Anna passed away on September 14th, 2022, after a courageous battle with cancer in her home, Domaine de Carliqui near Limoux, France.
I’m the youngest of Leo’s children with Margaret Walmsley, and so Anna was already eleven years old by the time I was born, and my childhood was vastly different from hers. There were few times during my life and hers that we ever spent extended times together. Anna was busy starting an acting career at RADA, alongside studying at the famed Chelsea Pottery. During this period I do recall a fleeting visit by her (accompanied by a friend in a bright yellow Zephyr) to one of the prep schools I attended. Another was staying with her in London from time to time as a teenager while my mother was in Africa; I’m not sure in retrospect that having a teenager in her flat was particularly welcome!
One trip I took with Anna was to Praiano, Italy on the Amalfi Coast, and we visited Herculaneum and Pompeii. I think this was when I began a lifelong passion for Roman architecture and art; Anna accompanied archeologues on excavations and became passionate about ancient coins and artifacts which she integrated into her pottery. She even built a Roman kiln in her garden in which she fired replicas of Roman vases.
Anna was married to Richard Scott, who took the position of Washington correspondent to the Manchester Guardian, and I visited them from Trinity College, Dublin, while I was an undergraduate. It was a memorable visit, Anna and Richard were clearly in their element at the center of Washington politics, and I even got the chance to shake Lyndon Johnson’s hand during a tour of the White House.
When it came time for Richard to retire, their fervent wish was to find a place in France where Richard could manage a vineyard, and Anna could become a full-time ceramicist. They settled into a 12th Century mansion called Domaine de Carliqui in Limoux (near Carcassone), and set to restore it and its gardens—a constant battle, even today. After her divorce from Richard, she decided to live in Carliqui on her own, and took care of the vineyards as well as her pottery. I made several trips there both with my family, and alone, and more recently with my partner Sherry. In each of these trips, we all recognised and admired Anna’s growing expertise with her ceramics, and her deepening interest in history and ancient civilizations, as well as her continuing passion for gardening. But recent bouts with cancer made it harder and harder to keep everything going, and as the cancer spread, her daughter Tamara came down from Paris and spent increasing amounts of time looking after her. It was Anna’s fervent wish that she should die in her own home, and she passed away peacefully in Carliqui on September 14th, 2022.
Anna was a very private person, she never attended the Walmsley Society, and rarely spoke about her early life, even to me. But I cherish the memories of being in her company, and I have several examples of both her pottery and some paintings that remind me of her and give such pleasure.
