Remembered with Affection

Photo: Masaaki-Komori, Unsplash

Patricia Blake née Pelly

(HH 1945) 9 April 1928 – 24 July 2021

Little is known about Patricia’s time at St Swithun’s (or Carol Patricia Benita as she was formerly).

However, her daughter Annabel was able to tell us about how Patricia once received a tap on her shoulder from the person in the seat behind, whilst watching a film at the cinema in Winchester. Unfortunately, it turned out to be one of her teachers and Patricia was expelled from school! On returning home, she was put to work in the dairy on the estate at her home, Preshaw Manor. The farm men had gone to fight in the war and so Patricia milked the pedigree Jersey dairy herd there early every morning and then churned butter and cream for the main house and farm cottages. She loved doing it and was happier on the farm than she had been at school! Patricia met her future husband Thomas Michael Blake when she was 16 and he was some 16 years her senior. After a period of time spent in London at ‘The Monkey Club’ (an exclusive finishing school for young ladies in London), she married Michael in 1947 and they went on to have 3 daughters, 7 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren. After the war and when Michael had left the Navy, they bought a farm in West Meon to run.

Patricia successfully bred and showed Welsh Mountain ponies, winning championships at important shows. She was highly esteemed for her Lippens Stud Welsh Mountain section A ponies. Patricia is pictured below receiving a bouquet of flowers from headmistress Jane Gandee at Old Girls’ Day in 2019 in honour of her being the most senior St Swithun’s Old Girl at the time. ■

Pamela Edith Leahy née Hallifax

(CG 1940) 30 June 1923 – 27 August 2020

The OGA is sad to announce the death of Pamela Leahy who attended St Swithun’s during the 1930s. She leaves behind her four children, 12 grandchildren and numerous great grandchildren.

Betty Seaman née Hawkes

(ED 1950) 2 October 1934 – 10 May 2021

Betty spent five very happy years at St Swithun’s School where she was part of the first XI cricket team and was the opening batswoman.

The school held an annual cricket match where the girls played against their fathers. Betty’s father, who had never played cricket before and not wanting to let Betty down, invested in full cricket whites (including pads) so he could play on the fathers’ team. Betty was thrilled to be able to play cricket with her father and apparently he was a natural, perhaps that’s where Betty got her keen eye for the ball from. Three of the fathers were members of the MCC but were no match for Betty’s team who won the match although the final score remains a mystery. ■

Gwynneth Whiffin née Phillips

(V 1938) 21 April 1923 – 17 November 2020

Words kindly provided by Andrew Whiffin, Gwynneth’s son.

There was no missing Mum’s intelligence. As well as making sure that we could all read and write before we went to school, she was a voracious reader herself, loved quoting at length from the swathes of poetry she had learnt in her childhood and was a lifelong devotee of The Times crossword.

She was born in 1923 in Bulawayo (then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe), the only child of Lydia and William Phillips who worked for the railway service. This allowed her regular railway trips to Victoria Falls, Durban and Cape Town in South Africa, where she stayed with her aunt, and Union Castle sea voyages to Britain to visit her family in Cornwall and Wales.

When she was 13, she won a Beit Scholarship for a place at St Swithun’s School and, while she was there, her parents both died quite suddenly leaving her an orphan in the care of a guardian. She never left the country again. Despite this, she did well at school, and was heading for London University when WWII broke out. As a scientist, she was instead drafted into munitions production near Bedford where she met our father, Richard Whiffin (known as John). He was a pharmacist and five years older than her. When the war was over and after she had qualified and worked as a primary school teacher, they married and started a family. This became her central focus for the next 70 years.

After some years of moving about, they finally settled in 1955 in Streatham, South London and that’s where their youngest son was born and where they stayed for 20 years. They didn’t have a lot of money - which was one reason why after ten years or so Dad took on a chemist’s shop of his own in Brixton. They managed to put five of us through an excellent school, as well as affording an annual summer holiday by the sea.

