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Notes from Marion
I think it was about 1942 when I joined the elms school and met Flora. Many years later Flora told me that her mother at said "a new little girl is coming to the school, she is rather shy so I would like you to look after her." That little girl didn't stay shy for long under floors influence and so began a wonderful lifelong friendship stop
At that time there were still air raids and I remember we went up to the top of the tower at the elms to watch the planes overhead or it may have been doodle bugs. Mrs Piper was horrified calling" come down you naughty girls it is dangerous" oh dear we were in trouble again.
Flora was convinced that a secret passage existed under the sellers which led to St Peter's church. We spent hours down the investigating trying to lift the grating. "It must be there," said Flora with a large torch in hand but to no avail. I wonder if it was ever found when that lovely old house was demolished and the houses built very doubtful.
Several years later as young teenagers Flora was very keen on cricket – photographs of all the Kent players adorned her bedroom walls and if the county team played in Maidstone we went to watch.
At about the same time my father often took me to watch Maidstone United play football and he said "ask Flora to come with us." And then she was hooked on football as well as cricket the wire remember she was "rather keen" on one of the young players – though he was gorgeous and was going to marry him.
After all the crazy years I think we grew up to be reasonably sensible adults and Flora moved away from the town will stop we always kept in touch and met when possible.
I was delighted when Flora asked me to be her bridesmaid at her wedding and then godmother to her second child Colin.
After much travelling around Flora eventually came back to the south-east, living in Hurst Green and we met frequently recalling those happy carefree days of long ago.
Notes from Liz
Thank you all so much for coming here to remember Flora, mum.
The last few years have been hard for her. Laying her first born son David to rest was something she never got over. She did all she could to remember him with special tributes which we will continue to care for on her behalf as well as for ourselves.
I would like to remember the mum from the years before that. The mum who taught me to play piano, bought me the flute I’m still trying to master, took me to ballet and tap lessons for years, despite being hopeless at it. The mum who picked me up from Norfolk on a Friday afternoon and drove me back to Sussex on a Sunday every month for 4 years. The mum who encouraged me to take on singing lessons and to develop my love for drama and the arts.
Mum has always been very generous to people, anyone. I mean anyone. I’ve grown up with a variety of house guests, from children from impoverished inner city estates spending summer holidays with us in Norfolk, foreign students studying or working for a few months in Sussex or the homeless sailor who lived in a tent at the bottom of the garden for a few months. She opened her house to anyone and everyone and treated us all with the same respect, she could name people with letters after their name as friends as well as people with nothing to their name at all.
Inevitably I have some stories about these encounters. Hitch hikers! In the 70s and 80s people hitched all over the place. You rarely see them now. After finishing my evening shift at the little chef in Hurst Green once, mum decided to drive back to the hitch hiker at Coopers Corner to give him a lift, to wherever he needed to go. Bear in mind it must have been midnight and he had been standing on the side of the road for several hours. She was gone for hours, in the end I woke dad up and we called the police. They stopped her in the car at the end of our road (having just taken off her seat belt!) and explained that we were worried and that it was a silly thing to do. She had driven him to the Dartford tunnel! That was bonkers and beyond the call of duty!
I used to get quite excited at the prospect of hitch hikers when I was little, we picked up an artist with a suitcase full of stuffed animals, I didn’t like that much, and most memorably the one legged man with an axe on the A21 needing to get to Robertsbridge!
I remember mum as an independently minded and intelligent lady, elegant too. She would never leave the house without her lipstick on, a clean hankie in her bag and the beautiful scent of a guarlain perfume. She always took pride in her appearance and wore the most colourful dresses, almost entirely purchased from charity shops. She knew all the shops with the best quality dresses! She was pleased when I moved to Beckenham, we have some rather excellent ones with generous and wealthy donors!! Whenever she went anywhere she would take a little wander down the high street to check out the charity shops, it was almost a ritual!
I have been reminded recently of some of the eccentricities that mum displayed as I grew up. As a teenager I rarely appreciated them, in fact I was enormously embarrassed, but now I find myself not only fondly remembering them but copying them! The crème egg act, which she did in the lead up to easter for years and years. It would start as soon as she entered the room after having been to the shops, hands behind her back, a fertive look on her face and then the clucking would begin, after what seemed like an eternity of giggling clucking noises she would produce a cadburys crème egg from behind her back, with a surprised look on her face. OOhh look what mummys laid… and finally serving me up the crème egg which I would peel open and devour much quicker than the lead up lasted. By the time I was 16 she would still do it, I would have my hand out demanding, just give me the egg mum, just give me the egg!
