Hazel McLeod, 1918-2015
Best known to Music Society concert goers as a friendly dispenser of interval tea and coffee, Hazel, who died last month at the age of 96, was accurately described by John Roberts in his eulogy as ‘feisty’. Hazel was born in London to Scottish parents on 27th October 1918, the middle one of three sisters. Her father was from Skye, but as a quantity surveyor, pursued his career in the big city. Hazel’s mother was from the East of Scotland, and Hazel often remarked that her parents had very different views of Scottishness! But their London house was open to countless visiting Scots, so Hazel was very aware of her Scottish heritage.
As she grew older, Hazel wanted to be a journalist, but her father disapproved of that, so she went to technical college following the example of a friend, and began a Domestic Science course. She almost lost her place due to total lack of knowledge or experience, but persisted. In WW2, her father was involved in building various airfields, and Hazel may have helped him. And then, when a friend had to leave her post at a girls’ boarding school in Natal, South Africa, Hazel replaced her, and taught for several years at the school at Pietermaritzburg. She shocked everyone when she told them she had voted Labour in 1945, and was outspoken about the colonial situation, predicting a bad outcome for the whites when black people felt able to strike back. On return to England, she taught Domestic Science at various colleges of further education and became Head of Department at the college in Leeds.
Hazel’s connection with Arran began through frequent family holidays in Lochranza, where they stayed in a cottage belonging to an aunt, who bequeathed it to Hazel when she died. Hazel promptly moved in and her two sisters, Louise and Fay, asked to join her. The cottage was not big enough for all of them, so it was sold and thesisters combined resources to buy Cnoc Ranald, a large bungalow off Police Road in Brodick.
Hazel was active in the Arran Civic Trust, and was its chairman until she retired in her eighties. She was vigorous in opposing an over-ambitious development where the houses at Cora Linn Court. now stand, and was also an active member of the Isle of Arran Music Society, and a supporter of the island Labour Party. After the death of her sisters, Hazel lived a rather lonely life and after a while moved into Cooriedoon. Her decision to join an Episcopal congregation went back to her experience of Anglican worship at the school in South Africa, and she became a loyal and contributing member of the congregation. Many people will have cause to miss her.
