She shares her maiden name and birthday with arguably the most loved of all royals.
But it’s doubtful if Kirkcudbright’s Lesley Garbutt has much else in common with the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
Born at St Mary’s Hospital in Leeds on July 1, 1954, Lesley was the first of three daughters for C&A fashion store worker Elizabeth Spencer and husband Ronald, an industrial and commercial refrigeration salesman.
Exactly seven years later, Diana Spencer came into the world at Park House on Sandringham estate and, although born into nobility, she possessed a humanity which drew many to her.
“I liked her and thought she was lovely,” Lesley says.
“She was not afraid to get involved and helped tackle the stigma of being an AIDS victim by simply being among them while other people were keeping them at arms length.
“She had a great empathy for people in difficulty.”
Lesley grew up in a village called Little Preston, which is now a suburb of Leeds.
She attended Swillington Primary School and then Castleford Grammar School where a group of girls made her life a misery.
“I can’t say my school days were the happiest of my life,” she tells me candidly.
“Looking back I was bullied and it was quite insidious.
“You just kept your head down trying not to be noticed but it’s probably something I have carried through life.
“It was at Castleford and I had gone through primary school with the perpetrators.
“Mum and dad probably knew but I don’t think there was the awareness of it then.
“If they had said we’ll do something I would probably have gone no-no-no – it will just make it worse’
“But it did eat away at my self-esteem.”
Despite her difficulties, Lesley left school with ‘0’ and ‘A’ levels and started as a trainee radiographer at St James’s Hospital in Leeds.
“Then I got married and had a family,” she laughs.
“It began when I was walking home from a friend’s one night and John Garbutt stopped to give me a lift.
“He was they youngest son of the farmer at nearby Hall Farm and was six years older than me.
“I had known him all my life and getting in the car I thought I’m not supposed to do this but he’s not really a stranger.
“And I was hardly in the car when my dad drove by.
“I thought, oh dear – I’m in trouble again!
“When we got to our house dad came out and asked what I was doing.
“It’s only John, I replied – he’s giving me a lift.
“And that was that – we got engaged at Christmas, 1973, and were married in July, 1974.
Seven months was a fast engagement in the early 1970s – and her sister Julie was the reason why.
“She was going to Canada for a year,” Lesley recalls.
“My mum said if you want Julie to be a bridesmaid you’ll have to get married before she goes otherwise you’ll be paying for her to fly back.
“Then John said it would have to be between the hay and the harvest!
“The night he first picked me up was July 24th, 1972.
“So we got engaged on July 24, 1973 and decided to get married on July 24th, 1974.
“I moved in to Hall Farm where we had 80 beef cows, mostly Herefords, with an Aberdeen Angus bull.
“We also grew barley, oats, wheat and tatties.
“It was John, his dad William and brother Billy and I got called in at harvest, hay and tattie time.
“Our son James was born in 1977 and daughter Elizabeth in 1980.”
Does Lesley have any Scottish connections, I wonder?
“Well, when we came to Kirkcudbright my paternal grannie Spencer, whose maiden name was Greig, rang me and said you do realise you have gone home?
“Apparently one of my great uncles, who name was Greig, was the organist in the church at Minnigaff.
“I have actually been to his grave-side in Minnigaff kirkyard.”
In the early 1980s Leeds was growing fast and open fields disappeared under housing and roads.
It was not a change the Garbutts welcomed and thoughts of a move to Scotland grew stronger.
“Councils were moving people out of the cities into the suburbs,” explains Lesley.
“A lot of building was going on and they were bringing people out who were not used to rural life.
“Little Preston then was like what it is here now but in 1981 that began to change.
“There had always been this pipe dream that one day we would live in Scotland.
“We had always holidayed there and had a love of the country.
“But nobody was doing anything about it –so I did!!”
Lesley rang round land agents and armed with brochures of farms and properties for sale started looking.
“We did quite a few road trips – right up to John o’Groats,” she recalls.
“John’s parents had a caravan and so did we and during Easter 1984 we did a circular tour of Scotland and landed in Kirkcudbright.
“We had pretty much discounted Ladies Walk Farm but because it was on the list we looked at it.
“But to our surprise It ticked all the boxes.
“We were looking for somewhere where John’s parents could have a place and the house lent itself very easily to that.
“My mother-in-law liked it – the farm was just two miles out of town and close enough for the school, shops and the cottage hospital.
“John’s parents were well into their sixties by then.”
Ladies Walk was in a run down condition when Lesley and John moved in with two children and her in-laws.
“It had only been purchased six months before by another Yorkshireman,” she tells me.
“He had been a pig farmer and he bought the place without telling his wife and brought her to live here.
“She had a grown up family with children and grandchildren down in Yorkshire and never settled.
“That’s why it came back on the market.”
Meanwhile, new farm roads had to be built and all the fencing needed replaced.
And the big flit from Little Preston – on May 24, 1984 – didn’t only involve humans.