As we head to Christmas I remember one tradition that we lost a while ago. Christmas day after lunch, around the piano for carols, we were slightly sozzled from sherry and wine and all pretty hopeless at keeping in time or tune. Mum playing piano a la les dawson, the broken accordian whining it’s way through Good king Wenceslas and Silent Night, sounding much the same whatever the carol. The French horn played by dad finished me off, I would be unable to continue, crying with laughter at the ridiculous effort we made, it was really only mum with her wonderful singing voice which kept the whole thing going. I loved the irreverent nature of it, utterly bonkers but perfectly Christmassy.
As a mum to 2 wonderful girls myself, I absolutely understand her constant reminders to wrap up warm, to always carry a hankie, not to go out with wet hair, to not walk too close to the kerb, never to talk to strangers, always do up your coat, wear a vest, always go to the loo before you leave the house, etc etc…. I am now passing on these reminders to my girls and I am nurturing similar things in them that she did with me.
In my girls I hope I can continue the same spirit mum had, of independence, charity, an excellent sense of humour, strong principles and motivation.
Words from Susan
In the early days of my relationship with Colin we spent many weekend afternoons relaxing in the beautiful garden at Max Gate, in the shade of the willow tree, having family afternoon teas together with Flora. In the house, Flora always had fresh flower arrangements. She also had the biggest cats I have ever seen!
Flora was always busy volunteering for church duties and local charities, and working in the community shop at Hurst Green. She also did personal care work when she was in her seventies. She was always there to help a neighbour or friend by giving them a lift in her car, or visiting them.
At the birth of our first child, Flora spoke to all the other new mums on the ward, and congratulated them on their good news. When we moved house down to Sussex, Flora was there to help in every way. She even insisted on paying for our first food bill.
Flora also had a great fun side, she liked a party, and had lots of hats, dresses and outfits for every social occasion. She didn’t just read a book, but made up elaborate stories when she was baby-sitting for Alice and Isobel, with the next instalment for the girls to look forward to next time.
On the way to a recent birthday celebration for Alice, we were rushing to get there, because it was raining. Flora, however, stopped to speak to a nearby person on the street who was homeless. When we got to the restaurant she asked immediately for a coffee, and then took it back to this person. Although she was there to enjoy her grand-daughter’s birthday, she was still distracted and unable to enjoy herself fully, until she went back to see the homeless person again. Having another chat with him, and giving him a sandwich from a local supermarket. What a good role-model she was.
We will all miss Flora’s enthusiasm for living life to the full, and her generosity of spirit.
Notes from Colin
My mother was born in November 1932 in Maidstone – her mother ran an infant school and her father was the headmaster of a small private school, The Elms on London Road, where relatives stayed or called in regularly. He was a congenial, rotund gentleman who would have enchanted Charles Dickens, she was a doting young mother whose daughter was the apple of her eye. Mum lived, learned and was loved in an English idyll of Mr Chips and Upstairs Downstairs, with friendly housemaids, prankster school boys, eccentric teachers and characterful cats occupying her days. Even though the war raged overhead, a very British resolve kept the school open throughout. Here is one recollection she wrote later in life:
I share with many others the memories of the skies, high, wide and blue, crisscrossed with vapour trails, the sounds and sights of dogfights overhead. At the end of the day in a large garden, I would sit among the branches of two cedar trees and watch until the Spitfire and Hurricane became dots on the horizon and disappeared. How I loved those aeroplanes and admired the men who flew them. How pleased I was to know that another had come home safely. They were my great heroes and my bedroom was festooned with Spitfire and Hurricane pictures.
One summer afternoon a worried parent telephoned to enquire if her son had left for home. I rushed down to the bicycle sheds to check and saw an aeroplane coming in low. Assuming it to be one of ours I waved greetings as we always did. Imagine my anger and surprise when I realised that it was an enemy plane. It dived lower and I was aware of a sound - like whipping - in the grass beside the path and the rattle of machine-gun fire. I was being strafed. Moments later a sweeping Spitfire powered overhead. I felt it was defending me personally.
