Dorrit Mckay Help?

[carp king 155]

hi can anyone put me in touch with dorrits daughter lilah im looking on doing a write up for this and a few other forums for all whippet enthusiasts and I might send a copy to edrd and the countrymans Im looking for as much information as possible and if possible to give lilah a ring.can anyone help?

 

kind regards in advance

 

carp king

[cocker 2,655]

never seen or heard of her since the ban, but i know she's, remarried and not called lilah bond gunning anymore, shes called lilah wainman now, thats who you need to look for ( Upton Bishop Ross-On-Wye herefordshire)

did you get a pm off me ??

Edited March 9, 2013 by cocker

[carp king 155]

never seen or heard of her since the ban, but i know she's, remarried and not called lilah bond gunning anymore, shes called lilah wainman now, thats who you need to look for ( Upton Bishop Ross-On-Wye herefordshire)

did you get a pm off me ??

yes i did cocker mate thank you for replying ,how old will lilah be now and is she still active do you know mate

[cocker 2,655]

i think she be about 70 ish now, i think she's judging whippets at shows and still active, her daughter (dorits grand daughter) anastasia used to also do a bit with the whippets but i dont know if she still does,

Edited March 9, 2013 by cocker

[cocker 2,655]

DORRIT McKAY, who has died aged 93, exercised a vital influence on the breeding of whippets through the Laguna kennels, which she ran for 38 years at Brightwalton Holt in Berkshire.

Perhaps the most remarkable of her many champions was a brindle and white whippet, Champion Laguna Ligonier, born in 1960. Between 1962 and 1972 no fewer than litters sired by this dog were registered with the Kennel Club, and from these came 11 United Kingdom champions.

Dorrit McKay was also passionately interested in coursing, and would sometimes present the same dogs at shows and races, sometimes on successive days. This was possible because she bred whippets which were as notable for speed and stamina as for elegance.

Although Dorrit McKay regretted that the standard height for whippets (20 in at the shoulder) had not been maintained at shows, she was amply rewarded from coursing, winning 75 stakes. Bitches, she found, were just as fast, and rather more determined, than dogs.

Nevertheless, her best performer, Laguna Leader, was a dog, and from 1986 to 1989 the outstanding courser in Britain. It was a bad day when he was stolen by gipsies, bundled into a sack and driven away in a van. Her son-in-law gave chase, and noted the van's number, but her worries multiplied when the vehicle was discovered completely burnt out. Happily Laguna Leader was recovered unharmed after three weeks.

Today virtually all successful whippets, both in Britain and abroad (especially in America and Sweden) have some Laguna ancestry. Yet Dorrit McKay was well into her 30s before she owned a single whippet.

She was born Dorothea Ursula Noble at Fareham in Hampshire on November 10 1906, the daughter of an Army officer. She was educated by governesses, and, later, at a boarding school in Wimbledon. In childhood she concentrated her love of dogs upon her Sealyhams.

On leaving school Dorrit Noble lived with her parents in Dover, and devoted herself to golf, croquet and, particularly, tennis, which she played ambidextrously and to county standard. At a tournament in Aldershot, she met Captain John McKay, an officer in the 7th Hussars. They married in 1931.

After three peripatetic years they settled in a house called Wheatlands near Newbury, Berkshire. Dorrit McKay's interest in whippets was kindled by a groom who owned one, which she used to exercise on Greenham Common.

As a retired officer, Captain McKay obtained horses for the regiment, and in 1939 Dorrit McKay drove him to Tiptree, in Essex, on this quest. The horse they saw proved unsatisfactory, but she persuaded him instead to visit Stanley Wilkins's whippet kennels nearby, and returned home with a bitch called Tiptree Joan.

At the outbreak of the Second World War Captain McKay joined the RAF. The McKays were posted to various stations in the north of England, and in Lancashire Dorrit McKay became enthusiastic about whippet racing.

Not until 1945, however, did Tiptree Joan have her first litter. Dorrit McKay kept a bitch she called Jovial Judy, who not only won more than 100 awards at open shows, but also produced her first champion, Laguna Liege, which was best-in-show at the Whippet Club's Jubilee show in 1950.

The McKays settled at Brightwalton Holt in 1951. An important moment in the development of the kennels' reputation came in late 1958, when Champion Laguna Lucky Lad became the first whippet to win the hound group at Westminster, the American equivalent of Cruft's.

Captain McKay died in 1970, but Dorrit McKay kept the kennels going singlehandedly until 1989. Nor did she confine her attention to her own dogs. She was a founder member of the Whippet Coursing Club in 1962, served as patron of J R Whippet Rescue (started in the 1960s), and in 1970 became chairman of the Whippet Club Racing Association (WCRA). For 26 years from 1963 she was secretary of the Whippet Club.

Not until 1989, when she was 82, did she give up the Laguna kennels, and go to live with her daughter in Worcestershire. Even then she took 12 dogs with her. Two of them are still alive, both aged 16; she went out with them to within a fortnight of her death.

Dorrit McKay was present at the Whippet Club Centenary Show at Uttoxeter in July 1999. And in June this year, as President, she presented the prizes at the 30th anniversary of the WCRA.

Her daughter, Lilah Bond Gunning, continues the Laguna tradition

Edited March 9, 2013 by cocker

[carp king 155]

Do you think they would part with some info if I could contact them cocker mate

[carp king 155]

Do you think they would part with some info if I could contact them cocker mate

ps awesome peice of info thereto mate

[cocker 2,655]

i dont know mate

[carp king 155]

cocker i am kind of stuck how is it possible that i could even get an email address for either of the above

[beast 1,884]

Was she related to Anastasia Noble?

