Veronica Maclean

Veronica, Lady Maclean (1920–2005) was a British food writer and hotelier. Her family owned Creggan's Inn on the shores of Loch Fyne in Argyll. Her first book pioneered recipes which she had collected from family and friends which she described as family or country house cooking, as opposed to the classical French haute cuisine which was the universal style in hotels and restaurants in the 1960s.

Her first book, Lady Maclean's Cook Book (1966) was enlivened by such dishes as the Duchess of Devonshire's fish soup, Lady Diana Cooper's blackcurrant leaf ice, Lady Lovat's oxtail, Fitz's "plov from Samarkand" - and went through several printings. Her other cookery books included Lady Maclean's Diplomatic Dishes, 1975, Lady Maclean's Book of Sauces and Surprises, 1978, Lady Maclean's Second Helpings and More Diplomatic Dishes, 1984).

Veronica Nell Fraser was born in London on 2 December 1920, the fourth of five children of the 16th Lord Lovat. After service in a mobile ambulance unit in France at the start of the Second World War, she met and married Lt. Alan Phipps in 1940, who after serving with distinction on the Arctic Convoys and in the Mediterranean was killed ashore at Leros in 1943. In 1946 she married Fitzroy Maclean, who had served as an officer with her cousin David Stirling in North Africa at the foundation of the SAS. After serving as MP for Lancaster from 1941, Maclean was made a baronet in 1957 making his wife Lady Maclean. Maclean then served as MP for Bute and North Ayrshire from 1959 until the February 1974 general election.

Lady Maclean (a Roman Catholic) had two children from her first marriage, Susan Rose "Sukie" Phipps (born 1941) and Jeremy Julian Phipps (born 1942), who were not brought up in their mother's faith. Sukie married the writer Derek Marlowe, and is stepmother to autistic savant Derek Paravicini. Jeremy became a Major-General in the British army, having served in the SAS. Sir Fitzroy and Lady Maclean had two sons: Charles Edward (born 1946) and Alexander James Simon Aeneas (born 1949), who were brought up in their mother's faith.

Lady Maclean died at home on 7 January 2005, at Strachur House, Strachur in Argyll. Sir Fitzroy had died of a heart attack on 15 June 1996 whilst visiting friends in Hertfordshire, England.