She is laird of Scotland's oldest stately home, descendant of the Scottish Stuart Kings, lives within a 5000 acre estate - and she's a socialist. Catherine Maxwell Stuart's already eventful life is about to become more so. She has been selected as Labour's Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Roxburgh & Berwickshire. Hardly your typical Labour background, but then Ms Maxwell Stuart is far from being a typical aristo, even though she runs the family business at Traquair House in Peeblesshire.

A Labour Party member from the age of 16, Ms Maxwell Stuart, now 35, learned her politics at her mother Flora's knee. ''My mother was always quite a socialist, always willing to spout her views at dinner parties - no matter how Conservative they were. I've always been sympathetic to left-wing views,'' she says.

Flora sent the young Maxwell Stuart - an only child - to the local state schools: Traquair Primary and Peeblesshire High. This might explain why she is so adored by local people. Everybody knows her and her down-to-earth, unassuming manner is irresistible. ''If you come from a privileged upbringing, you don't need the privileges of a private education,'' she declares. After school, she headed to the London School of Economics to study medieval history, where she counted David Starkey, mad scourge of Radio Four's The Moral Maze, amongst her tutors. Ms Maxwell Stuart greatly admires his lecturing style, but points out that women in his class didn't get a look in. ''A real misogynist,'' is how she describes him.

Ten years ago, Ms Maxwell Stuart's father died of cancer only three months after his initial diagnosis. Catherine and Flora were left to manage the estate and house - a popular visitor attraction. Presumably, Catherine, to the manor born, would know how to run such a venture. Not a bit. ''The estate is mostly farmed,'' she says. ''Five farms, all hill farms, all tenanted with some woodlands. I had no idea. I'd been working in theatre publicity and marketing for touring companies - small subsidised theatre companies.'' Her can-do attitude paid off, though: the house alone now attracts over 50,000 visitors a year.

So how does she square her socialism with the house and estate? Well, first she's clear that the house and grounds are a pleasure which should be shared. And that it's a business to be run. ''It's no ordinary business, though, your expenses are always outstripping any income you achieve. There are huge repair bills and you don't know what's going to go wrong next.'' Ten years ago they had to sell items from the house to meet crippling repair costs for the roof.

Last year, Flora made Traquair a charitable trust. But how can she empathise with people who live, say, in council houses? ''I have lived in council houses, and I have friends who do, so I know what it's like,'' she explains. ''When I moved to Bristol after university I was basically sub-letting the floors of friends - some of the areas were pretty seedy.'' She lived like this for about a year.

In 1998, her 43-year-old husband, John Grey, a designer, died of cancer only 12 weeks after the birth of their daughter Isabella. Ms Maxwell Stuart is now married to human rights barrister Mark Muller who is head of his London-based chambers and commutes from Traquair. She is almost six months pregnant with her second child, due in October, though it's nigh-on impossible to discern it on her tiny frame. Ms Maxwell Stuart says, with understandable caution: ''I'm delighted that I'm having another baby.'' She has no inkling of whether her second child is a boy or a girl.

Surely having a new baby, a toddler and her estate to look after while becoming a Member of Parliament will be hard going? Ms Maxwell Stuart plans, as usual, to take it all in her stride. Childcare arrangements are already in place. ''I've got fantastic support,'' she says. ''I have a girl who looks after Isabella, and she'll carry on once the baby's born.'' But how will she cope if she wins her seat? ''I would cross that bridge when I came to it. We would have to live partly in London. It's slightly easier when the children are not yet at school. They're more moveable.''

Her wishes for her children's future are entirely consistent with her status as a Labour PPC: ''I hope they grow up in a very peaceful, harmonious society, with a strong Labour Government, a fantastic education system, free health service and the opportunity to fulfil their desires.''

The opposition is tough, though. She is taking on Liberal MP Archy Kirkwood, a popular and famously accessible politician, who has held the seat of Roxburgh and Berwickshire for 20 years. Kirkwood is acknowledged to be a hard-working and first-rate constituency MP, but the truth is, unless by some miracle a Lib Dem government is returned next year, Borderers hold no stake inside Number 10, have no political clout. It's been like this for almost a generation and feels like someone has hung a huge ''closed'' sign on the area.

Labour finished third in the 1997 contest with 5226 votes, 11,000 behind Mr Kirkwood and with only 15% of the votes cast. Maxwell Stuart counters with the widely-held belief that eastern Borderers vote tactically, that is vote Liberal to keep the Tories out. She wants to persuade Labour voters to stand up for their convictions and for their party.

