As a young girl, and later as a young mother, Anne MacLean spent her summers in Grantown-on-Spey mixing with some interesting characters.
There was future Hearts and Scotland footballer Donald Ford, who was a playmate of Anne’s.
And there was also a young Aung San Suu Kyi, who would go on to win a Nobel Peace Prize for spearheading the Burmese democracy movement.
Suu Kyi spent about a year in Grantown in the mid-1970s with her English husband Michael Aris, her son playing with Anne’s son Christopher.
Anne would also go on to live her own extraordinary life, honoured with an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.
Thanks to a tireless work ethic, she fought on behalf of many causes including breaking the gender pay gap as a trade unionist for civil servants and later, when her sight failed, for the visually impaired.
In later life, and back in her beloved Grantown, she chaired numerous committees and was a leading figure in Labour, the party she had a life-long affiliation with and would live to see returned to government.
A childhood spent travelling to distilleries and getting into scrapes
Elizabeth Anne MacLean was born in Falkirk on September 3, 1941 to John and Jean MacLean.
She was an only child whose father worked his way up through the ranks of the local whisky industry to become manager of Rosebank, one of the best-regarded lowland distilleries.
Her father’s job included a lot of travel to other distilleries and Anne would go with him. She also enjoyed going back and forth on the horse-drawn barges that ran up and down the Forth and Clyde canal.
A feisty child, on one occasion she fell out of a distillery loft, badly cutting her lip.
She also lived in India when her father was posted there to help grow the Indian whiskey market.
Falling in love with Grantown-on-Spey
Aged nine, she was sent back to Scotland to boarding school in Bridge of Allan, just outside of Stirling, and was schooled there until she left at 18.
Around this time, she made her first visits to Grantown-on-Spey, spending summers there in a house close to the old Spey Bridge, which her mum inherited.
In her younger days, she made friends with Donald Ford, the future Hearts footballer and now a famous photographer of golf courses.
Donald had a toy train set that Anne liked to play with instead of the dolls she was given.
It was in Grantown, too, that Anne met Aung San Suu Kyi on a few occasions, later remarking on how firm she was with her children.
Climbing the ladder of the civil service trade unions
When it came time for Anne to choose a career, she entered the civil service as a clerical officer and was posted to London.
It was the 1960s, and Anne made the most of London’s swinging scene, hanging out in the famous jazz bar Ronnie Scott’s and living in a hostel in Chelsea.
In the civil service, she was assigned to an Air Marshall at the Ministry of Defense and once again was off on her travels to assist in inspections on air force bases in Malta, the US, Norway and Cyprus.
She met an RAF officer, Robin Stuart, and married him in 1963. He was posted to South Wales and the couple moved to Cardiff, where Anne worked for the National Assistance Board, a precursor to the DHSS.
This was when her union activity started and she became a branch officer and eventually an elected officer for the civil service clerical union’s national executive committee.
Fighting to eliminate the gender pay gap and sexual harassment, years before MeToo
Her husband left the RAF in 1965 and the couple came back to London, and she rejoined the civil service to work in DHSS headquarters on Robert Street.
When working on one of the ‘Whitley councils’, a forum between employees and employers, she first met Alan Shute, whom she would later marry.
Alan remembers immediately hitting it off with Anne and, impressed with her leadership skills, persuaded her to join him on the professional side of the Society of Civil Servants and become a full-time union representative.
During her career, she represented civil servants in the DHSS, the Lord Chancellor’s department, the Department of the Environment, the department head offices in Scotland, the Home Office, the Stationary Office and the Ministry of Defence.
She was also the union’s first women’s officer and fought to eliminate the pay gap between men and women in the civil service.
The disparity in male and female pay was a cause she championed for the rest of her life, as was her crusade against sexual harassment, which started long before the MeToo movement.
Together with Alan, she got the civil service to adopt a report they had written on the subject, which was circulated to all departments.
Marrying Alan and moving to Grantown
The long hours of being a trade union representative took its toll on Anne’s personal life and her marriage broke up. She eventually got together with Alan and the two married in 1982.
By 1990, Alan was 56 and the oldest working office in his union. Unions were under threat from Margaret Thatcher’s reforms, and a series of mergers took place between the unions leading to reductions in full-time staff.
The couple took early retirement and moved to Grantown-on-Spey.
The move, to a former manse on Woodside Avenue, was at Anne’s behest, who had never forgotten the happy times she spent there.
But, still only 49, it wasn’t long before Anne was back working on behalf of others.
She signed up with Alan as the chair and secretary of the local Labour Party branch, eventually replacing David Stewart on Labour’s National Executive Committe when he was elected MP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber in the party’s 1997 landslide victory under Tony Blair.
Anne’s energy and independent spirit were widely recognised by colleagues.
Richard Leonard, the leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2017 to 2021, always said he knew which way everyone would vote, except Anne.
A tireless champion despite losing her eyesight
Anne’s sight began to deteriorate in 1997 due to an eye inflammation called uveitus.
She became registered blind and took ownership of Amanda, the first of what would be four guide dogs, the others being Echo, Bounty and Kane.
When she chaired the Scottish Labour Party’s executive committee conference in Perth in 2001, she had to rely on the party secretary to tell her who was speaking and which side of the hall they were on.
But her handling of the debates was widely acclaimed including by then First Minister Jack McConnell.
Anne left the national executive, but despite her disability threw herself into Grantown society.
She loved meeting people, and among the many causes she worked for were efforts to found a Grantown museum, a group in Aviemore that provided respite care for people with dementia and Albyn, the Highland’s largest housing association, which she chaired.
She was also instrumental in helping set up the Cairngorm National Park and had a two-term ministerial-level appointment to the board.
Royal praise for Anne’s guide dog
It was the Albyn housing role that led Anne to being awarded an OBE.
When she went to London to collect it from the Queen, the royal praised the “splendid head” of her guide dog.
The exact same compliment was given to the dog by the future queen, Camilla, when Anne met her during a Cairngorm National Park event.
“It seems to be a royal thing,” says Alan.
Scottish Government roles included the commissioner for public appointments and as convener of the mobility and access committee, for which she traveled to Edinburgh and back on her own with her guide dog.
A chance to see Labour return to power
Anne was proud to receive an OBE, though slightly embarrassed by the attention. A couple of years ago, she also received a merit award from the Labour Party at its annual conference.
Anne was still working when she was diagnosed with incurable oesophagus cancer on May 20 after a short period of illness. The diagnosis was a shock but she was determined to keep supporting her numerous causes.
She died, aged 82, at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness on July 14, less than two weeks after staying up until 5am to watch Kier Starmer return the Labour Party to government.
It was a moment that gave her enormous pleasure.
Following a private cremation, a celebration of Anne’s life will be held at The Grant Arms Hotel, Grantown-on-Spey, on Thursday, August 15 at 12.30pm. Donations, if desired, may be given to benefit Macmillan Cancer Support. Enquiries to John Ross Funeral Services Ltd. Tel 01479 872222 or info@johnrossfuneralservices.com.