From this close brush with death I was able to make a healthy profit by collecting and selling cartridges to eager purchasers amongst my father’s pupils.
She became an ardent fan of that most British of games: cricket, in her teens taking every chance to watch Kent play.
This bucolic world came to an end when her mother died in 1950, when my mother was 17. She was forced to leave home when her father married his third wife, with whom mum had a difficult relationship.
A steady influence was to come along in the form of RAF’s finest recruit John Jenner, known as Ian to everyone. They were married in 1958 and the next year, my brother David was born. Service life offered mum a sense of stability, but being abroad did not suit her and by the time I was 5 mum was looking to stay based in England. She recalls how the year they drove back from a long posting in Germany, they stopped by her beloved Elms and watched it being pulled down.
By the time her baby girl, Elizabeth, was born in Norfolk, mum had categorically set out her political stall and was a stalwart campaigner against the European Union and what she saw as the erosion of British tradition and independence. At the same time, she resurrected her academic prowess through teaching adult literacy, including teaching one old and illiterate Norfolk soul who went on to write his life story.
When her father died in 1985, we took over living at Max Gate, Hurst Green taking mum closer to her beloved Kent. These were her happiest years for a long while but years of overseas travel had made it hard for my father and mother to live together and dad decided to move to Australia. While on a trip over there he met Diane, and, after a short time, asked my mother for a divorce. While it was against my mother’s natural inclination she agreed to an amical split. Here is what my step mother, Diane, has to say:
Before I came to England in 1999 Flora wrote me a very special and kind letter, which was the beginning of an unusual but happy, friendly and understanding relationship between us. It was because of Flora’s understanding and acceptance of our situation that I always felt so happy and comfortable at family occasions.
When I saw Flora in June I was so sad to see how much her illness has progressed but I was impressed with her attitude and strength of character.
Flora I will really miss those happy and amusing visits.
Farewell and rest in peace.
A catastrophic blow was visited upon my mother again in 2010 when my brother David, mum’s first born, died. She never recovered from this trauma and there followed years of depression and anxiety, relieved only by prayer, companionship, and by keeping busy. Her long-time companion Bill Peters, was able to be a constant comfort to her and gave her much needed support and friendship through these very hard times for her.
Failing health made it impossible keep Max Gate and her heavy heart at having to sell was only lightened by the warm welcome she got in her new home here in Bexhill.
The cancer that finally took her life was borne with stoic resolve, finally being laid low by an all-consuming fatigue that prevented her visiting friends, church events and doing her charity work. She was happiest when listening to the Daily Service on what she still called “the wireless” and watching Dad’s Army at every opportunity.
Mum had spent her last months getting her affairs in order, so it would be simpler for us that are left, even taking the opportunity to write some words to be read out today. This is what she wanted to say:
I’ve often wondered why more people don’t leave little notes on these occasions. It seems such a satisfying thing to do.
First of all thank you all for coming here, I can only trust it is a fine day.
I would not wish that any morbid element is felt. Sadness yes, briefly, but please not morbid. After all death, like taxes, is the only certainty in life and really the most natural thing in life. It’s the only way to make room for new arrivals at the wicket of life’s innings.
But more important life is stronger than death, light stronger than darkness and love stronger than hate. Physical life is a segment of the circle of eternity and nature hate waste. She is forever renewing and recreating life. Somehow, somewhere, life continues.
I’m so grateful for what I’ve been blessed with: dear friends, good parents (although the loss of my mother when she was young often left a gap in my life), health and joy in being English.
It defies the rational basis of life that those of us fortunate enough to have matured and live long enough to have delighted in such glories, should have been unfairly privileged. We know so little but we know that basically life is a gift to enjoy and it belongs to all. So let us look to the other people coming into life and leave the rest in the hands of our Christian God, who were urged to trust. Special Love to David, Colin and Elizabeth and the grandchildren, Alice, Isobel, Olivia and Jessica. Thank you all - I’ve loved so many people can’t believe that stops.
God bless, God bless.
Flora
It is tempting to endeavour a summary of a life on occasions like this, and by any measure mum’s was a life well spent in pursuing what she saw as true, honourable and correct. I couldn’t think of many finer ways of proving that that this church here today honouring a fine lady, a true friend, a good mother and a wonderful grandmother. God Bless you mum. |
Our Family History