Why the Lady is a duchess

Though she resumed using her maiden name after she divorced her husband, Guy, more than five years ago, and he has since remarried, the people of Kelso still refer to her as ``the duchess'' and talk about the duke's second wife as ``the other one''.

This is not really a slight on Virginia, the second duchess, who married the duke in September 1992, and has kept a low profile since then, but more a reflection on the high regard in which local people hold Lady Jane. In Duchess Virginia's defence it is only fair to say that Lady Jane would be an almost impossible act to follow. In a popularity poll for the whole district, she would come out a winner by a long stretch, and on this week's evidence the esteem in which she is held is well deserved.

When that elusive quality ``charm'' was being distributed, she must have scooped the pool on the day of her birth. Her charm is entirely natural, making her the most approachable aristocrat most people in the Borders have ever met.

Perhaps she owes this quality of accessibility to the fact that she was born the daughter of a younger son of a ducal family, living in Northern Ireland, where she and her siblings had a free and open existence.

Family life changed dramatically when she was 14 and her father unexpectedly became the 5th Duke of Westminster. The family then moved to Eaton Hall in Cheshire with another home in London which Lady Jane hated. Her unconventionality extended to taking a job as an au pair in Brussels, and wanting to work for the Red Cross, but that last plan was cast aside when she married Guy Innes-Ker, 10th Duke of Roxburghe.

It seemed to be a suitable marriage. He was 23; she 25. He was tall, slim and blond-haired; she was tall, not quite so slim, with long, curling dark brown hair and a lovely face. Both came from super-rich families. Lady Jane's brother, now the 6th Duke of Westminster, to whom she is very close, is reputed to be the richest man in Britain.

When they leave their present home, Cherrytrees near Yetholm, she and her children will spend Christmas with him and his family at Eaton Hall. ``There'll be around 22 of us there,'' said her youngest son, Lord Edward, in happy anticipation.

Unfortunately the promise Lady Jane's young husband Guy presented as a more accessible and agreeable duke than his father, who was locally nicknamed ``Bobo'', was not fulfilled after he succeeded to the dukedom in 1974. Kelso people at the farewell reception were privately saying that the best thing he ever did for them was to marry Lady Jane who they took to their hearts at once.

After the wedding in 1977 she set about building bridges between the local community and Floors Castle which broods behind a long stretch of imposing wall on the outskirts of the town. The way she won all hearts to her in Kelso is remarkable because, to be frank, the Dukes of Roxburghe, for the past two generations anyway, have not been popular although local people have always preserved lip-service courtesy towards them. In private, furrowed brows and twisted lips tell a different story when their names are mentioned.

The present duke's unpopularity does not seem to be confined to the Borders, because when he applied to become a member of the Jockey Club in September 1991, he was, astonishingly, black-balled by at least nine members.

This act was a marked signal of disapproval because, like his father, the duke is a renowned breeder of thoroughbred horses, owns Kelso racecourse, and was put up for membership of the Jockey Club by Colonel Sir Piers Bengough, the Queen's representative at Ascot. Normally a background like that would have guaranteed acceptance.

Lady Jane, however, turned out to be a very different kind of duchess. In the early days when her husband was studying agriculture at Cambridge, they lived modestly in the South where she did her own cooking, using recipes out of The Paupers' Cookbook. During the time spent at Floors, she went shopping on foot in the town and was often seen helping out at the garden centre which she helped to establish at Floors. A local woman said she only realised the gardening girl in jeans was the duchess because of the diamond rings that adorned her fingers.

She was so successful in winning respect and affection that for a while it looked as if the long estrangement between the Dukes of Roxburghe and their neighbours was about to end, but unhappily, after the birth of three children, the marriage ran into problems, rumours abounded, and in March 1990 she sued her husband for divorce on the grounds of adultery with an unnamed woman.

In divorce, it is said, friends should not take sides, but Kelso disregarded that advice and sided openly with the duchess. Though she moved out to live at Cherrytrees, near Yetholm, seven miles from Kelso, she was still regarded as the chief lady of the town, invited to all official, and many unofficial occasions.

This summer, however, Lady Jane let it be known that she was putting Cherrytrees on the market and moving to the South so that she could be near her children. The eldest child of her marriage to Guy is 17-year-old Lady Roseanne, followed by 14-year-old Charles, the Marquis of Bowmont, and 11-year-old Lord Edward Innes-Ker. The marquis is already at Eton to which he will be followed by his brother next year and the duchess's new home is only half-an-hour's drive from the school.

THE children have obviously adopted their mother's informality. ``I'm called Ted,'' said her youngest son introducing himself when he and his elder brother accompanied their mother to the reception. Both boys, neatly dressed in grey suits and tightly knotted ties, moved among the guests talking about fishing, about their love of rugby (both play), and in Charles's case, shooting.

When they posed as a family for shot after shot of photographs, Lady Jane urged them to ``smile'' and they did so without the least sign of boredom or frustration. They also looked on with obvious pride when their mother stood, elegant in a navy fitted dress with a wide white collar, in the middle of about 30 assembled councillors, to hear George Renton, Provost of Kelso, express the sentiments of the town towards her.

``We are going to miss you,'' he said, ``you have been a great, great asset to this town and to the Borders.''

In reply she said she was certainly not turning her back on the Borders for good but would be coming back once a month because she is involved with several business projects in the district, including a new conference-centre company that is to be set up in Leitholm, near Duns, and with the Historic Buildings Trust.

Though her new home is to be an old rectory, ``which we're already referring to as the Old Manse'', she joked, she would always feel a Borderer at heart and it has always been her intention that her children think of themselves as Borderers for their entire lives.

Provost Renton presented her with a large picture wrapped in brown paper which she immediately unwrapped to reveal a framed picture of Kelso Bridge, taken by local photographer Alan Thompson.

After the speeches everyone wanted to talk to the duchess and all had a personal memory of her to contribute. ``She really won my heart when she went on the ride-out to Yetholm with the Kelso Laddie a couple of years ago and rode right in the front, singing all the local songs at the top of her voice,'' said one man.

Another said the duchess earned her respect by going to the Hawick Common Riding where women are not allowed into the special sheds set aside for men to attend the celebrations. ``She stood outside in the rain with all the other women and, like we all did, complained about Hawick's male chauvinism,'' she remembered.

When it came my turn to speak to Lady Jane she grasped my hand with a smile and said she remembered being interviewed by me 18 years ago when she arrived at Floors as a new bride. It was remarkable that she remembered because we have not met since.

In those days she was a plumpish, fresh-faced girl with tumbling dark hair. Today she is tall, slim and statuesque, a beauty with a short-cut bob, but her unfeigned naturalness is as real now as it was then.

I remembered that in those early days she had enthused about horse riding and enquired if she still rode but she shook her head. ``I had a bad fall in Ayrshire a couple of years ago and told myself `It's time to give this up.'.''

Finally I asked the Duchess what it was about the Borders that she would miss most and she looked pensive. ``The people I think,'' she said, looking around at the happy throng in the town hall.

``They're so natural and I'll miss the beauty of the countryside. I love it, just love it. You see, apart from here, I've lived in Northern Ireland and the Midlands, but never in the South and it's all going to be very strange to me. I know I'll always be hankering after the Borderlands but I'll keep coming back I promise I will.''