It was 1936. Princes Street, Edinburgh was warm, sunny, busy Mrs Grace McDougall, who had led the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY) with such distinction during the Great War, was taking tea on the balcony of a well-known café, with her three children. Across Princes Street on the Bandstand set in the Castle grounds, the Band of the Royal Scots was coming to the end of its programme.

There was a momentary silence. The Band rose to its feet. The rousing notes of the National Anthem rang out. The tea-drinkers took little notice, carried on their conversations to the clink of the teacups. All, that is, except Grace McDougall. Pushing back her chair, she stood up, straight, rigidly at attention.

With a flick of the eye, and a nod of the head, she indicated to her children that they must do likewise. They did, reluctantly, and pink with embarrassment.

As the music rolled and swelled, one or two men at adjoining tables stood up. Others followed. Conversation ceased. Long before the final chords reverberated across Princes Street from the Bandstand, every man, woman and child on the balcony, and inside, were standing rigid, silent.

Grace sat down again, and an elderly man of marked military bearing, approached the table. He looked down for a moment at Grace.

"Thank you for that" he said, "I wish there were more like you." He turned and walked smartly away.

There are few people who could have carried it off, especially a woman. It was typical of Grace, determined, unashamedly patriotic, going her own way, never mind what people thought. The strong-minded courage of her own convictions carried her through the stresses and horrors of World War 1, made her such an inspiring leader as Co-Commandant of the FANY, never taking no as an answer, pushing back the endless barriers that officialdom and prejudice put in her way; also, it has to be said, badly ruffling a few feathers in the process. Not only within the Establishment, but among her FANY colleagues at Corps HQ, who were often left to pick up the pieces.

The first ever War Bride in khaki, after her marriage in January 1915 to Capt Ronald McDougall, she became known universally throughout the Corps, with respect, simply as 'Mrs Mac', still remembered and still in use today, a hundred years after she joined the FANY. To her close friends, always just 'Mac'.

Her memory, and the tradition of being stubborn and unflinching in the face of red tape – on one occasion she used the long-remembered phrase "red tape cuts no ice with me", - are carried forward with the Annual Award of 'Mrs Mac's Quaich', to the FANY who is deemed to have most lived up to that attitude in the past year.

Grace was born on June 3^rd 1886, the fifth of six children. Her parents were both Highland Scots from west of Aberdeen. Her grandfather, Joseph Smith, a crofter at Woodend, Glen Tanar, was turned off his croft by the Laird sometime in the 1830s. He moved to Dee Village, long since swallowed up by the expanding city of Aberdeen.

The reasons for his removal are lost in the mists of time. Grace's children remembered being told that it was to make room for sheep. More recent research has revealed an interesting piece in the 1896 issue of 'In Memoriam', a publication of important obituaries from Aberdeen and its immediate vicinity. It specifically mentions "the farm at Woodend, on which the Mansion House of Sir William Cunliffe Brooks now stands." It seems there may well have been more to it than just sheep!

And just perhaps, her strong, inborn antagonism to arrogant misuse of Establishment power, was an inherited instinct from that time. Who knows?

Grace's father Charles was a man of great charm and deep religious convictions, an Elder of Aberdeen Free Church. Much of his strength of character was certainly inherited by Grace, standing her in good stead in her role as Commandant of the FANY Corps in the war years ahead.

After serving his apprenticeship as a grocer, he opened his own business, and went from strength to strength as a businessman, becoming a partner and then owner of Gordon & Smith , prestigious High Class Grocers & Wine Merchants in Union Street. Considering that in the 1841 Census he was listed at the age of 14 as 'Gardener', his brothers as 'Labourers', he did remarkably well for himself.

He died in1896, when Grace was just 10 years old.

Grace's mother, Isabella, daughter of a slater, was a strong-minded woman of formidable character, who kept a firm hold on the children as they grew up, especially after the death of her husband. While she encouraged them in the pursuits and hobbies which interested them, she tried to instil a strong sense of responsibility to family and community.

Grace's siblings were varied in their interests. The eldest, Agnes, appears more domesticated than the others, staying with her mother until her premature death in a flu epidemic of 1915. Little is known of her.

The second sister, Isobel, studied medicine and became a Doctor. She was a person who loved life, music, dancing, bringing a sense of gaiety into lives around her.

The next in line was Caroline, with a definite artistic bent, fond of art, painting, poetry, happy go lucky.

The first of the boys born, was Charles Theodore. (Charlie) who together with his younger brother, William (Billy) was to have a great influence on Grace's life. Charlie was 3 years older, Billy 3 years younger than Grace. Together they made a formidable trio, until both boys were killed in the Great War.

On the death of Isabella's husband, Charles Snr, the family's life changed once again. Isabella sold the thriving business, both boys being much too young to consider taking it over. The smallish house at 67 Dee Street was also sold, and Isabella moved to a virtual mansion, Ashley Lodge, in Great West Road.

Here they settled into a much more affluent lifestyle. Riding became the love of Grace's life. She developed into an extremely accomplished horsewoman, along with her two brothers. The three of them, now almost inseparable, took up shooting and fencing. Grace again excelled at both. In 1910 she became the first woman to win the Rifle Shooting Competition at the prestigious Richmond Rifle Club; as a fencer, she took part in matches not only in England, but in France and Germany as well, winning prizes and acclaim.

However, she still found time to take part in amateur dramatics, dressing up and writing, away from her brothers' influence. Although loving any time spent with them, she was as strong-minded as her mother, and made her own choices when she so desired.

But things were changing. As Grace moved into her teens around the turn of the century, the close-knit relationship with her two brothers drew to an end. Though still totally bound by their affection for each other, the paths of adulthood took them in different directions; Charlie to begin his full-time service with the 3rd Dragoon Guards; Billy travelling the world in search of adventure under the guise of studying the agriculture of different countries, finally leading an expedition from Punta Arenas on the west coast of South America 1000 miles on horseback to Buenos Aires in the east.

While her brothers were away in different parts of the world following their own paths, Grace indulged her passion for riding, attending Gymkhanas at home and on the Continent, competing against some of the best. At the same time she built up her reputation in fencing, enjoyed target shooting, and happily continued dabbling in amateur dramatics and acting.

During this halcyon period she spent a year at a Convent in Belgium, at her mother's suggestion, no doubt in the hope that the experience in that sort of environment would help to rein in her tomboyish energies, and lead her into more ladylike pursuits. She loved it, learned to speak French, which was to stand her in good stead later, but her adventurous spirit never diminished.

What she was really looking for was some real direction in her life, something she could grasp with both hands, direct her considerable energies and abilities into, devote herself to wholeheartedly.

As December 1909 drew to a close, she found it!

An advertisement in The Times, seeking "young ladies of independent means to be trained in Horsemanship, Signalling, First Aid and Camp Cooking." It went on to detail age limits, and costs involved, subscriptions etc . But to Grace, all that was subsidiary to the main item to catch her attention. The word 'YEOMANRY'. That one word jumped out of the page at her, The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry Corps.

Grace herself wrote later: "It was solely because of its title 'Yeomanry' that I sought out this Corps."

What she didn't know then was that as fast as 1909 was fading away, so was the FANY Corps. In January 1910 Grace travelled to London to find out more, listened to the rose-tinted account of the Corps given by its founder, self-styled Captain Baker, decided that was for her, and signed up.

It was a momentous decision, and was to have a huge impact, not only on Grace's life, but on the FANY Corps itself. Teetering as it was on the cusp of oblivion, Grace seized it with both hands, pulled it back from the edge, built and moulded it into a lasting, outstanding Corps of intrepid, fearless and dedicated young ladies.