Launton Lines Issue 260 June 2022

Angie Hamill: 22 December 1931 - 4 March 2022

Angela Valerie Gavin was born 22 December 1931 in Ilford Essex. She was the third child to add to Tom and Angela’s existing family of Elsie and Stan. So Angie was an Essex Girl! The Gavins had an off-license business and if Tom had taken a bottle of Canadian Club whisky out of stock and laid it down for Angie it would probably have made around £600 on auction today.

The Gavin’s happy event was followed soon after by the birth of a daughter, Irene, to close friends and neighbours Bill and Daisy Robertson. Irene was to be almost a sister to Angie.

This world seems very distant from us today not just because of the advances in technology but also because the world was still suffering the effects of the Great Depression.

Of course, being born in the 1930s meant that your childhood was blighted by the Second World War. Angie tried to upstage the coming conflict by having her own skirmish with Scarlet Fever in summer 1939. This required her to leave home for the first time and isolate in the local fever hospital.

The young Angie showed great presence of mind when a doodle bug struck the house next door and incendiary material flew into the Gavin’s garden. Seeing her parents fully involved in dealing with the major problem Angie took a spade, scooped up the flaming material to remove it then pile soil on top to stop the blaze.

In due course Angie passed the 11 plus and went to Wanstead Grammar School where she met and befriended Joyce Pole. The trio of Angie, Irene and Joyce was now complete, and they remained lifelong friends.

After school Angie went to secretarial college, then worked in an advertising agency in Denmark Street in London. Famous as Tin Pan Alley because of the many music businesses there, this became the heart of Swinging London.

In time Angie married Brian Lovett and moved to Oldham where daughter Carole was born and then to Southampton where Terry was born then finally to Bridgend in South Wales.

The marriage was not a happy one, so Angie moved with her daughters to live with her newly retired parents near Eastbourne. Life here was very sociable with Angie’s extended family mixing with those of the other two amigos. This became the family hub with many gatherings over the years.

Angie now made a decision which was to change her life in a quite unexpected way: the first step was to train as a teacher.

Her first job after training was teaching domestic science at Tideway Comprehensive School in Newhaven. It was while there that she accompanied a party of exchange students on a visit to Roxbury High School in New Jersey where she met Ed.

After much transatlantic mail and some transatlantic travel Angie and Ed were married in August 1976 when Angie gained two sons and a daughter, Shaun, Tim and Kelly.

They settled in New Jersey where Ed continued teaching. Angie soon became a realtor not least because she didn’t fancy the 7.10 am start at school. They moved to a house overlooking Lake Musconetcong where they spent many happy years.

Angie had her first battle with cancer in November 1987 and she coped very well with the major surgery and chemotherapy which would eventually cure her. So well in fact that they travelled to the UK on the QE2. They were expecting to stay so travelled with 19 suitcases.

This trip was at the start of a temporary teacher exchange, but the desire was for a permanent arrangement. Ed found this as a middle school teacher job at the Department of Defence Dependents School in Croughton, just down the road from Launton.

Angie and Ed lived at first in Souldern then moved to Launton in 1992 and quickly became part of the community. Angie contributed to the great kneeler project in St Mary’s and was active alongside Ed in Launton Environmental Group.

Angie had a couple more brushes with cancer in 1995 and 2018, facing each bout with resolution and humour but the disease was not to be denied and returned with renewed vigour during 2021. It’s a reflection of Angie’s character that over her last few weeks, to our surprise, she would find time and effort to ring and thank people for a gift of flowers or a cake. She didn’t want to talk about her affliction; she did want to hear your news

We have said our final goodbyes to Angie, this is not to say that any of us will forget her and the impact she has had on our lives. We will remember not the formal Angela Valerie Hamill, but Angie as a wife, a mother, a cousin, a neighbour and ultimately a friend.

Bob Roberts