Olivia Campbell

Olivia NoelPaton was born in Glasgow in 1905/6 on the 1st of April. Her parents were Agatha, eldest child of Alexander Balfour and Jessie Roxburgh, and Diarmid Noel Paton, eldest son of Sir Joseph Noel Paton ('Sir Noel'), Queen Victoria's Limner for Scotland and his wife Margaret Ferrier. Olivia was educated at Downe House (school for girls, initially in Dawin's old house, later near Newbury), at Glasgow University where she read history, and at London University where she achieved her doctorate in the relationship between Charles I and Holland. This she did at a time when it was rare for women to complete a PhD. Olivia was a keen fisherwoman and shot and loved their other house at Wester Dawyck on the Tweed.

On completion of her PhD in 1931 she married Keir Arthur Campbell DSO (b.1892). Keir, second son of Arthur and Ethyl Campbell of Arduaine in Argyll, was educated at Eton and Trinity Cambridge and at the time was a geologist, training as an oil field manager with Shell in California. He had survived GAllipoly and France in the Scottish Horse and then Grenadier Guards in the First War.

Their wedding took place on the outskirts of Seattle in Washington state in the USA. The reason was that Olivia's father had recently died, her brother Donald was working in Seattle, Keir was working in California, and Olivia and Donald's mother Agatha had very good friends in Seattle who volunteered to make the arrangements. She was given away by her brother Donald. After a honeymoon camping with horses in the Sierra Nevada, she and Keir lived briefly in Bakersfield but shortly afterwards the Depression hit and Keir was laid off. They only owned a large Buick car and a bed, so tied the bed on top of the car and drove to San Francisco where they rented a flat above Fisherman's Wharf and worked in soup kitchens and raising funds for chairties.

While in San Francisco they made friends among the 'remittance men' who were British and had been exiled by their families (for such blots on their coppybooks as getting the housemaid in trouble or being caught with the gardener's boy) and who got a remittance provided they never 'darkened the door' of their parent's place again. It was Prohibition and they all made 'bathtub gin.' One of these had a brother at Oxford which led to Keir and Olivia and Agatha attending a meeting at St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco where Oxford students spoke of their spiritual experiences,mostly in honesty and putting right what they could of what was on their consciences. The result healed a discomfort between Keir and Agatha, and gave a faith to Olivia who had been shocked by her father's death into being an agnostic.

Donald Noel Paton found that the paper companies in Washington State needed limestone for their industry. He found lime rock on the San Juan Islands off Seattle and Keir got a lift north on a cargo boat and confirmed that it was suitable. So he and Olivia left San Francisco and, with Donald, settled on Orcas Island and started a quarry. Keir and Olivia rented a two room summer cabin with an outside privy and water pump plus a wood stove. Olivia said that in winter you could see teh snow out through the knot holes in the walls. Their son Diarmid was born in October 1933 in Seattle and in 1934 they had made enough to return to Britain.

In London, staying with Olivia's Godmother Mrs. Montague Norman, she applied for work as a housekeeper for a new school opening in Scotland. When offered the job by Kurt Hahn at Brown's Hotel, she told him that she had a husband and infant. 'Where are they?' 'In the car', 'Bring them in' Hahn, who had been at Oxford before the First War, immediately took to Keir and offered him the job running the estate at the school, Gordonstoun. Coming from the backgrounds they did, they were both able to re-assure the County in Moray that Kurt Hahn was genuine and no 'German spy' - making possible acceptance of the school in the area. Before long Hahn had Olivia teaching history. Among those she taught was Prince Phillip of Grece, later HRH the Duke of Edinburgh. In time Keir and Olivia's daughter Felicity (Flicky) was born at a nursing home in Glasgow.

Olivia and Keir accompanied the school to Wales on the outbreak of the Second World War, Keir first ran the Sea-School (the origins of Outward Bound) and then became a Housemaster at the beautiful regency place of Berthddu. Two more children were born, son Oran and daughter Mary. Before the school moved back to Gordonstoun after the war, Keir and Olivia took in the three sons of Keir's sister Olga who had been orphaned in 1943, Hugh, Robin and David Byatt. The two families bought the estate of Rhu on West Loch Tarbert in Kintyre in 1948. Keir ran the 600 acres of forest while Olivia ran the house and assisted him with home farm. Olivia's hard work in running the house and an overflow cottage, her organizing shoots, sailing expeditions and picnics, gave a delightful growing-up experience for all the young of the family.

Before Keir retired, immediately after the war, Hahn had Keir and Olivia run courses based on the country house of Dunkinty near Elgin, exposing German people in local government to how their work was done in a democracy around that area. This resulted in numerous letters of commendaton from German people. On Keir's death in 1955, Hahn wrote to Olivia that when he had to make a decision, he would always ask himself 'What would Keir have done?'

Olive continued to run the estate at Rhu until 1958 when Keir's trustees decided that the place should be sold. After a while they bought a small farm called ardaitreabh (Ardaitriv) for her as a family home in Argyll above Lochgilphead and there she lived for about 30 years until Alzheimers suggested that she move into a nursing home in Edinburgh. She died in 1999 aged 93. Ardaitriv was sold in 2001.