Myra Greer, former wine expert, writer and artist passes away

The daughter of a high-ranking RAF officer who worked with Douglas Bader, she was brought up in Wiltshire and Wales, and would often visit Northern Ireland to visit her grandmother in Belfast and other relatives.

On one of her frequent visits she was attending a dance at the King’s Arms Hotel in Larne when she met her future husband Norman; it was a case of love at first sight and the couple went on to have a long and happy marriage.

Myra trained as a nurse but gave up her job five years after they were married in 1960 when their two children, Robin and Cherry, came along.

Norman, a former builder, was proprietor of the Farm Lodge pub on the edge of Rathcoole at the height of the Troubles and Myra helped him run the business for 10 years.

After the couple sold the business the Greers opened Quality Wines on Botanic Avenue (which was later bought by a prominent off-licence chain). Myra gained professional qualifications in wine and went on to lecture in the field at the University of Ulster, and her growing reputation as a wine expert landed her a popular column in the Belfast Telegraph as well as making her a well-known figure to the hospitality industry.

Her column appeared in the newspaper from 1998 to 2008. She was also co-editor with Colin Butterworth of the Wine Diary in 2006.

In 2004 she had retired from lecturing and after the wine column ended she began a new chapter in her life, channelling what had previously been a hobby as she took courses at Ulster University Art College and with glass artist Karl Harron in Newtownards.

Myra had been fascinated by the qualities of stained glass; as a child on visits to her grandmother in Belfast, she was entranced by the old Belfast trams with their stained-glass panels in hues that caught the light and glinted in the sunshine.

Her first glimpse of them in the 1940s was the beginning of a fascination with the reflective qualities and vibrancy of coloured glass.

Her retirement brought the opportunity to chart a new artistic path and Myra had a small glass studio and workshop in her garden.

In addition to glass art pieces, she made large decorative bowls, panels, splash-backs and windows which were double glazed, laminated and installed by a leading window manufacturer.

Within five years her work was of a calibre that resulted in her being accepted into the prestigious Ulster Society of Woman Artists, founded by veteran artist Gladys Maccabe MBE in 1957 at a time when there was no art society in Northern Ireland that would accept women as members.

Myra was a regular exhibitor at the Society’s annual exhibitions from 2013 and in 2015 in addition to exhibiting at the USWA Holywood Library exhibition, several pieces of her work went on display at the Open Exhibition at Newtownabbey Borough Council’s Mossley Mill Gallery.

At the Society’s 60th anniversary show at Belfast Crescent Arts Centre in 2017, she won the Elizabeth Morrow award - for the Most Original and Innovative Sculpture - for Coming Home, a stunning piece depicting salmon returning to spawn.

Myra passed away peacefully at her home near Whiteabbey on February 12.