Obituary: Penny Aitken - Queen Margaret University’s head librarian was a feisty adventurer

Published on Saturday 10 December 2011 00:00

Born: 16 March, 1947, in London. Died: 29 November, 2011, in Edinburgh, aged 64

ALTHOUGH she had all the attributes of a quintessential librarian, Penny Aitken was about as far removed from the classic image of staid bookishness as it was possible to imagine. Utterly professional undoubtedly, but beyond that she was a sparky mix of adventurous Australian attitude, feisty egalitarianism and Scots grit – albeit as an adopted one – relishing her role as head of Edinburgh’s Queen Margaret University library alongside a rich array of outdoor interests including mountaineering.

It was a personality influenced by a background that embraced her birth in south London, upbringing in Tasmania and career in Scotland’s capital as well as in Aberdeen.

She emigrated to the Australian island with her family in 1952 – a decision allegedly taken because the landscape pictured on a tin of Tasmanian pears appealed to her mother.

The eldest of four daughters, young Penny enjoyed a free-ranging childhood in the bush suburbs of Hobart and went to St Michael’s Collegiate School, a Church of England foundation, where she became Dux.

In 1968 she graduated with a BA from the University of Tasmania, where she developed a love of bushwalking in the island’s rugged mountain and forest terrain. After marrying her first husband, Bill Shepherd, a Scotsman, she accompanied him back to Aberdeen where, ever adaptable, she soon found work as a librarian at what was then Robert Gordon’s Institute of Technology, now Robert Gordon University.

In Aberdeen she completed her librarianship training as an associate of the Library Association of Australia and joined Aberdeen University’s climbing club, the Lairig Club.

Following the breakdown of her marriage she met and married fellow climbing enthusiast, Bob Aitken, and the couple moved to Edinburgh in 1974. There she found a post in the library at the then Queen Margaret College, where she rose to librarian in charge in 1991 and remained until retiring in 2004.

She was passionate about the library’s role as a primary education resource and was deeply committed to providing a positive, hands-on service, regularly enjoying an evening counter shift even after she became head librarian.

She set high standards for herself and her staff but her open, cheerful personality was a virtue, particularly in management where her style was characterised by her informality, warmth and humanity. She was not so much a feminist as a natural egalitarian. Although she was initially wary about moving into leadership, her conviction and charm, along with her assertive strategy documents and budgets, won her the support and funding to expand the service.

Her tenure saw the library develop to take full advantage of its new building, become fully computerised and enjoy an enhanced reputation for academic quality as the college emerged from its Dough School origins to today’s multi-disciplinary university. However, when the institution moved to Musselburgh, she was happy to take early retirement.

A fit, highly competent and widely travelled mountaineer and rock climber, she loved walking in the Scottish hills and mountains but found the Highlands somewhat tame compared with the Tasmanian wilderness.

Yet she would happily spend days at a time camping and climbing in the region’s more remote corners and particularly enjoyed scrambling along the ridges of the Cuillins or in Torridon.

She and Bob completed the Munros together in 2000 and also tackled peaks from Norway, to Corsica, New Zealand, the United States and Canada. They shared a particular affection for the Vanoise National Park in the French Alps, which became something of a spiritual second home for the couple.

It was an area rich with wildlife and flora and helped to foster her love of plants and ornithology. She was an enthusiastic birdwatcher and gardener, never failing to be entranced by the magic of germinating plants and flowers. Whatever her interest, be it Beethoven, Bach or Mozart, poetry, books or family genealogy, she pursued it with passion and infectious pleasure.

Ultimately an Australian at heart – who still instinctively referred to clingfilm as gladwrap, sweeties as lollies – she lived life in Scotland with enormous enthusiasm, never taking any of it for granted, and delighting in it all from the changing seasons to birdsong in the garden, while she could.

She is survived by her husband Bob, mother Olive, sisters Jenny, Sally and Susan and their families in Australia. ALISON SHAW