Topsy was born in Oxfordshire on the 3rd August 1932, the eldest daughter of the writer/war historian R.W. Thompson and his wife, Bond Street dress designer, Stella Maud Gates. Her birth coincided with the visit of the English Cricket Eleven who were staying at her family home at the time and were her first visitors. The ‘family home’ was the architectural creation or her cousin, Clifton Reynolds, who was a union leader famous for wearing lavender spats and who later became Chairman of the Coal Board.

Topsy’s early childhood was spent in North Devon until the start of the Second World War brought about inevitable changes in family circumstances and she was sent to a number of boarding schools as the family, unable to settle, moved from county to county.

On leaving home at the age of sixteen, Topsy spent some time in the New Forest before settling in London were she met her future husband, American journalist, Lawrence Solon. Topsy had five children with Larry before he died, following a long illness, in 1970, leaving her a widow.

In 1971 Topsy took her family to Malta where she joined her sister and her brother in law, the artist Beanie Bradford and the well known writer, Ernle Bradford.  During this visit Topsy met the man whom she later married and who took her to live in his native home, the highlands of Scotland.

Throughout her life she had displayed some interest in painting but with her children leaving home, and the dramatic and ethereal beauty of a misty, mountainous landscape to inspire her, she now began painting in earnest.    .....cont;