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I’ve no need to tell any of you that Mary was a
person of quality. However, I would like to say a few words about her life
which may make clearer to you, some of the fires in which that quality was
forged.
My sister, Mary Elizabeth, mother’s second daughter, was born, in 1928, into a relatively poor army family. Father, a sergeant in the Royal Artillery, was an intelligent, cultured and capable man, but he had an entry on his birth certificate which read: ‘father not known’. In those times, this was something which blighted the family’s life and prospects, and was a reason why he felt unable to progress beyond sergeant, despite abilities which would have taken a more fortunate man further. He was a carpenter by trade but was shifted to clerical duties when he sustained an arm injury in WWI. He was posted to India, with his family, when Mary was four. During the voyage, and whilst in India, Mary and her father both suffered serious illnesses, and two years later, they had to return to England. By then, Mary (as described in a lovely memoir she dictated to Pauline and I, some years ago) had ‘survived, with such weak legs that she had to re-learn to walk. It was at that time that, with her thin legs, large sandals, and a great love of cheese, she gained the not unwelcome nickname of ‘Mickey’.
Despite my arrival in 1935 (father wanted a son), misfortune continued with father’s invaliding from the army and subsequent nervous breakdown which led to the family moving to Devon. We lived in a good-sized detached rented house which was at odds with a postman’s pay - for such was now his job in response to doctors insisting that his health demanded an outdoor job.
Father lacked faith in Mary; she didn’t shine in the presence of her more confident and extrovert elder sister, Kathleen, and he failed, at first, to appreciate the quiet depths in her. He even opposed her taking the Grammar School entrance exam, for fear that she would incur shame by failure.
Fortunately, her head teacher’s advice prevailed and she duly passed to
become a bright, diligent and successful pupil at Newton Abbot G S. So much so
that 1, following her some six years later, was often reminded (quite rightly)
of how I fell short of her example.
Nevertheless, through a shared interest in fishing and nature, Mary won her father round and they grew close. When, after a cerebral haemorrhage, father died in 1940, the economic struggle became acute but Kathleen, now aged 18, used her earnings to supplement our now-deaf mother’s meagre widow’s pension. During all this time, Mary, a quiet and introverted child, said little but saw and learned a great deal about how to survive a life which dealt plenty of hard knocks. She would also have learned something of how a mother, particularly one who is ‘up for fun and larks’, can also act as a surrogate father to a growing boy.
During WW2, while Kathleen ‘did her bit’ in the ATS, Mother made ends meet by taking in up to 3 lodgers, and Mary was her mother’s strong practical support. She would help a good deal at home and with shopping, carrying a large shopping bag over her handlebars on her two-mile bike-ride to school and bring the groceries home at lunchtime. Then mother would remember further items and the process was repeated in the afternoon. Mary certainly missed out on ‘play’ during this period and came in for some teasing from her classmates and friends.
We are now getting into the period for which I have some memories. I don’t think I was an asset in Mary’s life at that time. I tantalised any sign of weakness and, although she kept her end up at times, rubbing my nose in the cat’s dinner when I had tormented the poor creature by spraying water at it, she was ever ready to support me when she thought it appropriate. I remember her, arms windmilling, sailing into an older boy who had been bullying me. She was also a whizz at making realistic model aeroplanes out of old cardboard boxes. She taught me to ride a bike, took me on a youth-hostelling tour of southern England and sometimes stuck up for me when she thought mother was too tough on me. Perhaps surprisingly for one whose bent was the arts, she was really smart at solving geometry problems.
She had a talent for painting which she wanted to follow-up but she was advised that her chances of making a living that way were very chancy. Nevertheless, she blazed a trail which signalled the first steps out of poverty, when she went to Exeter University College to study theology.
Father had renounced his C of E religion by the time of his death and he had lively, but respectful, disagreements with Kathleen, who was a deeply committed Christian during her late teenage years and for the rest of her life. Mother had been a regular Sunday attender who believed strongly in the power of prayer. So Mary wasn’t doing anything particularly out of line in developing an interest in theology. However, within the first year, her studies led her to renounce the claims of the C of E and head powerfully for Rome. A consequence was that the Exeter course was no longer appropriate and she switched to a general degree which she duly got. Throughout her time at college, she had saved some of her grant to give to her mother and had come home most weekends to help at home. After her Dip Ed she first taught older girls but later found her niche in a Catholic primary school, working with the smaller children with whom she was particularly happy. Her efforts and success underpinned mother’s determination to see me through school to 18 and on to university.
