HE was the youngest son of the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton. She was known as Britain’s 'perfect girl'.

No wonder there was intense media interest (above) in the wedding at Glasgow Cathedral, in October 1938, of Lord David Douglas-Hamilton, and Miss Prunella Stack, a keep-fit pioneer and leader of the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, an organisation that had been launched by her mother, Mary.

David, an RAF squadron leader, was killed in 1944, leaving Prunella to raise their two young children on her own. She re-married in 1950, to Alistair Albers, a surgeon. He fell to his death in a climbing accident in his native South Africa in 1951.

In April 1990 Prunella, then 74, met the Glasgow Herald’s Jean Donald, whose article began: "She says she's a bit on the skinny side these days but the lady who was known as the 'perfect girl' in the late 1920s still looks pretty good -- in a dark green suede skirt, chocolate-coloured sweater, and matching brown tights -- and is still an inspiration to thousands of women.

"This Saturday [she] will lead the celebrations as over 15,000 women from all over the world, many of them three generations of the same family, meet to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of the organisation [by now known as Health and Beauty Exercise] that the worldly-wise used to snigger at in the sixties."

Prunella died in December 2010, aged 96. “To her end,” said one obituary, she “remained physically and mentally flexible, ready for whatever came next.”