[Fat-Ferret 857]

Very interesting

[carp king 155]

Was she related to Anastasia Noble?

????

[cocker 2,655]

Was she related to Anastasia Noble?

dont think she was related

 

 

anastasia noble ardkinglass deerhounds

 

ANASTASIA NOBLE, who has died aged 88, bred deerhounds and hackney horses; she was also one of the most remarkable characters in Argyll.

Anastasia Noble spent her life among the woods, hills and farms of the romantic landscape at the head of Loch Fyne. For six decades she lived in the turreted splendour of Ardkinglas House. On her brother's death in 1972 she moved to a cottage on the estate, next door to her beloved kennels.

In her youth she was always at the centre of the evening's fun, and in her old age she still enjoyed the coursing meets, in Invernesshire or Angus, where the swift deerhounds and salukis could show their mettle. She scorned the comforts she could easily have afforded, embodying the forthrightness and frugality of her Scottish-Canadian grandmother.

She never owned a car but cheerfully exploited those that did. For shorter distances she rode a bicycle, often using it to exercise her deerhounds along the main road. Even when bent and poorly sighted, she still travelled alone with her dogs by rail through the night, second class, to the shows. In all, Anastasia Noble bred 135 litters and produced 24 champions

Anastasia Noble (Tasia to her family and friends, Miss Noble to everyone else) was admired for her straightforwardness and her indomitability, the latter being increasingly evident in her old age. Born on Christmas Day 1911, Anastasia Mary Elizabeth Noble gained at her christening the initials AMEN. She was the younger daughter of Sir John Noble, a director of the armament and shipbuilding company Armstrong Whitworth. When Armstrongs amalgamated with Vickers after the Great War he went to live at Ardkinglas, Argyll. His father had purchased a sporting estate there and commissioned Robert Lorimer to build a great house.

Anastasia was sent to a succession of boarding schools (being expelled from one for telling the girls about the facts of life), and then to a finishing-school in Paris. She was, in her own words, "educationally hopeless".

She came out as a debutante, doing the season from the family house in Portman Place. Her sense of fun and love of parties became apparent to all, as was her striking beauty, seen to best effect when she danced reels at the Oban Ball, and captured in a portrait by Lavery.

Her horsemanship was recognised in her twenties when she drove four-in-hands for Bertram Mills at the Dublin Horse Show. Inspired by her aunt Lilias, who had owned deerhounds, she bought her first, Nora of Enterkine, as a pet in 1930. Out of Nora was bred the beautiful dark-haired bitch Aphra Dubh.

After her father's death, Anastasia Noble continued to live in Ardkinglas House with her brother John and his wife Elizabeth, who assiduously kept it going through the difficult years of war and austerity. The fourth member of the household was Daisy Powell Jones, a wise old woman, who always remained as others came and went.

After valiant war-work on the farm, Anastasia Noble began to breed hackney horses. Out of her two principal mares Broompark Lustre and Marden Tamara, she bred several fine horses, all with the prefix Ardkinglas. Two, Ardkinglas Marquis and Ardkinglas Northern Light, were champions in North America.

But it was in deerhound breeding that she achieved her greatest successes. Tessa, her first champion, was out of Aphra, as also was Monarch, the first to carry the Ardkinglas prefix and the winner of 20 club championships. Forty years later she produced Ardkinglas Val, the first winner of the Top Show Dog in Scotland award, and Ardkinglas Azalea, the reserve in the Hounds Group at Crufts in 1990. Of her hounds she sold 150 for export.

Besides being a breeder, Anastasia was renowned as a judge, and was asked to shows in Australia, North America and Scandinavia. Whether exhibiting or judging, she loved the company of her fellow enthusiasts.

In old age she filled her tiny house next to the kennels with the cups, rosettes and fading certificates won by her dogs and horses. After walking the dogs she would eat her fried mid-morning brunch, making discursive telephone calls and listening to Radio Four.

She avoided doctors and dentists and became toothless. Her clothes were such that, when joining a group of film extras acting as a jacquerie, she had no need to change her dress.

Anastasia Noble could be autocratic and stubborn, but she was courageous, and always splendidly herself. This appealed especially to children - who saw her as a magical figure - particularly those of her family, of whom she was very proud.

She was the friend of the villagers of Cairndow, young and old, who, at her 80th birthday party in the village hall danced to a new composition The Miss Noble of Ardkinglas Waltz.

Edited March 9, 2013 by cocker

[beast 1,884]

 

Was she related to Anastasia Noble?

????

She was born DOROTHEA URSULA NOBLE at Fareham in Hampshire on November 10 1906, the daughter of an Army officer. She was educated by governesses, and, later, at a boarding school in Wimbledon. In childhood she concentrated her love of dogs upon her Sealyhams.

 

it was in the information that the man kindly put up for you, guess you didn't notice that bit!

Edited March 9, 2013 by beast

[cocker 2,655]

 

 

Was she related to Anastasia Noble?

????

She was born DOROTHEA URSULA NOBLE at Fareham in Hampshire on November 10 1906, the daughter of an Army officer. She was educated by governesses, and, later, at a boarding school in Wimbledon. In childhood she concentrated her love of dogs upon her Sealyhams.

 

it was in the information that the man kindly put up for you, guess you didn't notice that bit!

strange coincidence though isnt it two of the most influential ladies in sighthounds globally, being a similar age both from the uk and both the same surname

ime not sure if they were related or not ?????? but ime sure lilahs daughter dorits granddaughter is also called anastasia,

Edited March 9, 2013 by cocker