Former journalist, artist and university lecturer, Mona Clark of Dundee, has died aged 89.
She began her publishing career on women’s magazines, then The Sunday Post, at DC Thomson, before becoming a fashion writer with She magazine in London.
After returning to Dundee and raising a family, Mona studied at Dundee University where she returned to lecture after graduation.
She was born in Dundee in 1934 to Bill Mars and his wife Mona and grew up with a brother Campbell, an architect in Edinburgh, now retired.
Mona was educated at Dundee High School where she became Dux in 1951.
Her father, who worked as an accountant, had a very traditional outlook and discouraged Mona for going to university.
Instead, she joined publishers DC Thomson in Dundee as a trainee journalist working on magazines before becoming editor of The Sunday’s Post’s women’s page.
Around 1954/1955 she left Dundee to join She magazine, a women’s national fashion publication in pre-swinging London.
She was accompanied by her partner, Stewart Clark, an architect, who she was to marry in 1957.
The couple lived in Chiswick unmarried, which was unconventional at the time, until Stewart was called up for national service in Cumbria.
A year after they were married, son Andrew was born and on their return to Dundee, the couple had three more children, Peter, Michael and Kate.
University studies
Once the children were at school, Mona was free to pursue her academic ambitions and enrolled at the newly chartered Dundee University to study politics as a mature student.
This ultimately led to a position as a lecturer at the university, teaching organisational psychology until her retirement in 1999, though she continued her academic career in a consultative and advisory role, so never fully retired.
During her career she also became an Open University tutor, a visiting lecturer at the Senior Civil Service College in Sunningdale and as a residential lecturer at the summer schools of Lausanne International School of Hospitality Management, and one short spell doing the same in the Kuala Lumpur.
Politics
From the early 1970s she took an active interest in local politics in Dundee West Conservative Association although never stood for office herself.
In contrast, Mona was also an equally active member and representative for the University Teachers’ Association, even, on one occasion, joining the picket line.
Her son, Andrew, said: “She was a keen cook, an early adopter of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking and may have been responsible for the creation of artisan deli culture in the West End of Dundee, supplying homemade Pate de Campagne to George Irving butchers for the more adventurous palate in the early 1970s.
“In retirement she reprised her artistic talent for fashion, fabrics and ceramics; she had been a part-time student at Dundee College of art in fabric, fashion and pottery after leaving school.”
You can read the family’s announcement here.
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