[BITList] Passion and sincerity

[John Feltham]

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Michie  [née Bannerman],  (Janet) Ray, Baroness Michie of Gallanach  (1934-2008), politician, was born on 4 February 1934 at the Old Manse, Balmaha, Stirlingshire, the third of four children of John Macdonald Bannerman, Baron Bannerman of Kildonan  (1901-1969), politician and rugby player, and his wife, Jenny Murray (Ray), nee Mundell (b. 1906/7). She was born and brought up on Loch Lomondside, where her father was farm manager to the duke of Montrose. Native highland culture provided the backdrop for a happy childhood. Educated at Aberdeen High School for Girls and Lansdowne House school, Edinburgh, she later trained at the Edinburgh College of Speech Therapy. On 11 May 1957, at Buchanan parish church, Stirlingshire, she married Iain Michie (1932-2006), a medical practitioner then serving as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was the son of Malcolm Michie, crofter; they had met at the Edinburgh Highland Society. They had three daughters.

After their marriage Iain and Ray Michie spent the next sixteen years in Germany and eastern Asia, where Iain continued to work with the Royal Army Medical Corps. After returning to Scotland, Iain Michie became a consultant at the county hospital in Oban, where thereafter they settled. Ray was then able to pursue her own professional career, becoming area speech therapist for the Argyll and Clyde Health Board in 1977. She was later (from 1991 to 2001 and from 2002 again) vice-president of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.

Although Ray Michie made a career in speech therapy, as the daughter of John Bannerman, a frequent parliamentary candidate, politics was in her blood. All her political instincts came from him, as did her campaigning style; she insisted on holding public meetings until well into the 1990s. Unlike her father, however, Michie achieved what had eluded him on eight occasions-election to the House of Commons.

Michie became involved in politics immediately after her return to Scotland, serving as chairman of the Argyll Liberal Association (1973-6), and from 1977 to 1979 vice-chairman of the Scottish Liberal Party (her father had been chairman), as which she fought the Argyll constituency (which John Bannerman had contested in 1945) for the first time in 1979. In 1983 she came second, finally gaining it from the Scottish education minister John Mackay in 1987.

Initially the Liberals' only female MP, Michie increased her majority at two general elections and built an energetic if low-profile Commons career. She combined front-bench duties on transport, Scotland, and women's issues with tenacious pursuit of constituency matters, including the loss of the fishing vessel Antares in 1990, and the fatal Chinook crash on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994. A member of the Scottish Affairs select committee for five years (1992-7) and, in her final parliament, one of the speaker's panel of chairmen, Michie chaired the Scottish Liberal Democrats in 1992-3. She also pursued what internal and external critics considered rather dated causes like crofting (she encouraged a local buy-out when the island estate of Gigha came up for sale), the Gaelic language (although she herself was not fluent), and, more fashionably, Scottish devolution, which she always spoke of as 'Home Rule'. On this she exceeded the Liberal (and later Liberal Democrat) party line, promoting a multi-option referendum bill (which included independence) in the Commons. Shortly before the general election of 1997 she published, with Malcolm Bruce (the Liberal Democrat MP for Gordon), a pamphlet on Scottish devolution that called for, among other things, a new national anthem and a new union flag.

Had the Scottish parliament been established prior to 1999 Michie might have ended her political career as an MSP, but her husband's long illness and the suicide of her daughter Joanne led to her retirement from the Commons in 2001. Again she echoed her father's career by joining the House of Lords the same year with a life peerage, as Baroness Michie of Gallanach; she took her oath in Gaelic, the first peer to do so. Despite having waited so long to enter parliament, however, she never developed any affection for either house, disliking the late hours and gruelling commute from rural Argyllshire. She also lacked any interest in internal political positioning. As Jim Wallace, the former leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, remarked at her funeral, 'Ray was too straightforward to be classed as a wily operator but she would always state her case with passion and sincerity'. Often blunt and less than liberal on social issues, she proved 'you could be a good Liberal and not care a whit about political correctness'  (Wallace, funeral eulogy, 10 May 2008).

A good boss and a generous host, Michie was tall and striking in appearance and possessed of a wicked wit. She shared her father's love of rugby (he had been capped thirty-seven times), rarely missing a Scottish fixture, as well as tennis, swimming, and golf. Her range of political interests was reflected in honorary positions in An Comunn Gaidhealach, the Scottish National Farmers' Union, the Scottish Crofting Foundation, the Clyde Fishermen's Association, and the National Council for Women. Towards the end of her life she chaired the West Highland Health Services Solutions Group, which sought to reconcile the demand for care in remote areas with NHS resources. She was also appointed to the Scottish first minister Alex Salmond's Scottish Broadcasting Commission, although illness prevented her taking an active part. She died at Tigh an Eas, Glenmore Road, Oban, on 6 May 2008 following a long battle with cancer of the colon; she was survived by two daughters.

David Torrance 

Sources  Bannerman: the memoirs of Lord Bannerman of Kildonan, ed. J. Fowler (1972) + R. Michie, 'John Bannerman', Dictionary of liberal biography, ed. D. Brack and M. Baines (1998) + Daily Telegraph (7 May 2008) + The Guardian (9 May 2008) + The Times (11 May 2008) + The Independent (12 May 2008) + J. Wallace, eulogy, Oban Old Parish Church, 10 May 2008 + WW (2008) + Burke, Peerage + private information (2012) + b. cert. + m. cert. + d. cert.
Likenesses  photographs, 1993-2001, Photoshot, London · photographs, 1996-2001, PA Photos, London · obituary photographs · photograph, BBC [see illus.]




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