In Memoriam

This page is meant for people to post their memories of dancers who were regular participants in the Iberian Weekends, but are no longer with us. Please send your contributions to Roger and Sue at suerog (a) mail.telepac.pt. Note that even if there is already a piece about someone, do feel free to send additional thoughts or photos, and especially any corrections! Thanks!

Margaret Whitfield - a tribute by Sue Willdig and Roger Picken, and a poem by Simon

With this piece we wish to recall our good friend Margaret Whitfield, who died in October 2019, following severe complications from a stroke nine months earlier. She was 84, and is survived by her husband Simon, her son Justin and her two grandchildren.

We are sure that many people will remember Margaret and Simon, as they were participants in the Iberian Weekends right from the beginning, and indeed even took part in the discussion where Jerónimo Maeso originally proposed the idea of the Iberian Weekends. As secretary of what was, for many years, the only SCD group in Portugal, Margaret was also a key contributor to the very successful Iberian Weekend in the Algarve in 1998.

Margaret and Simon were an inseparable couple, who met when they were both English teachers at a school in the UK. Simon still recalls Margaret's first forthright entrance into the staff room, speaking loudly in what we may assume to have been a Dublin accent; she was a graduate of Celtic Studies at Trinity College Dublin. Finding that no-one could pronounce her real name Mairéad, she started to use the name Margaret instead.

These two always liked a challenge (a characteristic of Scottish country dancers!) and moved on from the school to other things, including buying and selling antiques and teaching English as a Foreign Language. The latter brought them to Portugal shortly after the Carnation Revolution in 1974, where they taught first at the Cambridge School. Margaret's teaching career then took her to St. Julian's School and even to a Portuguese Air Force base, before both she and Simon obtained positions at the Catholic University, remaining there until their retirement.

It was in Portugal that Margaret and Simon tried out Scottish country dancing and added it to their long list of interests (Simon is, amongst other things, a keen inventor and poet!). By the time Roger and I arrived as beginners at the class in 1989, Margaret and Simon were already the couple invariably called upon by the teacher, Jane Fernandes, to demonstrate any new dances or formations! Margaret encouraged people to go to the St. Andrews summer school to improve their skills and just to have a good time, a piece of advice diligently followed by Roger, who would later become a fully-qualified teacher in 2006.

Margaret and Simon only stopped going to Iberian Weekends when Parkinson's disease made it too difficult for Margaret to carry on dancing. The two of them continued to appear at ceilidhs in the Lisbon area, where Simon could often be persuaded get up and join in a few dances or even contribute a ceilidh item. They still entertained a lot - Margaret was a superb cook - and she also ran an informal cat-sitting service, being a great animal-lover, especially of cats (she and Simon adopted several abandoned animals). To her life-long hobby of reading vast tomes at record-breaking speed, Margaret added bridge, which Simon took up as well to keep her company.

A creeping tragedy started when Margaret began to lose her eyesight, making it increasingly difficult for her to read and impossible to play bridge any more. Her stroke in January 2019 left her even more debilitated, and with few pleasures left in life apart from Simon's visits to the long-term care institution where she was placed, unfortunately a great distance from their home. Despite apparently having some kind of psychic power - she would sense things that other people simply were not able to - Margaret was a life-long atheist, and did not waver even in her final, difficult months, bearing her fate with incredible dignity and patience.

What we remember most about Margaret was her mischievous smile, capacity for straight talking, and tremendous sense of humour - she could really laugh, it was wonderful to watch. She also had a tremendous depth of knowledge (all that reading had an effect) and she was always so generous and kind towards us. Our heart goes out to her husband Simon, who lost such a wonderful companion. Simon himself contributed the short, evocative poem below.

Margaret

Memories can be fond

and very numerous.

Mine are both.

Your rather muddled ornithology,

two birds in a single word,

as in where no bultures fly,

your lovely Irishisms,

who do you think you are? I'll have you know,

blaming me in the wrong,

- some incident too trivial for recall -

your philosophical response

on that first evening out,

the event - a lecture on yoga,

the shared activities,

touring the gastronomic world,

with tastes of Ireland when at home,

unscrambling cryptic puzzles,

tripping the light fantastic

in Scottish style,

your Celtic sensitivity

the heavy gloom you felt

before the news of Aberfan,

and the day of Justin's crash,

when you heard his voice,

his frantic shout of 'MUM'.

And now that you're away,

my loving wish is very simple.

BON VOYAGE

- Simon

Mary O'Brien sent the following comment about Margaret Whitfield:

Thank you Sue and Roger for sharing these beautiful memories of a very special person. Margaret was such an interesting person, I always enjoyed her company . She, Simon and I, had several mutual friends in common, both within, and outside of our dance groups, especially among the Irish community in Lisbon. It was Margaret who first told me about the Summer School for Scottish Country Dancing, and I shall be forever grateful to her for the many summer events I subsequently enjoyed in St Andrews.

Betty MacKenzie

(Betty and David at the Lisbon Iberian Weekend in 2012)

Betty was born and educated in Aberdeen, Scotland. In 1965 she met David, and they married in 1967.

They had 2 sons, Alan and Barry, and Betty was a full-time mum until 1976, when the younger son started school. She worked as Secretary to a bank manager, then as a Mortgage Adviser with a building Society, and finally as Cash Room Manager with a local solicitor. In 1994 she qualified as a Scots Law Accountant, studying part-time at Aberdeen University, at 46, the oldest in the class!

Betty and David enjoyed foreign holidays, and from the mid-eighties, fell in love with small Greek islands, sometimes holidaying 3 times a year, visiting more than 30 islands in all.