Mum’s contribution to this achievement was considerable. Apart from supervising our school work, she was constantly knitting for us (a remarkable skill from which even her great-grandchildren have also benefitted), cooked wonderful meals and grew most of the food on a huge allotment behind the house. She must have been a self-taught gardener, but the range of what we ate amazes me in retrospect: blackberries, apples, plums, pears, potatoes, runner beans, broad beans, sweetcorn, carrots, peas, parsnips, tomatoes, pumpkins, spinach, lettuce - and all in enough quantity to keep us going pretty well throughout the year. The baking made up another dimension, with a steady stream of cheese scones, cakes and themed birthday cakes to keep us filled up. And she had a lifelong devotion to fuchsias and sweet peas, as any visitor to Green Gables could see.

When Dad contracted Parkinson’s disease, they decided to move out of London in the interests of his health and I suspect it was Mum’s lifelong love of the sea (and her canny awareness that it might also be an attraction to encourage visits from grandchildren) that made Minehead their choice in 1976. After taking over the flat above the shop in the Parade where Dad had got a job, they pooled resources with their best friend, Monica Yates (from ten doors down the road in Streatham) whose elderly parents had just died, and together they bought Green Gables. In 1981, Dad finally succumbed to the Parkinson’s, after which Mum and Monica lived there alone.

Mum had always been willing to do things for others, such as looking after children for neighbours or taking meals to an old lady who lived a few doors away. Now she and Monica both found work in the Promenade Hotel on the seafront, and because it catered particularly for disabled visitors, they started up a Disabled Club for Minehead residents, which they ran largely alone for

nearly 20 years. A little later, when she had retired from the hotel, Mum also began volunteering with Monica, delivering meals on wheels for the WRVS and on her own as a reading support assistant (always known as Granny) at St Michael’s First School. There, she nurtured generations of young readers, some of whom had brought their own children to her by the time she had to give it up. Her enduring legacy will be in her lifetime’s devotion to the love and nurture of children. She shared Jesus’ sense of their centrality to the nature of humanity and she loved them unquestioningly. She has left behind five sons, ten grandchildren and ten greatgrandchildren who all owe their lives to her. God bless her. ■

Nancy Thorburn née Strangways-Jones

(V 1936) 9 February 1922 – 21 July 2020

Words kindly provided by Andrew Thorburn, Nancy’s son

Mother never talked much about her time at St Swithun’s but we do remember her excitement one day when we went onto the school website and she recognised the buildings. Sadly she became too ill to pay one last visit to the school but we thought you might like to know a little bit about her life after she left...

She returned to Buenos Aires where she had been brought up to join her two sisters and parents and applied to join the British Embassy which involved sitting some sort of exam. We have in her papers the letter confirming that she had passed the exam and was employed as a secretary in the British Embassy. Well into her seventies she could still bash out letters on the ancient manual typewriter that she kept with her over the years.

When the war broke out in 1939, she moved to the Embassy coding department where she sent intelligence back to the UK from a network of data gatherers and spies around the region. Argentina was a strategic location for both the Germans and the Allies and one of the dashing ‘spies’ was our father, David Thorburn who represented his Scottish family business selling cloth lengths to local tailors.

After the war ended, Argentina elected Juan Peron as President who brought with him his second wife the famous or infamous ‘Evita’. Popular with the people, he was pretty heavy handed with business and in 1951 Nancy and David returned to the Scottish borders, near Peebles, with their first son in tow. Three more children followed over the years. Post-war Scotland was pretty bleak and not just weather-wise. Many supplies were still being rationed and we remember clearly Nancy’s delight when sugar rationing was finally lifted in 1955 and she could tear up her card.

