RIP: June Boissier, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair: Inspirational musical director and teacher
La N
director and teacher
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Throughout her long life, June Boissier, the Marchioness of
Aberdeen and Temair, remained quintessentially the effective
and hugely enthusiastic music teacher which she had once
been, at the Bromley High School for Girls in the three
years before the Second World War. As Marchioness she became
chatelaine of the beautiful house of Haddo, near Ellon in
Aberdeenshire, which since 1974 has been in the care of the
National Trust for Scotland. She was musical director of the
Haddo House Choral Society, now the Choral and Operatic
Society, for 60 years. "What she is like as a Marchioness, I
do not know," the late violinist Yfrah Neaman told me on a
Parliamentary visit to the Guildhall School of Music. "What
I do know is that at Bromley and subsequently she has been
an inspirational leader and teacher of music."
In the north-east of Scotland, June Aberdeen was much loved
across the social and political spectrum. She was born the
daughter of Arthur Paul Boissier, then an assistant master
and teacher of mathematics at the Royal Naval College at
Osborne. In infancy she hardly saw her father, who was in
naval service throughout the First World War. He became a
Master at Harrow in 1919 and subsequently served as
headmaster from January 1940 until late 1942, when he became
head of public relations at the Ministry of Fuel and Power.
He was upset that his daughter did not take up the place she
had won at Oxford University. Instead, she took the advice
of Sir Percy Buck - King Edward Professor of Music at the
University of London from 1925-38 - to go to the Royal
College of Music. In 1939 she married David Gordon, later
the fourth Marquess of Aberdeen.
The third Marquis of Aberdeen had been a distinguished
engineer who succeeded to the title at the age of 81. He was
president of the Federation of British Industries from
1940-43, and, blessed with a natural tenor voice, sang with
the London Bach Choir, later becoming its chairman and
eventually president. He died in 1972 aged 88. So June's
husband, David, was Marquis of Aberdeen for only two years
before he died in 1974.
June was dowager for nearly a third of a century, during
that time nurturing the Choral Society which she and her
husband founded after the war. The citation she was given on
her election to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1981
encapsulated her: "Distinguished for her unique contribution
to music in Scotland, she has been musical director and
conductor of the Haddo House Choral and Operatic Society
since founding it jointly with her husband in 1945. The
special qualities of music-making at Haddo, increasingly
widely recognised by the arts critics, stem from her
achievement in fostering the involvement of a local audience
and amateur chorus with professional instrumentalists and
singers - some highly illustrious, some young but always
percipiently chosen. About 30 operas and 30 oratorios have
been performed by the society, representing the period
extending from Purcell to Britten and Richard Rodney
Bennett. There have been several first performances,
including works by Parry, Rodney Bennett and a
newly-commissioned composition by William Mathias. British
composers, especially Elgar, are her special interest and in
their works she excels: the first musician of her generation
to grasp the importance of performing 'The Apostles' and
'The Kingdom' together."
The third Marquis was very happy that David Gordon, June's
husband, should live at Haddo and run the estate. Educated
at Harrow and Balliol like his father-in-law, David served
in France and Egypt in the Second World War and was
mentioned in dispatches. He trained as a land agent and
worked on the Fawley Court and Knowsley Hall estates before
going to Haddo. The Haddo House Choral Society was their
joint brainchild; from small beginnings it became one of
Scotland's major cultural ventures.
The Gordons loved children and, dismayed that they were
unable to have their own, adopted two boys and two girls. A
close friend wrote: "The great house was wide open, like
their hearts, to every sort and kind of friend. And their
friends became friends of each other in that special warmth.
David combined huge strength with huge gentleness, great
possessions with great generosity. These gifts, in
partnership with his wife's creative talent, made Haddo not
so much a place as an experience." Knowing that he was dying
he opened negotiations to transfer Haddo into the care of
the National Trust for Scotland and the 180 acres of the
park to Grampian Regional Council as a Country Park.
Being taken round Haddo by June Aberdeen was an experience.
I remember a group of us being entranced by the drawing room
in particular. Above the fireplace is a wonderful picture of
David and Goliath by Domenichino (1581-1641). Other
paintings are landscapes by James Giles, Sir Walter Scott
and his daughter by Sir William Allen, a couple of Van Dycks
and the head of St Peter as well as a large, full-length
portrait of Archie Gordon in the costume of a page to his
father the Governor General of Canada. June would shake her
head sadly and say that Archie died in 1909 at the age of 25
as a result of one of the earliest motor accidents.
June Aberdeen was a governor of Gordonstoun School, of the
Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and of the Royal
College of Music. She was made an MBE in 1971 and a CBE in
1989. The latter honour was partly on account of another
interest, the chairmanship of the Scottish Children's
League. When I last visited her, in October 2007 in her
apartment at Haddo - part of the reconstructed former
servant's quarters - at the age of 95 she was as clear as a
bell about events seven decades earlier.
Tam Dalyell
Beatrice Mary June Boissier, Marchioness of Aberdeen and
Temair, musician and teacher: born Middlesex 29 December
1913; teacher, Bromley High School for Girls, 1936-1939;
musical director and conductor, Haddo House Choral and
Operatic Society, 1945-2005; married 1939 David George Ian
Alexander Gordon, later Fourth Marquis of Aberdeen and
Temair (two adopted sons, two adopted daughters); MBE, 1971,
CBE, 1989; died Ellon, Aberdeenshire 22 June 2009.
Nebulous
"La N" <nilita20...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:jIZ0m.32291$Db2.11992@edtnps83...
> Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair: Inspirational musical
> director and teacher
>
>
> Wednesday, 24 June 2009
>
>
>
>
> Throughout her long life, June Boissier, the Marchioness of
> Aberdeen and Temair, remained quintessentially the effective
> and hugely enthusiastic music teacher which she had once
> been, at the Bromley High School for Girls in the three
> years before the Second World War. As Marchioness she became
> chatelaine of the beautiful house of Haddo, near Ellon in
> Aberdeenshire, which since 1974 has been in the care of the
> National Trust for Scotland. She was musical director of the
> Haddo House Choral Society, now the Choral and Operatic
> Society, for 60 years. "What she is like as a Marchioness, I
> do not know," the late violinist Yfrah Neaman told me on a
> Parliamentary visit to the Guildhall School of Music. "What
> I do know is that at Bromley and subsequently she has been
> an inspirational leader and teacher of music."
I took a run out to Haddo today and had a walk around the grounds. The house
is closed and shuttered and there are signs up asking people to respect the
family's privacy until after the funeral. The grounds are looking good, with
the grass cropped and evidence of quite a bit of maintenance on the paths
since I was last there.
Haddo has some spectacular trees, with some of the family forebears
collecting them, as most great houses did in those days. One of the key
features of Haddo is a perfectly straight formal drive, which is a mile
long. Invited guests gave plenty warning of their arrival by coach, allowing
family members time to put the finishing touches to their dress.
Neb