Published in the Scotland on Sunday - 06 Aug 2000

A Sorry Estate

by Jackie McGlone

STUART USHER has all the accoutrements of the archetypal country gentleman - three horses, two dogs and an impeccably cut tweed hacking jacket. You approach his home through a beautiful tract of the Scottish Borders. The sweeping driveway is long and winding and the mansion house at the end imposing, but he does not live there. He resides in a "hovel" up the lane. The featureless, white pebble-dashed detached house might seem comfortable to some, but Usher ushers you into his cluttered open-plan kitchen-dining room where virtually everything - including the owner - has seen better days, with the words: "Welcome to the hovel."

Live in a tiny place like this and you get mess like this, he says with a curl of the lip and a dismissive wave of the hand at a large clothes horse filled with family laundry. Stuart Usher has, of course, taken to not only washing but airing his own family's dirty linen in public. Armed with placards and leaflets he recently staged a one-man protest in Edinburgh outside the top legal firm of Brodies and then picketed the Law Society, claiming that the prestigious law firm owes his once-great family millions of pounds.

What has reduced a man like Usher, a 59-year-old public school-educated aristocrat, who is also a devoted family man with a primary school teacher wife and two teenage children, to behaving like this? It is an intriguing tale of shameful family secrets locked away, fabulous fortunes won and lost, a great house blown to smithereens, missing heirlooms, tragic deaths, broken trusts and, of course, a controversial last will and testament.

"You know, don't you," asks Usher, as he brews up tea and coffee, "that my own story really is The Fall of the House of Usher?" Poe's work May be over 100 years old, but still now, life imitates art, even if coincidentally. It is a familiar story, an old-fashioned story, as Dickensian as Bleak House. After all, Usher is not alone. The trials of his family are similar to those of many of the landed families of the period, a saga of falling land values, spiralling upkeep costs and wounded pride. More than most, though, Usher's is "a mystery all insoluble". For once, maybe art, maybe Poe, can really shed some light on life.

... this very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself through long ages, in many works of exalted art and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent charity...

AT THE turn of the century the Ushers were one of Scotland's most powerful and influential families. They would have topped the Rich List had one existed. Owners of thousands of acres of Scotland, sprawling estates, wealthy farms, magnificent mansions and country seats, including the grand Wells House in Roxburghshire and a castle in Perthshire, they sailed yachts and entertained lavishly. Life was one long house party, with grouse shoots, hunting, fishing and endless days at the races - they were often seen in the winners' enclosure at Kelso. A previous generation enjoyed a close relationship with Sir Walter Scott. The Ushers were also generous patrons of the arts and sciences.

The family fortune was founded on whisky. Andrew Usher - Stuart Usher's great, great grandfather - set up in business as a spirit merchant in Edinburgh in 1813. Eventually he became a whisky merchant, taking his third and fourth sons, Andrew and John, into the business in 1847, after setting up his two eldest sons as brewers. Shortly before his death in 1855, the first blended whisky was produced - Usher's OVG (Old Vat of Glenlivet). Its popularity spread like wildfire. The business was so successful that the warehouses at St Leonard's in Edinburgh could hold 23 million bottles of whisky - five million gallons.

The distillery, which was the biggest and best equipped in the country, with a capacity to produce three million gallons of whisky a week, was sold in 1918 to Scottish Malt Distillers for "an undisclosed amount of money". Stuart Usher has never found out exactly how much the business fetched. "But I will find out. I will, I promise you," he says. Figures between £7 and £14 million have been bandied about. "Multiply that by 100 to get today's values and you realise how much money we are talking about," he says, although he insists his battle now is not about money, but justice for a once-great and proud family.

One problem that was to plague the family emerged early. Andrew junior only had daughters. "We are great girl-breeders," says Stuart Usher. His sons died young, then his wife died and he married again and tried at the age of 59 for a son. "What did he have? A bloody daughter again. Ha!" While the business was expanding Andrew announced to one Edinburgh jeweller that he had far too much money - so much he didn't know what to do with it. The jeweller suggested he should build a decent hall for Edinburgh. "The city didn't have a proper town hall then," says Usher. Andrew gifted £100,000 to build what became the Usher Hall, in which he said good music should be played. The building was completed in 1914.

