Seonaidh Mann-Pittams, artist popular with the Queen Mum, falls to her death

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Artist dies in fall from balcony at air hangar

STEVE MCKENZIE

A SCOTTISH artist who was popular with the late Queen Mother has died
in an accident in an aircraft hangar in New Zealand.

Seonaidh Mann-Pittams, a mother of one, fell from a mezzanine balcony
on to the concrete floor below. She suffered head injuries.

The 43-year-old, from Wick, Caithness, was socialising when she lost
her balance while waving to an acquaintance.

Police said she never regained consciousness and died in Tauranga
Hospital in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty area, just hours later. The
death is not being treated as suspicious.

The accident happened in a hangar at Tauranga airport at 3pm on
Saturday.

Her salesman husband John, 46, described his wife as a "feisty Scot"
who had "miles of friends". He said: "She was only about six and a half
stone so she wasn't a big girl, but she had the presence of a
20-stoner. She had a viewpoint and she stuck with it - she was
staunch."

The couple, who have a three-year-old daughter, Annastasia Rose, moved
to the Bay of Plenty, in New Zealand's North Island, from Scotland 12
years ago.

Mrs Mann-Pittams was a pupil at Wick High School and graduated from
Glasgow School of Art. She returned to Caithness where she met John and
worked at Dunbeath Castle. The couple married in 1991.

Her work is included in the private collection of the Queen Mother, who
was a regular summer visitor to Castle of Mey in Caithness.

The painter's father, the glass artist Denis Mann, and mother Trudi are
in New Zealand.