scottish International Investment Trust and was a long-time supporter of the Scottish National Party.
Robert (Bob) Maclennan, Baron Maclennan of Rogart (1926-2020), was MP for Caithness and Sutherland (then Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) from 1966 to 1981. He initially sat as a Labour MP, but defected to the SDP in 1981, becoming its third and final leader in 1987-8 before its merger with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats, of which he served as joint leader (with David Steel) for another four months.
Maria Fyfe (1938–2020), MP for Glasgow Maryhill from 1987 to 2001, was a passionate advocate for women’s rights and for progressive causes worldwide; among her important achievements (having been the only woman among fifty Scottish Labour MPs elected in 1987) was to ensure that women comprised half the Labour candidates in the 1999 Scottish Parliament elections.
Stuart Christie (1946–2020) was a Scottish anarchist who became something of a cause celèbre in 1964 when he was arrested in Spain while carrying explosives with which to assassinate General Franco. Released after four years, back in the UK he was a leading figure in the anarchist movement as an author, editor, and publisher. He entitled his memoir My Granny Made Me an Anarchist (2002).
A former teacher, Saroj Lal (1937–2020) was a leading figure in the South Asian community and in race relations in Scotland, notably as director of Lothian Community Relations Council, and the first female South Asian JP in Scotland. A driving force behind the Edinburgh Hindu Mandir, she was also involved in many interfaith initiatives.
Glaswegian comedian, actor, singer, and entertainer Johnny Beattie (1926–2020) left school at sixteen to apprentice as an electrician, and honed his stage act while working at the shipyards. He went on to enjoy a more than fifty-year career as one of Scotland’s most popular entertainers, famous for his versatility and quick-wittedness.
Born in Markinch, Fife, Marilyn Imrie (1947–2020) initially trained as a teacher before becoming a highly-respected BBC radio drama producer and theatre director. For the BBC she devised the radio soap Citizens (1987-91), and later the radio version of Rumpole of the Bailey (2003-15) and The Stanley Baxter Playhouse (2006-16). In Edinburgh she was co-chair of the Stellar Quines Theatre Company.
Glasgow-born Tommy Docherty (1928–2020) was a right-half for Celtic, Preston North End (alongside the legendary Tom Finney), Arsenal, and Scotland, but it was for an almost thirty-year career as a football manager (including for Scotland in 1971-2 and Manchester United from 1972 to 1977, spanning relegation and promotion) that he will be best remembered.
Born in Gatehouse of Fleet, Galloway, Hamish MacInnes (1930–2020) was one of the most celebrated of postwar Scottish mountaineers. He took part in three Everest expeditions, made the first winter ascent of Zero Gully on Ben Nevis and first winter traverse of the Cuillin Ridge on Skye, and mapped out numerous routes in Scotland and further afield. An inventor, he developed the first all-metal ice axe, and the first dropped pick ice tool, or ‘curved axe’, which made many new routes possible. Known as ‘the Fox of Glencoe’, he also, in 1961, founded the Glen Coe Mountain Rescue Team.
John Foster (1920–2020), born in Partick, Glasgow, was a conservationist and environmentalist who was the first director of the UK’s first national park (the Peak District National Park), and later first head of the Countryside Commission for Scotland; he believed in working closely with farmers and local communities as stakeholders in the environment.
Nigel Smith (1941–2020), from Girvan, was a successful businessman who ran an engineering company in Springburn. He played an important role behind the scenes in Scottish public life as a devolution campaigner (and chair of the ‘Scotland FORward’ organisation) and later an adviser to the ‘Better Together’ campaign (against independence). A Eurosceptic, he also advised the ‘Vote Leave’ campaign.
Sandy Grant Gordon (1931–2020) was a scion of the William Grant & Sons whisky dynasty, and a great-grandson on both paternal and maternal sides of the founder, William Grant. He was credited with starting the single malt revolution with Glenfiddich in 1963, and later ‘whisky tourism’. A generous philanthropist, particularly to bagpiping, he was also a keen ornithologist and a great lover of the Scottish countryside (and bagged all the Munros).
Glaswegian Jimmy Gordon, Baron Gordon of Strathblane (1936–2020), was a journalist and broadcaster who, after a spell as political editor for STV, was a pioneer of commercial radio as founder of Radio Clyde and chief executive and chairman of Scottish Radio Holdings. He was also a public servant in many capacities, including as a member of the Scottish Development Agency.
James (Jimmy) Morrison (1932–2020) was a Scottish landscape artist who was one of the Young Glasgow Group in the 1950s and achieved recognition for his paintings of Angus and Sutherland, and later of the Canadian Arctic, France, Switzerland, and Botswana.
