Baroness Linklater of Butterstone obituary
Liberal Democrat peer, prison reformer and educationist who established a school for children with learning difficulties...Coming from a strong Liberal background — her grandfather, Sir Archibald Sinclair, later Lord Thurso, had been leader of the Liberal Party, as well as Churchill’s wartime air minister — she stood as a candidate in the famous 1995 by-election in Perth and Kinross, following the death of the Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Fairbairn. Despite the SNP’s surge to victory, Linklater improved the Liberal Democrat share to 11 per cent of the vote. Two years later, she and her husband were staying at a Highland cottage when a crackling call came through from Paddy Ashdown: “Are you sitting down? We would like you to become a working peer. We need an answer in 24 hours.”...
...Veronica Lyle was born in 1943, the eldest daughter of Colonel Michael Lyle and his wife, Elizabeth. She was brought up at the family homes of Riemore in the Perthshire hills and Glendelvine overlooking the River Tay. The Lyle family had been in shipping in Greenock, with a previous generation establishing the sugar company Tate & Lyle. Her mother’s family were Sinclairs from Caithness, where she spent many holidays at the family’s remote lodge of Dalnawillan on the River Thurso.
Before going to board at Cranborne Chase, Dorset, she attended Butterstone House, the school founded by her mother in a large stone manor house at the end of their drive, near Dunkeld, which had belonged to Miss Crabbie of Crabbie’s Green Ginger Wine...
In 1966 Veronica Lyle was combining social work in the East End with playing her guitar and folk singing in clubs ... when she met the journalist Magnus Linklater, son of the novelist Eric, at a 21st birthday party. They were married in Dunkeld Cathedral in 1967 and lived in Islington, north London, where they had three children: Alexander, now a writer, who heads a hydro-electric organisation in Scotland; Archie, married with a family in Edinburgh; and Freya, the daughter for whom Linklater (who had been governor of several state schools in London) later founded her school. All survive her, along with her husband, a regular writer for The Times and former senior editor on The Sunday Times.
...She proudly wore the Sinclair tartan and her Lyle brooch with the family motto: An I May (to which she used to add, sotto voce, “An I May Not”) — a sentiment that reflected the sharp but compassionate eye she cast on the legal world, the penal system, and the press.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone, prison reformer and educationist, was born on April 15, 1943. She died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease on December 15, 2022, aged 79https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/baroness-linklater-of-butterstone-obituary-x38s2qq8r