Kathleen, meanwhile, had married and was raising a family, all of whom are here today.
At this time, she was still very closely coupled with her mother, living (and working) now in Windsor. By now, Mary had shepherded all her family into becoming Catholics. Pauline and I had married and were raising a family. Mary continued, as she did throughout her life, to be a committed Christian, a lover of classical music, a great reader and occasional painter. The purchase of a house was a clear indicator of the arrival of better times and she revelled in her ability to provide her mother with secure circumstances at long last.
But there was to be a major change in her life and attitudes at this time. Living cheek by jowl with mother for so long, and continuing to be too anxious to avoid confrontation, her mind eventually protested at the lack of ‘personal space’ and she had a nervous breakdown. A few weeks in a different environment, with Pauline and I and our young family, saw her sallying forth each day to join a local archaeological dig, the night terrors soon departed and equilibrium was restored.
Back home, she surprised one and all, by becoming more confident and outgoing,
even outspoken and, at last, a more appropriate weight, revealing a hitherto
unsuspected attractive female figure. With these changes, it was not such a
surprise when she announced that she was to be married at the age of forty. The
marriage did not last but she raised her two sons with whom she applied what
she had learnt from her childhood observation of how to be both mum and dad.
During her first year of marriage, Mary had obtained a diploma in education for children with impaired hearing. When the boys were old enough, she went back into teaching, part time, as a remedial teacher, later increasing her range with a special interest in dyslexia. During the first two years of her ‘retirement’ we begin to see the pattern of her need to spice her healthy enjoyment of leisure pursuits with what she called ‘being useful.’ She joined her son Richard in gaining a GCSE in computer studies and added Pitman typing qualifications, skills which she put to good use at Mount Vernon hospital and then, near the end of her life, at Housetops. She was also active in a local CARE community help scheme.
Soon after retirement she had learned that the strange things that her body and mind were doing to her were the first indications of Parkinson’s. She thus faced an increasingly difficult future although her GP, with considerable foresight, eased her anxiety by suggesting that, given family history and her own suffering from hypertension, she was more likely to die from a stroke than have to suffer the final indignities of Parkinson’s. At this time, Pauline and I encouraged Mary to consider living close by, in Malvern. She politely considered the house agents’ brochures which we sometimes sent, but chose to remain in the community into which she had embedded herself, and close to some very good friends whom she trusted to give her support when she was in need. Her faith in her friends proved to be very well founded indeed - something for which the family is deeply grateful.
Throughout her last years, her battle with Parkinson’s intensified but
success in a balancing act with drugs helped her enormously, although they
occasionally failed her at the end of a tiring day when she would suffer bouts
of mild confusion. She soldiered on through a very difficult period after
moving house, when acute sciatica left her without sufficient mobility to meet
her need to be helping others. With difficulty, she regularly met up with a
group of book readers. Mercifully, by persistent refusal to accept mainstream
medical pessimism, she regained her mobility and returned, as she put it, to
‘usefulness’, assisting two days a week at Housetops. At weekends,
her morale was often lifted by a visit by one or both of her boys.
During these last years she was able to take holidays with an almost lifelong friend, Anne, and, with the ever-present and loyal support and help of her great friend, Sue, she was able to get to some of her beloved Promenade Concerts.
It was Sue to whom she turned when she was suddenly taken ill, late one November night. Instant response by her friend, and by the emergency services, led to the best available attention at the neural unit in Cambridge Addenbrooke’s but, following her transfer to Watford, pneumonia rescued her from what would, at best, have been an extremely problematic future.
Whereas her father died, embittered by his lifetime experiences, Mary emerged from her trials with a character which had been strengthened, rather than undermined, by toil, misfortune and illness.
Those who knew Mary will be hard put to think of an experience in which they
failed to benefit from contact with her. She was a quiet but resolute force for
good.
She was cheerful, full of good humour, always ‘up for a lark’, honest and intensely loyal, hardworking and sensible, talented, never bore a grudge and, above all, was ever ready to take the next opportunity to love not only her nearest and dearest but also the next person she happened to meet.
And throughout an entire life, in which self-sacrifice sometimes spilled over to the disadvantage of her health, and rejection gnawed at her self-confidence, she, above all, gave herself to the service of others.
For me, and all those who knew her, she was, oh, so easy to love.
John Kirton
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