Jean MacLeod

Jean MacLeod, who died on April 20 aged 103, was Britain's oldest romantic novelist and claimed to have written no fewer than 130 novels for Mills & Boon; in 2009 she celebrated turning 101 by starting work on the 131st.

Photo: ROSS PARRY AGENCY

 

To browse Jean MacLeod's backlist is to step back into a rose-tinted world of brooding, granite-jawed men and submissive, willowy maidens. Naturally, such titles as Stranger In Their Midst, Dangerous Obsession or Lovesome Hill were never tarnished by unseemly references to where the longings of the characters might lead. "I never use the word 'sex' in my novels," she insisted, "that is not what romance is about. It's about love and emotion."

Although she started her writing career in her early twenties, Jean MacLeod's heyday ran from the 1930s to the 1970s. Most of her stories were set in Scotland, and usually featured a laird –strong and silent, kilted, slightly older than the heroine, and perhaps embittered from a previous romance – waiting for the right girl to rekindle the flame within.

A synopsis of Jean MacLeod's 1967 novel The Master of Keills typified her style. "When Alison Dundas's sister Sherry decided that her acting career was more important to her than marriage, and forthwith called off her engagement, it was Alison who had the thankless task of breaking the news to Sherry's fiancé. But when she met Magnus MacLaren, the dour and proud Master of Keills, she found he had other ideas..."

An instinctive, fluent writer, her first novel, Life For Two, was published in 1938, making her one of Mills & Boon's first Scottish authors. She specialised in the allure of the Highlands and was said to be the only author on Mills & Boon's list who succeeded in making red-headed men sexy. As an author for the international Mills & Boon imprint, Harlequin Romance, Jean MacLeod's books won a global readership among Scots living abroad – notably in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

Later in her writing career she also published under the name Catherine Airlie. But despite the shifts in name, tone and style that inevitably accompanied such a long career, her books were consistent in at least one regard. "All my stories had a happy ending," she said.

Jean Sutherland MacLeod was born in Glasgow on January 20 1908, the year in which Gerald Mills and Charles Boon set up in the publishing business. She was actually named Jane, but her grandfather complained it was not Scottish enough, and it was changed to Jean. Her father, an engineer, moved with jobs, and her education, which began at Bearsden Academy, continued in Swansea and ended in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Jean MacLeod began by writing stories for the magazine The People's Friend. One of the Boons at Mills & Boon spotted her work and offered her the chance to join their expanding list of authors.
Alan Boon, the original proprietor's son, gave his budding author advice that shaped her style: never write anything a mother would not want her daughter to read. So instructed, she began her prodigious contribution to the tally of 10,325 weddings, 29,500 kisses and 35,250 hugs featured in Mills & Boon titles during the firm's first 100 years.
She travelled frequently and, wherever she went, would use the location as the basis of another book. Her writing routine once home was well-regulated, and she rattled out her stories (never plotted in advance) on a manual typewriter, writing each morning from nine until noon, "so that I never burned dinner or the midnight oil".
Defying Dr Johnson's rather sweeping dictum about blockheads, Jean MacLeod never wrote for money. Her royalties were modest, and three years ago she earned a meagre £68 for her labours. "But the joy of knowing people were, and still are, enjoying my books is payment enough," she insisted.
It remains unclear how far she got with novel 131. But she never lost her relish for writing, and for a woman of her age retained an extraordinarily active mind.
Her historical novel The Dark Fortune, set in the time of Mary, Queen of Scots, won the Romantic Novelists' Association historical award for 1962. Despite such accolades, her work was not always appreciated. She enjoyed, for example, a brittle friendship with the doyenne of the bodice-ripper, Barbara Cartland.
"Mills & Boon always had a champagne tent on Ladies' Day at Ascot for their authors," Jean Macleod remembered. "One year Barbara sauntered over and dismissively asked: 'Wearing the same outfit twice, Jean? Are things really that hard?' I didn't dignify it with a response – she was known for her sharp remarks."
Jean MacLeod married, in 1935, Lionel Walton, an electricity board executive who died in 1995. Two years ago their son, David, also predeceased her
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/8478548/Jean-MacLeod.html