Edinburgh born and raised, Frances Colquhoun was an artist in every sense of the word. She painted in oils, acrylic and water colour and exhibited and sold her work as a member of the Cambridge Drawing Society. She was a keen gardener and it was a joy to walk around a garden with her, either in her own small garden in Cambridge or in some of the most famous public gardens, as she had an eye for the structure and colour of plants and where they should go to complement one another. She loved horses and although she never rode or gambled she could pick a winner almost without fail by looking at the horses and how they behaved in the ring. The structure of the horse was something she understood.
In her twenties Frances devoted her talents to the international work of Moral Re-Armament, an international moral and spiritual movement, most especially in the theatre. She acted in and directed plays in 23 countries and at its summer conference in Caux in 1960 she helped produce 14 stage plays in one season. She had a beautiful speaking voice and mastered the art of listening on stage, the sign of all great stage artists. For many years she would visit London for a day at the theatre with a friend, seeing a matinee and an evening performance. She gained a wealth of experience watching some of the greatest actors of the English stage. Armed with a hairnet and curlers she was a brilliant solo performer in the style of Joyce Grenfell. On bus and train journeys her friends would sometimes think Frances was oblivious to them but she was listening to conversations which would reappear on stage later. She had perfect timing and her humour was never cruel.
Her friendships were her greatest talent. They were widespread and international and she never broke a confidence, so her friends loved and trusted her.
Frances was particularly moved by those who had suffered behind the Iron Curtain. She befriended Alexander Solzhenitsyn and his wife Natasha, Irina Ratushinskaya and Vladimir Bukovsky when they were finally released or expelled from the Soviet Union. She was a quiet and loyal friend to them in the face of sometimes intrusive publicity. She initiated the idea of the prize winning film dramatisation of Solzhenitsyn’s Nobel Prize Lecture, One Word of Truth.
Frances Cameron married Patrick Colquhoun and together they have two daughters.
