Cawnpore to Cromar

In the darkest days of World War II, Rachel MacRobert's very personal challenge to the Nazis inspired the British public to battle on. Alone, without a husband by her side and mourning the loss of her three aviator sons, she travelled the country to raise morale. But words were not enough: with boldness and imagination this American from Massachusetts, who made Aberdeenshire her home, took the fight to the enemy by donating a warplane to the RAF. This book sheds new light upon the legend of MacRobert's Reply and tells the extraordinary and colourful stories of Sir Alexander MacRobert and his first wife Georgina. 'Mac' may have begun life in a tenement in Aberdeen, but he turned an ailing woollen mill in India into one of the most successful enterprises in the British Empire. He was the creator of a vast fortune and his endowment, along with other land and property assets, formed the basis of one of the United Kingdom's major charitable trusts. The MacRobert Trust is still based in Tarland today. This book is a comprehensive biography of an important Scottish family whose success and generosity has greatly benefited a very large number of people.