Lady Dorothy Hardie, the longest-surviving ladies captain of Blairgowrie Golf Club, has died just short of her 100th birthday.
She served as ladies captain between 1981 and 1983, was also a social bridge player and a great supporter of the RSSPCC, now Children 1st.
Together with her husband, industrialist Sir Douglas Hardie, Dorothy toured the world, making importance contributions at trade gatherings.
Wartime Dundee
The couple had met in Dundee during the Second World War when she was serving with the Royal Navy and Douglas was an officer with the Fife & Forfar Yeomanry.
Dorothy was born in Jesmond, Newcastle, in February 1923, to Fred and Annie Warner.
Her father owned a toyshop but also sold bicycles and offered lessons to women to enable them to ride with dignity and elegance.
She attended St Margaret’s School for Girls in Jesmond and when war broke out, joined the Royal Navy’s women’s service in the hope of seeing the world.
However, she was posted to Dundee and arrived by train in the dark and rain.
National security
Dorothy was billeted in Mather’s Temperance Hotel, now the Malmaison, and worked on the efforts to track submarines, part of her service being on the Unicorn.
It was at a service dance in Marryat Hall that she met Douglas Hardie, then a Lieutenant in the Fife & Forfar Yeomanry.
He was the grandson son of John M Hardie of jute merchants Hardie and Smith, had joined the army in 1941 and was part of advanced tank operations at the D-Day Landings.
Dorothy was eventually offered an overseas posting by the navy but turned it down because she had met Douglas.
Marriage
The pair married in Dorothy’s native Northumberland in September 1945, returned to Scotland and built a bungalow in Invergowrie.
Douglas rose to become a director of Day International (Dayco) in Dundee, served as chairman of CBI Scotland and was chairman of Grampian Television.
He played a central role in lobbying for the building of the Tay Road Bridge and, as part of Dundee Heritage Trust, helped create a home for the return of RRS Discovery to the city.
Family life
The couple, who had three children, Hilary, Michael and Christopher, later moved to Middlebank Crescent in Dundee. Douglas Hardie, who died in 2005, was knighted in 1990 for his services to industry.
The couple’s son, Michael, said: “My mother was a great support to my father and they travelled widely together as far as Japan and Australia.
“At even the stuffiest of business functions, she was able to converse easily and charm the room.
“After my father’s death she carried on through strength of spirit. She had a full and healthy life and even survived Covid twice.
“She talked a lot about the Wrens latterly and we did not realise until pretty recently that she was actually entitled to a 1939/45 war medal. We filled in the appropriate forms, the medal arrived and she showed it off at Orchar where she was staying.”
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