The chief executive of the Scottish Arts Council has resigned and is to move to the Far East to marry a member of the Singaporean parliament.
Graham Berry is to leave the SAC and live in south-east Asia with Irene Ng, an MP and award-winning journalist who campaigns for the rights of single people.
Mr Berry, 62, who said the relationship began with "love at first sight" at the Edinburgh Festival last year, is now working six months' notice at the SAC, which is shortly to be merged with Scottish Screen to become a new body, Creative Scotland.
His resignation and relocation means that Creative Scotland, when it is formed after the next Holyrood elections, will require a new leader. It is understood that Ms Ng, 43, from Penang, will marry Mr Berry in Singapore in the first week of July.
Ms Ng, the first Singaporean MP in more than 20 years to get married while in office, said she had "sensed a good man"
in Berry and they had found many things in common - a love of music, sports, books and nature.
The relationship developed, she said, as the two shared walks along the Scottish coast, walked in the hills and attended various musical concerts, and Mr Berry proposed marriage in October.
"During all those dates, I made clear to him how much I loved Singapore and how seriously I take my service as MP to my constituents," Ms Ng told a Singaporian newspaper. Ms Ng, who is part of Singapore's ruling People's Action Party, set up Singles Connect, a support group for single people, in 2001, and before she entered politics worked for The New Paper and The Straits Times.
The marriage will be Mr Berry's third, and he has two grown-up children.
"I never asked him to (move to Singapore). It was his decision," added Ms Ng.
"He has not decided what he would do in Singapore, but I know that he will be by my side in helping me to become a better MP."
Mr Berry said: "I will support Irene in her work as an MP because I know it is important to her and is part of her. I am attracted to Irene because of the many interests we have in common, her commitment to her work as an MP and the people she represents, particularly those who are less fortunate."
Mr Berry joined the Scottish Arts Council in 1989 as director of finance, becoming deputy director in 1996 and acting director from November 2001 until his appointment as chief executive in March 2002.
Yesterday, Culture Minister Patricia Ferguson told MSPs on Holyrood's Enterprise and Culture Committee that ministers would not seek to influence artistic decisions, such as which companies should be awarded funding.
She said: "I think it would be a very unwise minister who would get involved in artistic decisions, it would be very foolish."
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