Mary Cowan obituary

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/16/mary-cowan-obituary

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My friend Mary Cowan, who has died aged 99, rebelled against her privileged background and in the 1930s became a communist.

She was born in Edinburgh, where her father, John Jameson, was the Conservative MP for Edinburgh West. Her mother, Margaret (nee Smith), was the daughter of a master of Balliol College, Oxford. Descended from the Forster family which had owned Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland, Mary and her cousins lived in the castle during holidays.

In the 1930s Mary married Anthony Cowan. After the second world war they moved to Newton, near Edinburgh, where Mary raised their four children. With little formal schooling, mainly having been tutored at home, Mary read widely and grew critical of the role of British imperialism in the Middle East and Africa, no doubt influenced by her cousins Thomas and Edward Hodgkin, authors respectively of books on Africa and Palestine.

She became active in the Medical Aid Committee for Vietnam, and in her 60s went to work in Vietnam, a country she felt great sympathy for as it emerged from the war. Mary admired the resilience and fortitude of the Vietnamese people. She was much valued for her work translating Vietnamese poetry from French into English; these and some of her own poems have been published, the latter in Singing in Tune with Time: Stories and Poems about Ageing (1993) and in the Scottish magazine Cencrastus.

A keen reader of the Morning Star, Mary supported progressive, anti-imperialist change everywhere – in Cuba, Nicaragua and particularly in Chile. She insisted I write about my life in Chile during the Allende government, and was delighted when in September I presented her with my memoir Chile in my Heart.

My family spent many happy times at Mary's kitchen table, exchanging opinions and singing political and folk songs. Mary had a beautiful voice and even in her last year could sing Blaydon Races in an impeccable Northumberland accent. She loved her native Northumbria, birds and nature. Mary was an early environmentalist, having joined the Henry Doubleday Research Association (now Garden Organic) long before organic farming became fashionable, and supported Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace. She lived frugally and simply, cycling and walking wherever she could. In recent years she enjoyed being driven out into the Cheviot hills.

Mary's last act was to leave a handwritten message on her piano: "Do be happy. It's a good habit, my dears!"

She is survived by two sons, two daughters, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

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