“We brought all the cows up in lorries and all the machinery and tractors too,” Lesley recalls with a chuckle.
“When I look back now I think ‘whatever were you thinking?’
“It was the confidence of youth I suppose!”
The Garbutts got a surprise bonus at purchase – a flock of sheep was included in the sale.
“That was a big learning curve for us – we had never been sheep farmers,” recalls Lesley.
“Our neighbours Tom and Agnes Murdoch at Jordieland were a tremendous help.
“Tom was a great sheep farmer and landed in one day to say hello.
“There was no sheep dip facility at Ladies Walk and it was compulsory to dip your sheep twice a year.
“Tom allowed us to use theirs and he taught John to be a good sheep farmer.
“When he was away to buy new stock Tom would go with him and advise him.”
Life on an isolated farm in Galloway brought a new set of challenges for Lesley.
“Because I was not in any social situations I was losing my vocabulary,” she says.
“I was up there with two children, 80 cows and 300 sheep and felt disengaged socially.
“I knew I needed something outside the farm.
“Dumfries and Galloway Council had an advert in the Galloway News for a library assistant at Gatehouse library for ten hours per week.
“I thought I could do that but I didn’t get the job because the lady who had been doing relief got it.
“But at the interview I was asked if I would be interested in being on the list for relief work.
“The week after that I got a phone call and was asked if I would come in and do some training for the library service.
“I came into Kirkcudbright and for a while was picking up supply work.
“Then in 1988 one of the library assistants wanted to go back to university.
“The boss said okay – but you have to find your own replacement.
“She came to me and the agreement was that I could do it for a year.
“Then just as she was due back they found out that the other library assistant was over 65.
“At that time it was compulsory to leave at 65 so I got her job – and I have been here ever since. It’s a full-time post now.
“I have had a lot of jobs over the years as the council changed and developed.
“Some years ago they amalgamated customers services with libraries and registration.
“I’m assistant registrar and my work now is more births, deaths and marriages than the library.”
Lesley has always enjoyed her job, she says – especially when children are involved.
“We did have an uphill struggle at first when public access computers were put in libraries.
“I don’t think anybody realised children would monopolise the things.
“When it started at Kirkcudbright around 1990 this particular group of five kids came in.
“They were manic and ran riot, laughing and joking – which would be fine in any other venue.
“The boss came down and said what can we do about this?
“I said it’s really about educating these kids.
“They have no understanding of what libraries are about so we just have to plug away with them.
“Later on some new children who had come into the town began running riot too.
“And one of the first group turned round and said “you can’t behave like that – you’re in a library!”
“I thought, oh well, at least we have got through to him!”
As chairperson of Kirkcudbright Development Trust, the community council and Kirkcudbright Swimming Pool, it goes without saying that Lesley adopts a can-do approach to life.
And it turns out her commitment to the town’s social and economic wellbeing has humble beginnings.
“My community work started with me being on the PTA at Castledykes Primary School,” she tells me.
“At that time we could not get swimming lessons for the children because the only pool then was at Castle Douglas.
“The PTA decided to fund extra–curricular swimming sessions at Castle Douglas and organised a driver rota for parents to take children to the pool.
“There had always been a thing for Kirkcudbright to have its own swimming pool and Joan Williams was tasked with putting together a steering committee.
“We drew in Neil Cavers and many others and eventually our campaign was successful.
“Our first meeting of the steering committee was in 1988 and the pool opened in 1997.
“After that I joined the community council and then Kirkcudbright 2000.
“It was a local artist John Halliday who first had the notion that Kirkcudbright, as an artists’ town, should have a gallery of national significance.
“John, who sadly passed away recently, started to sell this notion to other groups in the town.
“That led to Kirkcudbright 2000 being formed to look into the feasibility of that.
“So we ran summer exhibitions in what was then the town hall up to 2016.
“That resulted in the council getting on board and the new Kirkcudbright galleries opened in 2018.”
The closure of Johnston Primary School in 2010 also sparked a flurry of activity from Lesley and the development trust.
“The school effectively became redundant and we thought ‘well, what do we need to do about it?’
“So we formed a wee group and came together to develop it.
“But the key was that the trust had to be sustainable and could not rely on grant funding.
“The challenge now is making that happen.”
I ask Lesley what the secret is to a small town pulling in millions of pounds of investment for regeneration projects.
“People from other places are always asking us that,” she smiles.
“There’s definitely something about Kirkcudbright – it has a kind of entrepreneurial spirit.
“It’s a small group of people who work very hard and hopefully it’s appreciated.”
Adding these remarkable community achievements together, Lesley is in no doubt – to some degree at least – they have buffered the town against recent economic storms.
“That must have a positive impact,” she says.
“And we have some employment in each of these places.
“Visitors are coming in, which is the bread and butter of the town because they keep businesses going and tradesmen going.
“I think it’s up to us that the future continues to be positive.
“The community need to value what it has got, look after it and keep going.
“Positive thinking, creativity, hard work, determination and not taking no for an answer – that’s the answer.”