In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace -
Radiant palace - reared its head

AFTER Sir Andrew's death in 1898, the squabbling started, says Usher, whose great grandfather, Sir John, inherited the Wells, Hallrule and Bedrule estates. Between Hawick and Jedburgh, they covered more than 6,000 acres and included Wells House, a stately home, where in 1787 Robert Burns had once breakfasted. Named after the seven wells in the area, the estate was idyllically situated in the Rule Water valley and in the shadow of Ruberslaw. Its history could be traced back to the 15th century, but Sir John found the old house neither comfortable nor convenient, so he levelled it to its foundations in 1906 and built a grand three-storey house with some 50 rooms. With its elaborately carved stonework, the sandstone house was panelled in oak grown on the estate and approached through a famously graceful avenue of limes, oaks and beech trees.

A retainer of the Ushers in those good old days described it as "such a happy house. Little did I think in those days that hunting, dancing and dear old Wells would some day come to an end. I knew every nook and cranny of that house." There were 30 people employed in the days of butlers, gardeners, gamekeepers, head grooms, under grooms, chauffeurs and foresters. Paintings by Raeburn and Constable graced its walls.

Sir John died in 1904 and Stuart Usher's grandfather, Sir Robert Usher, one of his sons, inherited the estates and the title, which could only pass through the male line. Other Usher properties included the lands of Norton - near Edinburgh airport - and Pitheavlis Castle near Perth. Sir Robert had six sons. His fifth son, William Bell Usher, was Stuart Usher's father. Known as the Whisky King, Sir Robert asked each of his sons if they wanted to go into the company and they all refused. William was about 10-years-old at the time and replied that he wanted to be an engine driver. "He told me he regretted it for the rest of his life," says his son today. Sir Robert died in 1933 - among philanthropic bequests he left £10,000 to the Royal Infirmary.

Four of his six sons had daughters. "Bloody daughters again! I too have a daughter, but I also have a son, thank God. With all due respect, I am not a bit anti-woman, you know," he says, tapping my knee reassuringly. Stuart Usher's father, William, went to Cambridge but was kicked out, then he got kicked out of McGill University in Canada. "He was a bit of a ladykiller, my father," he recalls. Fed up with family hassle, William went out to Kenya and managed a farm, then got his own tea plantation in Tanganyika, Tanzania, where Stuart was born. At the age of five, he was brought back to the Borders with elder brother, John. They lived happily on a farm at Bedrule, which adjoined the Wells estate. Wells House was dynamited in 1951 (after the Attlee government introduced a tax on the square footage of roofs) and Hallrule House the dower house of the estate, set in secluded parklands, became the family seat. It was a wonderfully happy, carefree childhood, he says, recalling Christmas parties at Hallrule, which was filled with objects of art, porcelain, paintings, books and silver. The eventual sale of the contents in 1995 realised £237,665, including £21,850 for a William McTaggart oil painting.

... I had learned, too, that the Usher race, all time-honoured as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in direct line of descent

THE estates and title passed to Stuart Usher's uncle, Sir Stuart, who had two sons, Peter and Robert, both of whom were Down's Syndrome. "They were charming boys," says Usher. He would meet them at family birthday and Christmas parties. He remembers playing tiddlywinks with them and their love of jokes and laughter. "But the crux of the matter is that my grandmother, Lady Katherine, never knew that the boys were Mongols. Until they were 15 or 17 they lived in Argentina, where Uncle Stuart had an estate. Having a Mongol can happen to anyone, but at that time it was a shameful secret because it was such a terrible stigma. One Scottish aristocrat I know of even built a castle for his Mongol son and locked him up in it, because it was a secret to be hidden behind closed doors."

His grandmother, who died in 1948, used to tell Usher's parents that the two boys suffered from "nerves" and that was why they never came over from South America. Shortly before her death, she discovered the truth. She told Usher's father that whatever happened he was to see that the boys never inherited the estate or the title. "Your father would never approve of that," she said. She asked him for his word, which he gave. "Uncle Stuart was out hunting with the Buccleuch Hunt in 1962 when he toppled off his horse dead. We were told he hadn't made a will and had died intestate, so his estates would devolve onto Peter, who was now 31, and confirmed as fifth baronet, despite the fact that he was legally incapax - unable to look after his own affairs."

Usher's father was horrified, he says.

"It actually killed him. He very quickly had a heart attack, then a whole series of similar attacks, and he died about five years later. It was exactly what my grandfather had not wanted - he had wanted to keep the family wealth together. So the colossal will he had left was put to naught."

Peter and his brother Robert (also Down's Syndrome and also incapax) held the title from 1962 to 1994. Already it was apparent that the trickle of wealth away from the Usher estate was becoming a great torrent. The two brothers, because they were both incapax, would each die intestate, leaving behind punitive death duties. But, according to Stuart Usher, this was not the only problem. Brodies were one of a number of lawyers appointed to run the estates for them until 1994. Usher claims heirloom jewellery was passed to outsiders and that the value of the estate itself dwindled dramatically. He alleges that the estate is therefore owed millions of pounds. In addition the legal guardian for the two brothers, their Curator Bonis, was also from Brodies.

