One of the last living links with a significant era in the political history of Dundee has died at the age of 96.
Mabel Johnston was the granddaughter of Sir George Ritchie, then chairman of the local Liberal Party in Dundee, who was responsible for inviting Winston Churchill to stand for election to represent the city at Westminster.
Churchill was elected in 1908 with Sir George acting as his agent and held the seat until he was defeated by prohibition candidate Neddy Scrimgeour in 1922.
Although she was a child at the time, Mrs Johnston remembered the Churchill family from visits to her grandfather’s house in Dudhope Terrace.
As the last surviving member of the Ritchie family from that time, in 2008 she was invited to attend an event to mark the centenary of Churchill’s election. There she again met Churchill’s daughter, Lady Mary Soames.
Lady Soames was back in Dundee to unveil a bronze plaque commemorating her father’s time as the city’s MP and she explained that she first visited the city when she was just seven weeks old.
Mrs Johnston’s daughter, Helen Niven, said, “Mum told her that she remembered her as a babe in arms, though she would only have been young herself.”
Born in Wormit, Mrs Johnston was educated at Dundee High School and Polam Hall in Darlington before training as a physiotherapist, a skill she put to use in the second world war.
She spent two years in Karachi and six months in Seconderabad in India, where most of her patients were soldiers from the Burma campaign.
Back in civilian life, she continued her career at Dundee’s Kemback Street clinic.
She married George in 1950 and is survived by the couple’s daughter Helen, son Andrew, grandchildren Mary and David and great-grandson Alexander.
Throughout her life, she had a love of the outdoors and was a member of the Grampian Hillwalking Club. She played golf at Monifieth Ladies and Kirriemuir.
The family have retained strong links with Glen Esk, where they have had a holiday home for many years.
Mrs Johnston moved to Ferry House in Broughty Ferry eight years ago and died in Ninewells Hospital last weekend.