''The tragedy is that Liberals are always standing outside Government,'' she says. ''We need a voice inside Government - it would make a huge difference to the Borders.'' Borderers do feel marginalised and excluded. Add to the farming crisis the closure of traditional textile industries and the withdrawal of firms like Viasystems and you might see why people here feel neglected and forgotten. Ms Maxwell Stuart is upbeat, though. ''It took a Labour Government to restore assisted area status to the Borders and only a Labour Government can take full advantage of it. It is time for the Borders vote to count in Westminster.''

Maxwell Stuart is no political virgin. Last year in the local authority elections she narrowly failed to secure a seat on Scottish Borders Council, finishing second, a mere 90 votes behind the winner. Following this impressive performance, she was contacted by Roxburgh and Berwickshire Constituency Labour Party who wooed her into standing as their candidate.

Ms Maxwell Stuart loves the excitement and immediacy of politics, loves knocking on doors and relishes debate. She may be approachable and kind on the outside, but instinct tells you not to get in the way of her principles and beliefs. There's something scary lurking inside. Privileged she may be; innocent and naive she ain't. Neither is she frightened to use the bad word: ''I probably would describe myself as a socialist. I'm almost a 'New' socialist. I believe in equal opportunity for all and the greatest amount of freedom and justice for as many as possible.''

Would she describe New Labour as socialist? The response is diplomatic. ''They do have socialist principles,'' she explains. ''But they had to be pragmatic to get elected. I think we're moving in the right direction; major strides have been made. In terms of the Constitution, the Labour Government has been more radical than any previous government. Look at the Scottish Parliament - it's now attacking the big problems like poverty and housing.''

It's not easy when contemplating the ancestral pile to imagine it as a hotbed of social foment, but this, the oldest continually inhabited stately home in Scotland, was once the centre of the Jacobite South. Charles, fourth Earl of Traquair, was imprisoned at Edinburgh Castle shortly after his marriage, suspected of being a Jacobite sympathiser. He was sentenced to death and held in the Tower of London for his part in the 1715 Rising.

Sir Walter Scott, a neighbour and family friend, found inspiration at Traquair for two of his novels, Waverley and St Ronan's Well. The biographer of Doctor Johnson, James Boswell, visited Traquair in May 1780. Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley stayed at Traquair on a hunting trip.

The current incumbent does not go hunting. Nor does she approve. ''Personally, I'm anti-hunting. Though it's certainly not at the top of my priority list to ban it. It's a pity that the Countryside Alliance have hijacked the debate and turned it into a country versus town argument. There are plenty of people in the country who are against hunting - including farmers.'' Maxwell Stuart derives her opinion from experience, not dogma, on this issue - she has actually been hunting. ''I went out a couple of times - so I can empathise with the excitement of the chase - but I can't understand how it couldn't be just as exciting with drag hunting.'' She undoubtedly is an animal lover. Various dogs wuffle around our feet as we talk. And she had two pigs - Vietnamese Pot Bellied, naturally - donated by local Tory agent Peter Clark when he had no room for them at his new abode.

''So we called them Maggie and Dennis.'' Sad end to the tale: Maggie bullied poor Dennis to death, he just couldn't take any more and gave up. Funny how life imitates life. In the interests of political balance though, Maxwell Stuart's two cashmere goats are christened Tony and Gordon. Draw your own conclusions.

Maxwell Stuart is involved in tourism, heritage and the arts, and is a board member of Scottish Enterprise Borders. The latter has given her an insight into the stark realities of the Borders economy. She is determined to change the picture.

''The real priorities are fighting for jobs. It's not good enough to be just a commuter stop for Edinburgh - we need our own jobs here. There's a huge brain drain and loss of young people from the Borders. We need to look at building up local businesses and diversifying the largest. We still have the finest skilled workforce. And I wouldn't want the Borders to rely on tourism - look at the effect of the strong pound on that.''

It is generally agreed in this part of Scotland that re-instatement of the old Waverley Line would kick-start the economy. Maxwell Stuart is optimistic about the possibility. ''I think we'll get the railway in the next 10 years,'' she says. ''Major obstacles have already been overturned. We're only looking for #70m for the first phase. Pressure has to be kept up, though. I don't think there's any excuse not to have it - obviously it's the political will that matters.''

She's on a roll now. ''We can't stop there - there's still the issue of upgrading the A7. There's the problem of lack of infrastructure, lack of industrial space. We must make more industrial space available.

''The Borders are crying out for industrial estates. There's a lot of potential for growth - it must be encouraged.''

She's keen, bright and lacks pretension, shunning the sobriquet ''Lady Laird''. But she's challenging 20 years of Borders voting habits. Peter Maxwell Stuart wrote in a history of the house: ''The family had simply taken the wrong side in religion and politics. They were Catholics and Jacobites, thus the house became a living symbol in stone and mortar of lost causes.'' Will Catherine Maxwell Stuart's political career perpetuate this tradition? We'll have to wait and see.