Alice Doreen Louise McLennan, was born in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne on December 18th 1934. In 1937, Alice's Mother, following the death of her husband, moved from Newcastle, to Cheam in Surrey. When Alice Doreen was fifteen, she was awarded a Senior Exhibition Scholarship to Sutton School of Art. While studying at the Art School she met her future husband, John McIntosh. Alice Doreen left art school when she was eighteen and worked as a graphic artist, for an advertising agency near Trafalgar Square. She said as a young woman, she was regularly expected to make the tea and even though her work contributed to many successful advertising campaigns, she had to accept that the men in the office took the credit for her work. That’s how it was in those days. In 1967 Alice Doreen and John, having married in 1956, moved to Ventnor, Isle of Wight. When their children left home Alice started to paint again and took a course with the Open College of the Arts in Portsmouth. On the first day she met, Isle of Wight artist Edna Coatsworth, Edna was to become a very great friend. Alice also exhibited, at Quay Arts, her favourite Island venue. During the last twelve years of her life, living in Shanklin, Alice was to finish the book she'd started in Ventnor. She loved reading and watching Joyce Grenfell perform and consequently, she started writing and performing her own monologues. They were humorous and irreverent. Excerpts from some of these found their way into ‘Along Came the Spider’, first published in January 2018, under her name ‘Alice McIntosh’. It gave her great pleasure when people told her how much they had laughed reading the escapades of the three sisters, the book's main characters. She was writing a second novel, a thriller based on an artistic community, at the time of her death. Alice Doreen died, unexpectedly in January 2019, leaving behind a large portfolio of paintings and writings. She was a remarkable, creative woman, a loving wife, compassionate, clever and a good friend to many. She was the mother of two talented artistic daughters Louise Giblin and Elaine McCracken and son John, a Brigadier.
