Edinburgh Fest is left £3m by retired teacher
mainMairi Pirie Rankin, who died last year aged 91, has left just under £3 million to protect the future of the Edinburgh International Festival.
Mairi Pirie was the first lecturer in drama appointed at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow in the late 1940s. In 1957 she married Roy Rankin, secretary of the Bank of Scotland.
Their home became an arts hub and together they founded a Pirie Ranking charitable trust to benefit the Edinburgh Festival.
She looks pretty fresh for 91….
A magnificent gift! The worry now must surely be that the Edinburgh Council which recently imposed a 3% cut on its grant may make this an excuse for further cuts in its annual funding.
She and her husband were my Godparents. They were wonderful and always looked after us!