Brigadier Helen Meechie, CBE, director of the Women's Royal Army Corps; born January 19, 1938, died August 24, 2000

HELEN Meechie broke down many barriers during a long and distinguished career in which she rose to become the highest-ranking woman serving with the British Army.

She was the first woman to graduate from the previously all-male preserve of the Staff College, Sandhurst; the first woman to attend the National Defence College, and the first woman to go to the Royal

College of Defence Studies.

In the context of cultural changes currently affecting the Armed Forces, she made a path for other females to follow without resorting to legal challenges or European directives.

That she had to prove herself a better soldier and leader than male contempories in the 1960s and 1970s goes without saying. In doing so she developed a tough exterior but retained a sense of humour, or gravitas, for appropriate times.

The daughter of a salesman, Helen Guild Meechie was born in Dundee and educated at Morgan Academy and St Andrew's University, where she took an MA in

modern languages and was an enthusiastic member of the Officer Training Corps.

After graduating, she attended Dundee College of Education where she gained a teaching diploma. However, in 1960 she joined the Army under the graduate entry scheme and was commissioned into the Women's Royal Army Corps.

Early in her career she was

posted to the Staff College, Camberley, and Hong Kong where she was involved in negotiating and implementing sweeping defence cuts to the garrison.

In 1976 she attended the National Defence College and was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel before being given a desk job in personnel at

the Ministry of Defence. Three years later she was pleased to be made Commander, WRAC Army of the Rhine.

Her appointment, made when the Cold War was still going on, came at a time when the WRAC was beginning to assert itself through the jobs women were taking on. She ensured her soldiers were seen to be professionally equal when the military was exempt from the Sex Discrimination Act.

She was promoted to the top job for an army woman, director of the WRAC, in 1982; the same year she was made an honorary aide-de-camp to the Queen. Her main task was to prepare for the amalgamation of the women's service with the all-male army. It was a job which involved the dismantling of deeply-held tradition and practices as much as planning and re-organisation.

Retiring as WRAC director in 1986, when she was made CBE, she moved to the Royal College of Defence Studies before being appointed deputy director general, personnel services.

She retired from the Army in 1991 but still enjoyed the comradeship and lifestyle. She was vice-president and chairwoman of the WRAC association, a freeman of the City of London, and, with a

passion for golf, established the WRAC Golf Society.

Her work with service charities was considerable. In 1986 she received an honorary doctorate from Dundee University, and for five years until 1991 she was honorary colonel of Tayforth OTC, which trains officer cadets from the universities of Dundee, Abertay, St Andrews, and Stirling.

Three years ago she was diagnosed as suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative brain disease for which there is no known cure.

Helen Meechie, who never

married, was predeceased by a brother, David, but is survived by another brother, Jack, two nieces, and one nephew.