Born in Prestwick, Ayrshire, Lindy Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood (née Guinness), Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, known as Lindy Guinness (or Lindy Dufferin) (1941–2020), became chatelaine of Clandeboye House, near Bangor, Northern Ireland, on her marriage to Sheridan Dufferin, the fifth marquess, in 1964. She was a talented painter of landscapes and interiors, and held numerous successful exhibitions. At Clandeboye she added an art gallery and a music festival, and was also noted for her work as a conservationist.
The novelist and author Alanna Knight (1923–2020) worked as a secretary in Newcastle before moving to Scotland following her marriage in 1951. In total she wrote some sixty books, most as Alanna Knight but some as Margaret Hope, encompassing romantic and historical fiction, crime novels, mysteries, gothic suspense, and non-fiction (including several books on Robert Louis Stevenson).
Born in Lochgelly, Jennie Erdal (1951–2020) was a novelist, editor, and translator, best known for Ghosting (2004), her acclaimed memoir which both recorded her childhood in a Fife mining village and revealed her long service as ghost-writer to the flamboyant publisher (and successful ‘author’) Naim Attallah. She was also a translator from Russian and German, and a novelist (under her own name as well as Attallah’s).
Dame Denise Coia (1952–2020), the daughter of a Glasgow café proprietor, originally specialized in obstetrics before re-training as a psychiatrist and working for many years in the Gorbals. With a deep commitment to helping the most deprived, she became a leader in her profession and served as chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, and later of Health Improvement Scotland.
Ann Mitchell (1922–2020) was a mathematician and Bletchley Park codebreaker who, after her marriage in 1948, moved to Scotland. There, after training with the Marriage Guidance Council, she became a social policy analyst, particularly concerned with the experiences of children of divorcing parents, a scholar of Scottish family law, and a researcher and author on Edinburgh history, with books on the inhabitants of Calton Hill and the Moray Feu.
Born in Hillhead, Lynn Faulds Wood (1948–2020) was a graduate of Glasgow University who began her career as a journalist for Woman, the Daily Mail, and The Sun, before becoming a television presenter and consumer advocate, best known for presenting Watchdog (1985-93) with her husband John Stapleton.
Elizabeth Vallance, Lady Vallance of Tummel (1945–2020), also born in Glasgow, was a political scientist who researched the role of women legislators, and a founder of the all-party 300 Group, set up in 1980 after only three per cent of MPs elected in 1979 were women. She was a founder or supporter of numerous charities and causes, including many concerning disadvantaged children, women’s rights, and prison reform.
William Lockley (Bill) Miller (1943–2020) was another Scottish political scientist and a psephologist, specializing in electoral dynamics, who was a familiar face on Scottish television for over thirty years (known as ‘the talking beard’). His research also encompassed Anglo-Scottish relations, and emerging democracies in eastern Europe.
The son of a ‘land girl’ and an American serviceman, Paul Addison (1943–2020) overcome many obstacles to become a highly-regarded historian, particularly of the Second World War, and a biographer of Churchill – whom he regarded as ‘a hero with feet of clay’. Based for many years in Edinburgh (where Gordon Brown was among his pupils), in his later years he was a supporter of the SNP.
Born in Edinburgh into a prominent kilt-making family, Sir Eric Anderson (1936–2020) was a quintessential member of the British establishment, as a housemaster at Gordonstoun and Fettes and headmaster for fourteen years and provost for nine of Eton College, who taught Prince Charles and three prime ministers (Tony Blair, David Cameron, and Boris Johnson). He was later rector of Lincoln College, Oxford (whose undergraduates included a fourth prime minister, Rishi Sunak).
Other prominent figures in the new edition include two Northern Irish winners of the Nobel peace prize, John Hume (1937–2020) and Betty Williams (1943–2020); the writer of spy novels John Le Carré (1931–2020); singer Dame Vera Lynn (1917–2020); racing driver Sir Stirling Moss (1929–2020); two members of the only England football team to have won the World Cup, Jack Charlton (1935–2020) and Nobby Stiles (1942–2020); Jonathan Sacks, Baron Sacks (1948–2020), chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation of the Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013; Robert Armstrong, Baron Armstrong of Ilminster (1927–2020), the cabinet secretary known for being ‘economical with the truth’; Sir Terence Conran (1931–2020), the designer and restaurateur who founded Habitat and the Design Museum; Dame Rachel Waterhouse (1923–2020), chair of the Consumers' Association; Jan Morris (1926–2020), journalist, travel writer, and historian; and Wendy Cooling (1941–2020), a teacher and anthologist who founded Bookstart.
