It was immediately after his death that Kisty met her mother-in-law for the first time venturing into her bedroom to introduce herself

It was immediately after his death that Kisty met her mother-in-law for the first time, venturing into her bedroom to introduce herself and her three sons, Alexander (who succeeded, aged four, as the third Baron), Robert and John.Kisty Hesketh had inherited from her parents a belief that duty came with privilege. For aged 19, at a hunt ball in the Borders, she met Freddy, second Baron Hesketh and the owner of Easton Neston. A year later, they were married and she moved into Hawksmoor’s baroque masterpiece.It was a difficult time. Her vacant-minded mother-in-law, one of two American heiresses that Hesketh heirs had recently married to boost their family fortunes, had retired permanently to her bedroom, seeing nobody but her three nurses and demanding silence throughout the house.Freddy, a former Scots Guards officer, had a brave war and used his wealth to accumulate a great book collection (Caxton Bible, First Folio of Shakespeare, Audubon’s Birds of America, etc), but he also had a drink problem and died in 1955. Her book Tartans, first published in 1961, is still the definitive work on the subject.

Evelyn Waugh, who visited Marchmont in 1956, noted afterwards in his diary that Kisty was “very quick and clever” and although she never went to university, she was later awarded a PhD from King’s College London (her thesis was published in 1999 as The Political Opposition to the Government of Charles I in Scotland).She was as Scottish as can be, very keen on deer-stalking and highland dancing, but most of her life was to be spent in the English Midlands. Their father, Sir John McEwen Bt, was a Conservative MP and junior minister, but also a poet and romantic whose passion for Scottish history and genealogy he passed on to his only daughter, together with an abiding admiration for France and for the “Auld Alliance” against England between France and Scotland.After leaving St Mary’s, Ascot, at the age of 18, Kisty McEwen held her only regular job, as an “assistant herald painter” in the Edinburgh office of Lyon King of Arms, Scotland’s heraldic authority. Her home was at Marchmont, a fine 18th-century country house set amid glorious Berwickshire countryside, where she lived with six talented, boisterous and loving brothers. Her childhood in the Scottish Borders was by her own account “idyllic”. She threw herself, too, into public service in the county, wrote several works of history and undertook occasional journalism (at one time as rugby correspondent of The Spectator).Life began well.

Christian Hesketh’s courage, resilience and optimism enabled her to bear a series of great misfortunes that would have crushed a lesser spirit. These qualities sprang from a rock-like Roman Catholic faith and a privileged Scottish upbringing that taught her to be positive in every situation and to abhor self-pity, whatever the fates might throw at her.
Widowed only six years after her marriage to the second Baron Hesketh, in 1955 Kisty Hesketh was left alone in charge of one of England’s most beautiful country houses, Easton Neston in Northamptonshire, where she entertained assiduously, favouring the company of those who shared her lively intellectual interests – writers, historians, politicians, and journalists of every political persuasion. Christian Mary McEwen, historian and public servant: born Greenlaw, Berwickshire 17 July 1929; county organiser, WRVS 1952-83; member of the Arts Council 1960-63; High Sheriff of Northamptonshire 1981; member, Northamptonshire County Council 1989-93; OBE 1984; married 1949 Freddy, second Baron Hesketh (died 1955; two sons, and two sons deceased); died London 7 April 2006. He is also involved in left-wing politics, and Sj? once again, as in I Am Curious (Yellow), combined politics with a frank exploration of sexuality.The film was a hit at the London Film Festival, but most of the director’s later work had limited success, blighted by his association with the more exploitable and provocative elements of his subject matter, though he claimed to be a puritan who simply wanted to avoid romantic clich? The films included Troll (Till Sex Do Us Part, 1973), En Handfull k?ek (A Handful of Love, 1974), Tabu (Taboo, 1977), Jag rodnar (I Am Blushing, 1981) and Fallgropen (The Pitfall, 1989).His last film was Alfred (1995), a biography of Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prizes.Tom Vallance. In 1968 Sj? also appeared in a film by his old friend Ingmar Bergman when he played the role of a television interviewer in Skammen (Shame).The most successful of Sj?’s later films was Lyckliga Skitar (Blushing Charlie, 1970), the lyrical tale of a lorry-driver, Charlie (Bernt Lundquist), who lives a carefree life on a barge, spending his weekends drinking with jazz musician friends and chasing girls. The film’s sequel was titled I Am Curious (Blue) (1968) because yellow and blue are the two colours of the Swedish flag and thus they reflect Sj?’s desire to reflect aspects of Swedish life.

Meanwhile she is having an affair with a young man (B? Ahlstedt) with whom she makes love in her bedroom, in a tree, in a pond, on the grass, and in front of the Royal Palace, and it is these explicit scenes, which broke several taboos in existence at the time, that incurred such wrath. Even then, it was shown only in two US cities – New York and New Jersey – but it made a fortune in New York alone, and its clearance by the court, plus its enormous success, are considered to have opened the doors for the growing explicitness of American cinema in the following decade.I Am Curious (Yellow) features newsreel footage and cin? v?t?nterviews in its tale of a sociologist (Lena Nyman) who is conducting interviews with workers, women and young people about the Swedish class structure. After a year-long, bitterly fought legal battle, it was released when a federal appeals court ruled that it was protected by the First Amendment. 491 had created something of a stir with censorship boards both in Sweden (where it was banned) and abroad, but I Am Curious (Yellow) was seized by US Customs and declared obscene. The impending marriage of the sister (Bibi Andersson) prompts the realisation that she and her brother (Per Oscarsson) are in love with each other, and by the time of the wedding, the bride is carrying her brother’s child.Then came the two films for which Sj? is famous, which combined socio-political commitment and graphic sexual scenes.