Hilary Rogers
Heather Bell (Pittar)
AW’45
A’53
Obituary compiled from memories submitted by the Rogers family and the Dohnavur Fellowship. Born on Palm Sunday in 1927, Hilary grew up in Laleham, Surrey. From an early age she was an enthusiastic swimmer – first in the Thames, then as a surfer in Cornwall. Hilary started boarding at SSG during the war and recalls hiding under a table when the town was unexpectedly bombed. After the war she trained as a dentist in London, where she also attended Bible College and took part in the Billy Graham crusade. In 1955, Hilary was called to India’s Dohnavur Fellowship, where she became their first dentist. Whilst there, she worked in the Fellowship’s hospital, trained one of its sisters to assist her in the dental lab, and took her expertise to many local villages. As a result of her ministry in one village, Vadukatchimathil, a new church has been built and services held there every Sunday. During her time in India, Hilary learned to speak Tamil – a not insignificant achievement, given the complexity of the language. She also continued her swimming in the forest pools, took the girls from the Fellowship on hiking trips, and arranged their marriages. She formed close friendships with the Indian sisters, and a close attachment to the country that she came to regard as her own. Hilary continued working with the Fellowship until 1992, when she returned to the UK. During her retirement, Hilary was a regular participant in the Dohnavur prayer meetings and the Christian Dental Fellowship. She continued to be an enthusiastic traveller, on deputation work, on return trips to India, and latterly on cruises. Living on her own, Hilary was fiercely independent. She remained adamant that she would not go into sheltered accommodation, and enjoyed playing Bridge and Scrabble right up until her death on 20 July 2016. Hilary’s cousins from India, Cheryl and Linda, and her nieces from Sherborne, Ann and Patricia, followed her as pupils at SSG.
Obituary submitted by Heather’s close friend Janet MacPherson (Richardson) W’53. Heather was born in Kenya in 1935. Her Scottish father was a District Commissioner in Uganda, and the family returned to England in 1945 to stay with grandparents in Bristol before moving to Scotland. Heather joined SSG in 1947. She excelled at games, and played in all the House and School teams. Together with her partner, Sue Fisher (Bird) T’55, she won the Queen’s Schoolgirls Tennis Doubles in 1952 and 1953 and the Aberdare Cup in December 1951. Heather also twice reached the quarter-finals of Junior Wimbledon, and in the 1950s was ranked number one in Scotland for squash. None of this was particularly surprising, given her family’s athletic background: her mother captained England for hockey and her great aunt won two Olympic Gold medals for tennis in 1912. After leaving the school, Heather trained and qualified as an orthoptist in the Oxford/Reading area. She started working at London’s Royal Eye Hospital, where she met Graham – an Australian registrar studying for the Fellowship in Ophthalmology. They were a great couple with many mutual interests and in 1964 they married and returned to live in Sydney. Graham and Heather worked together for a while and had a daughter and two sons together. They spent many happy holidays travelling, camping in the Outback, studying birds and playing golf and tennis. When Graham and Heather’s youngest son, James, started losing his sight at an early age, Heather saw it as a 11