Cherry Drummond, 16th Baroness Strange

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Jean Cherry Drummond of Megginch, 16th Baroness Strange (17 December 1928 – Megginch Castle, 11 March 2005) was a cross bench hereditary peer in the House of Lords.

Strange was educated at Oxenfoord Castle boarding school near Edinburgh, and read English and history at St Andrews University and the University of Cambridge. She married Humphrey Evans, MC, a captain in the Royal Mounted Artillery, in 1952. They both assumed the surname Drummond of Megginch when they moved to Megginch Castle. The couple had three sons and three daughters:

Adam Humphrey, now the 17th Baron Strange (b. 1953)
Charlotte Cherry (b. 1955)
Humphrey John Jardine (b. 1961)
Amelie Margaret Mary (b. 1963)
John Humphrey Hugo (b. 1966)
Catherine Star Violetta (b. 1967). Married Mr Herdman.

Although the family home is the 17th century Megginch Castle in Perthshire, Scotland, the family title, Baron Strange, is in the English peerage. Her father, John Drummond, 15th Baron Strange, had spent many years attempting to terminate an abeyance created on the death of the the Duke of Atholl in 1957, being confirmed in the title in 1965. The title went into abeyance once again on his death in 1982, but the abeyance was terminated in his first daughter's favour in 1986, and she made her maiden speech on 4 March 1987.

She held traditional Conservative views, but resigned the Conservative Party whip in December 1998 when William Hague dismissed Lord Cranborne for negotiating with Tony Blair on reform of the House of Lords. Following reforms which reduced the number of hereditary peers who were entitled to sit in the House of Lords, her 1999 manifesto to be elected to occupy one of the remaining seats (limited to 75 words) was "I bring flowers every week to this House from my castle in Perthshire." She was elected to fill a cross bench seat.

She wrote several romantic novels under the pseudonym "Cherry Evans", including Love From Belinda (1960) and Love Is For Ever (1988). As Cherry Drummond, she also wrote The Remarkable Life Of Victoria Drummond - Marine Engineer, a biography of an intrepid aunt, Victoria Drummond, a goddaughter of Queen Victoria who was an engineer with the Blue Funnel Line for 40 years from 1922.

She was President of the War Widows Association of Great Britain from 1990.

The title was inherited by her eldest son, Adam Humphrey Drummond, 17th Baron Strange.

In April 2006 it emerged that Lady Strange had changed her will on her deathbed, leaving her entire estate to her youngest daughter Catherine, cutting out her other five children. [1]