In 1969, Stuart Usher, his brother, John, and his parents sold up and went to live in South Africa, where they farmed. "My father said, 'You boys must try to make a fortune abroad'. He died 11 months after we had arrived there". Stuart's brother, John, died two years ago at a crucial moment. Usher claims that they had only recently discovered that his Uncle Stuart had not died intestate and had indeed left a will. "It was in the Scottish Records Office, where it had lain for years. A colossal hoax was played on our family, because it had been known ever since 1947, that the only route to the future for the Usher family was through the male line of my brother and myself."

Today, in his "hovel", of which he says he has grown quite fond, Usher has a few remnants of his family's past glories. There are two fine bronze busts - including one of his great grandfather, Sir John, an oil painting of his grandfather, Sir Robert, hundreds of sepia-tinted photographs of golden days in the past, family picnics and foxhunts, as well as a few pieces of Chelsea and Derby porcelain. There are also tens of thousands of legal documents that silt up everywhere. On the break-up of the estate, Stuart Usher received a family inheritance of £200,000, which has all gone, he says, on buying his house near Jedburgh and on the five-year legal battle that he has waged to right the wrong of what he sees as a grave injustice.

His father died in his arms. "His last words to me were that I was to fight as hard as I could for Wells - "your grandfather would have wanted that" - and I gave my father my word. I swore I would fight and by God, I have. My grandfather didn't go to all this trouble to secure our estates to go on in our family, if they were immediately to devolve onto a chap who was never going to marry, who was incapax and who would guarantee that the estates would pass out of the family. In order to keep my word, I have spent thousands on lawyers."

Some people, he agrees, might think him obsessed. Certainly, when you talk to him, his tall, thin frame seems consumed with anger. His blue eyes burn. "What's the difference between obsession and tenacity or perseverance?" he asks. "I don't look on it as an obsession. I see this as a long-term fight for justice for my family, my father, my brother, myself and my own son and I will NOT give up. I am proud of this family and I'm sure that previous generations of Ushers are sitting up there saying, 'Christ, thank God there's one of them still fighting'. And I intend to go on fighting. I have been a thorn in their side for three or four years now. Actually, if what I say is not true, they could de-bag me in public as someone who is talking nonsense, a troublemaker or a..."

A nutcase?

"A nutcase! Exactly! All I want is my day in court and I am bloody determined to get it."

Despite the fact that Brodies has refuted his claims and a 20-month Law Society of Scotland inquiry concluded that his allegations are unfounded, Usher says he intends to step up his campaign. He has also complained about the Law Society's inquiry to the independent legal Ombudsman, who also found his claims to be without foundation. Brodies' managing partner, Bill Drummond, says that no allegations have been proved against the firm and that none of the claims can be substantiated. He says they have no intention of taking legal action at this time. The Law Society's spokeswoman has said that: "He wasn't happy with our conclusions and took them to the Ombudsman and he did not ask the Society to reopen their files. If he wants to demonstrate, we live in a free country which allows that."

The Law Society has also described Stuart Usher as "paranoid". He counters: "That's what they did in Russia - anyone who was a threat was made out to be mentally deficient. In my repudiation to them I said I am perfectly prepared to undergo psychiatric tests. Not a peep from them! No approach has been made."

Usher admits his own family life has not been easy for the last five years. His wife, Gillian, is "a good, stout, loyal person, who is totally outraged by what has happened. I owe her everything". Their daughter, Katherine, is 16; son, Richard, 13. He is studious and musical, while it is for Katherine that Usher keeps three horses. She is a good athlete and horsewoman. Both attend their local comprehensive in Jedburgh as they cannot afford the fees to send them to public school (Usher himself was educated at Uppingham). "It hasn't been easy for Gill and myself, so much so that I fear for my life sometimes - I get very close to the edge. But if I died, that's it: Usher family finished forever. That's my biggest motivation to keep living. Why should a great family be reduced to this?"

Life for him is difficult - he has been a mini-cab driver and now works part-time as a barman in Hawick. He also puts on a pin-striped apron to "sell sausages" from a burger bar at Carter Bar to tourists arriving in Scotland. "My life May be uncomfortable - in many respects it's bloody awful - but at least it is meaningful," he says. He has recently dismissed his own lawyer, who was pursuing the case on a no-win-no-fee basis. "I have no lawyer now, and when I get my day in court - and I will because I shall get more and more provocative - I'll defend myself. There's an Augean stables full of bloody dung here, waiting to be cleansed." n

And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

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