Trailblazer Diana to take High Sheriff role
As Diana Flint prepares to become Shropshire's High Sheriff, she talks to Shirley Tart about her ambitions for her year in office.
The first female pupil at Ellesmere College will on Friday officially become only the sixth woman to take on the office of Shropshire's High Sheriff.
What's more, trailblazer Diana Flint well remembers who presented her clutch of awards at the end of her Lower sixth year and who said how good it was to see 'a girl beating the boys'.
It was Margaret Thatcher, then Secretary of State for Education and Science, who was to win her own spectacular place in history as our first woman Prime Minister.
Diana, who lives with barrister husband Charles in a lovely rural setting just outside the lakeside town of Ellesmere, takes over the mantle this Friday from Oswestry's John Abram, who has held the office for the past year.
Every new High Sheriff – a Royal appointment supporting the Crown and judiciary – always anxiously hopes they can fly the flag at least as well as their predecessor and they pretty well always do.
The new incumbent has come a long way from Kenya, where she was born. Her father, Major Robert Topham, was in the Army serving with the Duke of Edinburgh's Wiltshire Regiment and was seconded to the King's African Rifles during the 1950s Mau Mau campaigns.
Diana remembers those early childhood days but was only five when her father retired and came to Shropshire to take up farming with wife Jean and children, Robin, Diana and Angela.
They first lived at New Marton Hall, between Oswestry and Ellesmere, before moving some years later to a larger family farm estate just outside Ellesmere.
Colonel John Flint, his wife Anne and their children came into the county in 1966 and the two families got to know each other. Diana and Charles Flint hit it off so well that they were eventually married.
She says of her parents: "They worked really hard to get the house on its feet again – and did so just in time for our wedding in 1978."
Her father died in 1995 and two years later, she and Charles moved into the family home and between them, manage farm and land.
For the first 19 years of their marriage, the couple lived in London and Charles, a QC and a Bencher in the Middle Temple, still commutes to the capital.
Diana was a picture researcher with art publisher Thames & Hudson. Art has always been a major passion for her.
She graduated from Reading University with a BA (Hons) in Italian, a course which had included the history of Italian art. More recently, Diana has been chairman of the Shropshire Art Fund committee, though she has stepped down to take on her new role.
The 100-year-old Art Fund, the biggest independent art charity in the country, donates £5 million each year to museums and galleries across the UK to buy art for their collections and has contributed to more than 200 works in Shrewsbury Museum and many in the Ironbridge Gorge Museum complex.
"In my year as High Sheriff, I really want to put the spotlight on the Art Fund. There are 650 members in the county and we get a regular 200 at lectures or interested in joining outings.
Art is important nationally but it is also important to highlight what there is to see around Shropshire and I'm going to try and highlight the museums and galleries rather more," she said,
"The other thing I want to do is support volunteering within the county, especially the smaller groups who all do such a terrific job."
For a woman especially, the 'uniform' of High Sheriff is always a bit special and each of our ladies has been turned out splendidly when on duty.
Diana bought the dark green velvet for her official livery in New York, borrowed the buttons of office from a previous sheriff and friend and, for her first public appearance, has also borrowed a hat, with her own new chapeau to follow.
She will be officially installed at a Shrewsbury Castle ceremony on April 5 before family and officials – including her chaplain Rev John Vernon – with husband Charles at her side.
He is a great support to Diana, she says. "He really is so good and will be with me whenever he can," she said.
Their architect son William – who with wife Pam currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa near to Pam's family – and daughter Julia – who lives in London with husband John, a fellow doctor – are rightly proud of their mother and her new role for the county.
And so the ancient position is handed on to another county servant and into another pair of safe hands.