In 1990, they bought a caravan, and spent many happy week-ends and short breaks visiting many parts of Scotland, England and Wales, Betty taking an equal share of towing the caravan. Betty was the first woman in Scotland to complete the Caravan Club caravan manoeuvring course, in fact the only woman on the course! David even admitted she was better than him at reversing their caravan! A very determined lady!

In 1994, Betty was surprised that David agreed to join her when she enrolled in the beginners class run by RSCDS Branch, Aberdeen, where Lesley Martin, an excellent teacher, and well known world wide, was very patient with David, and with Betty’s encouragement, he persevered. In fact, the following year he surprised Betty by suggesting he should get a kilt!

They subsequently attended many social dances in Scotland, including the annual dance at Crieff Hydro Hotel organised by the Falkirk Branch for many years.

Betty was encouraged to study for the teacher’qualification, but this was put on hold, as in October 2003, they decided to spend the winter in Spain, and rented a villa for 6 months on the Costa del Sol about 20 miles inland from Nerja, with the possibility of moving there permanently.

However, Betty felt she could not give up Scotland completely, and instead they bought an apartment in Torrox, near Nerja. They joined the Nerja group, where Jean Rennie was the teacher, and attended their first Iberian Gathering in 2004 in Benidorm. Jean often asked Betty for advice, having recognised her ability as a dancer, and several years later Betty was asked by a Spanish friend if she would teach SCD to Pupils in Nerja. (Unfortunately this was delayed by town hall bureaucracy).

Several members of the Nerja group had previously tried to devise a dance for the group, but none succeeded. That was enough of a challenge for Betty, and within a very short time she devised ‘Welcome to Nerja’, a square set for 5 couples, inspired by the 5 arches on the old road into Nerja!

She was very fortunate that a dear friend, Frank Thomson, agreed to compose a tune for this dance, and he has done so for every dance since! Betty was so grateful to him, and was convinced that it was Frank’s music which made her dances so popular and enjoyable!

For the next 10 years Betty and David spent 6 months every winter in Spain, where they enjoyed SCD, hill walking, petanca, the Mediterranean diet, and visiting many parts of the country, including the Iberian Gathering each year, where they always extended the break with extra nights sightseeing.

She was asked by several groups to devise a dance for them, which she was happy to do, often waking in the morning to tell David that she had a new dance in her head, and they had to walk it through before breakfast before she forgot the sequence!

She was particularly proud of her composition, ‘20 Candles for Iberia’, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Iberian Gatherings.

In 2015, the Aberdeen Branch celebrated their 90th anniversary, inviting members to submit dances for inclusion in the book, ‘9 for 90’. She was amazed that two of her dances, ‘Welcome to Nerja’ and ‘Amazing Grace Strathspey’ were chosen, and enjoyed seeing them danced by the Aberdeen Demonstration team at the celebration in October that year.

This was also the last year Betty was able to attend the Iberian Gathering, and she really missed not being able to say’goodbye’ to all her Spanish, Portuguese, British expat friends and those from Germany and France.

Sadly, about this time, Betty began to experience health problems, and was no longer able to dance. Early the following year she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and was devastated to be told that it was so advanced that it was inoperable and incurable!

She was determined to fight this terrible disease, undergoing 9 gruelling sessions of chemotherapy that year and the following year, She was determined to celebrate her 70th birthday in April, and her 50th Wedding Anniversary in October that year, though sadly she was already in hospital, and no meaningful celebration was possible. She passed away peacefully in a local hospice on 16 November, 2017.

Her love for Spain, and the winters spent there, made it impossible for her to study for the RSCDS teacher qualification, but she was still able to help others to enjoy SCD whenever she could.

David is so grateful that they enjoyed many years of retirement together, and enjoyed travelling the world when not in Spain, visiting China, Japan, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, Russia, and many European countries.

Betty was a very loving wife, mother and grandmother, and a great friend to many, and it was said that her happy, smiling face was always welcome wherever she went. She could light up the darkest room!

David MacKenzie, September, 2020

Julian Mason 1/3/1951 – 31/10/ 2021

(The following obituary by Jan Jones first appeared in the RSCDS International Branch magazine for December 2021)

Julian died peacefully at home following a short, but hard-fought battle with cancer. With his tan suede or red ghillies, Julian could often be seen Scottish dancing at home or abroad for over 40 years. He was known to contribute some of his thoughts on dancing in Newsletters. For example, he viewed "strathspeys as a ‘breather’ between more energetic reels and jigs”, his most hated dance being The Gentleman, and "Am I alone in finding the use of cameras, both still and video, at dances increasingly irritating? "A letter in reply included a cheeky photograph of Julian dancing the strathspey The Robertson Rant with a beaming smile!

Julian was an accountant by profession, and a fellow dancer and London commuter "enjoyed many a controversial chat with him. Of course, he liked being a devil’s advocate just to be mischievous."

Being an active participant in the International Branch AGMs, Julian's observations and comments could often focus the committee to further discussion on e.g., the wording of the constitution, or to reflect on previous practices.

An energetic walker he would cover many miles. He had an amicable challenge with a fellow dancer on who could walk the most Munros. Also, when asked to guide a dance group for an afternoon stroll, he took them on a 9-mile hike which was not hugely appreciated by everyone!

Having gained a First in History at Cambridge University, for the past 18 years Julian was a trustee and historian for the Historia Theatre Company which stages plays that have their source in or inspiration from history (https://historia25.wixsite.com/historiatheatre/) He was also known to quietly correct a tour guide about an historical fact that unfortunately she had got wrong!

Julian met his future wife, Kerstin Lankuttis, at a London Barn Dance contra dance in 2004 and they married in July 2010. They moved to Maybole in Scotland in March 2014. Together they enjoyed canoeing on and swimming in the sea, and warm ocean dips featured in their extended stays in Portugal - as did good food accompanied by good wine or a refreshing beer!

Jan Jones