- Pamela Cooper
Pamela Margaret Cooper (
24 October 1910 -13 July 2006 ) was a British courtier, campaigner for refugees, and a supporter of thePalestinian people .She was born in Chelsea in
London , into an upper-middle-class family. Her father, Rev (later Canon) Arthur Henry Fletcher, was a scion of a family ofChurch of Ireland clergymen fromCounty Waterford ; her mother was Alice Hodgson. After her birth, the family all moved to Merrow, nearGuildford , where her father becamerector . He served as an Armychaplain in the France during theFirst World War . Her education atGuildford High School was interrupted when her husband was sent to become a minister inSanremo on theItalian Riviera , posted there for his health.Although her family called her "Frog", she became a well-known beauty in London society in the 1930s, with dazzling blue eyes. She met
Patrick Hore-Ruthven during astag hunt onExmoor in 1932; he had been rusticated fromCambridge University due to a youthful indiscretion - he had bitten a policeman's nose. Their mutual lack of money delayed matters, but they were married atWestminster Abbey on4 January 1939 , with her father officiating. Their first son, Alexander Patrick Greysteil, was born on26 November 1939 .Her husband was an officer in the Rifle Brigade, and was posted to
Cairo after the outbreak of theSecond World War . Leaving her infant son with her parents inDublin , she followed her husband to Cairo, where she became friends withFreya Stark andJacqueline Lampson , and worked in Intelligence with theBrotherhood of Freedom . She returned toIreland in 1942, where she gave birth to their second son, Malise. Her husband, by then ranked Temporary Major and serving with the newly-created SAS, died in an Italian hospital in north Africa on24 December 1942 , from wounds sustained in a raid against a fuel dump nearTripoli .Her father-in-law served as
Governor-General of Australia from 1936 to 1945. He was createdBaron Gowrie in 1939, and thenEarl of Gowrie in 1945. His widowed daughter-in-law was styled the Viscountess Ruthven of Canberra from 1945 to 1952. She lived with her father-in-law at Windsor Castle, where he was Deputy Governor, and was an ExtraWoman of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth from 1948 to 1951.She met Major
Derek Cooper in 1949. He had served with theSecond Household Combined Regiment in Europe during the Second World War, and then with the Life Guards in Palestine, where he won theMilitary Cross and developed strong feelings for the plight of thePalestinian Arabs . The couple fell in love, but he was married to another person. He petitioned for divorce, but Princess Alice disapproved of her proposed marriage to a divorcee, and theEarl of Athlone , Princess Alice's husband, was colonel of Cooper's regiment. Major Cooper resigned his commission, and his prospective new wife left Windsor. They married on30 July 1952 .The Coopers moved to
Dunlewey inCounty Donegal , living there until 1974. Both enjoyedskiing , and the Donegal "season" centred aroundGlenveagh Castle , the summer residence of American art collectorHenry McIlhenny , and his friendDerek Hill . They later had a house inBelgravia , but moved toWiltshire in later life.The Coopers took up charitable activities. They gave aid to refugees who had escaped across the
Danube fromHungary during the 1956 revolution, joining aSave the Children relief team atAndau inAustria . They spent over a year in northernJordan in 1960-1, assisting Palestinian refugees in camps nearIrbid . They joined a Save the Children relief effort again in 1962, following a major earthquake in Iran on1 September which killed around 12,000 people and rendered 22,000 homeless. In the 1970s and 1980s, they repeatedly travelled to theMiddle East to work in Palestinian refugee camps. They conducted a survey of the conditions of Palestine refugees for theInternational Committee for Palestine Human Rights in 1975. The Coopers worked forOxfam inBeirut through the summer of 1982, while the city was besieged by Israeli troops. They established the charityMedical Aid for Palestinians in 1984.Cooper's elder son succeeded her father-in-law as 2nd Earl of Gowrie in 1955, and was later a minister in
Margaret Thatcher 's Conservative government. Her younger son, Malise, is an author.She wrote a memoir, "A Cloud of Forgetting", in 1993.
She died in
Amesbury in Wiltshire. She was survived by her second husband, who died on19 May 2007 .References
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article687395.ece Obituary, "The Times", 14 July 2006]
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/15/db1502.xml Obituary, "The Daily Telegraph", 15 July 2006]
* [http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article1209710.ece Obituary, "The Independent", 2 August 2006]
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