In the years to follow, Nancy got involved in a range of different ventures, usually together with her great friend Elizabeth Rivers-Bulkeley who lived nearby and who was one of the first women to join the London Stock Exchange as a full member in 1973. Nancy bred miniature poodles and then moved onto pigs which she used to cart off to market in a trailer attached to her baby Austen (the mini of its day). David died young and Nancy became a widow aged only 52. With her children scattered around the globe the big house where the family was brought up was sold and she moved to a nearby cottage. Understanding she needed to do something to keep her busy, in 1973 she ran for the post of local district councillor in the Tweedale district. She won the first election and then held her seat unopposed until she retired in 1993. Shortly after she was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Peeblesshire while also serving as board member of the National Art Fund Collection, a charity which raised money to keep famous works of art in the UK. All this time she was operating as a onewoman tourism promotion agency for the Scottish Borders. One day she met some Americans staying with a friend and was asked to show them some interesting places. She took them round some of the stately homes nearby and her friends were so pleased she carried on doing it. Visiting some of the great houses belonging to the Scottish aristocracy she created a deck of 80 slides on ‘great houses of the Scottish borders’. With her American friend as her ‘agent’ she and her slide carousel travelled all over the US speaking to garden clubs about these great houses. This was a lifelong passion that enabled her to travel and meet many interesting people which she enjoyed immensely.

She was a classy lady, impeccably mannered and resilient. She dealt with life on her own terms… partly a tribute no doubt to the time she spent at St Swithun’s. ■

Elizabeth Munro née Neal

(CG 1964) 1 July 1946 – 24 January 2021

Elizabeth was born and brought up in Winchester, one of five girls who all attended St Swithun’s School.

She started at Medecroft in 1951 as a day girl and was in Caer Gwent for most of her time at the senior school. She enjoyed her time at St Swithun’s and represented the school at lacrosse.

After she left school, Elizabeth worked in the travel business starting at Winchester Travel Service and then managing various travel agencies in Alton, Farnham, Wimbledon and Canford Cliffs. She married in February 1976 and lived in Farnham for most of her working life. After a brief time in Bere Regis, Dorset, she and her husband Jim, retired to the village of Aneres in the South West of France in the early 2000s. Jim died in May 2020.

Elizabeth was a keen tennis and squash player and for many years played for the ladies squash team at Winchester Tennis Club as well as participating in many of the social tennis tournaments at the club. Unfortunately as the years went on, trouble with her knees meant less tennis and squash but latterly, she enjoyed walking holidays, many of which she did with her husband, Jim, and sister, Linda. Whilst living in France, Elizabeth enjoyed cycling and walking in the local area. She particularly enjoyed travelling in Africa and in 2016 was fortunate enough to visit the gorillas in Uganda, which was a wonderful experience.

She will be much missed by all her family and friends. ■

(Jennifer) Jane Orde née Longworth

(HH 1956) 12 June 1938 – 10 October 2021

Written by Denis, Jane’s husband

Jane, adored wife of Denis, died 10 October 2021 aged 83. Born in north Lancashire she was a boarder at St Swithun’s, from 1947 until 1957, which she loved. She was the prettiest girl in the school according to a contemporary, and a talented historian who could have gone to Cambridge said her headmistress. Instead she chose to follow in her father’s footsteps (he was a doctor) and read medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital, London for a year before transferring to Edinburgh University to read social studies. Unbeknown to her whilst at school her future husband, a Northumbrian, was serving nearby as a Second Lieutenant in the army on Salisbury Plain and then as a student at Oxford University. In 1958 they met in London where he practised as a barrister and were inseparable for the next 63 happy years. Married in 1961 they had 2 daughters, Georgina, a barrister, and Philippa, who were devoted to her and always valued her encouragement and sound advice. Jane was a constant support to her husband during his 23 years at the Bar and 22 years as a Judge and Master of the Bench at the Inner Temple, and a great help with the authorship of his books.

A 400-mile journey dissuaded her from sending the girls to St Swithun’s, and so they were educated at Westfield School and then were boarders at St.Leonard’s School at St Andrews and Fettes College in Edinburgh.

However, Jane diligently maintained contact with her school contemporaries throughout her life and for many years she organised an annual reunion lunch in London at times when she and her husband were resident there for cases and sittings.

Jane lies buried at St Giles‘ churchyard, Chollerton, loved and missed by so many, especially by a family grateful for the many years of happiness she provided. ■

Sister Barbara Anne June Kirby

Former staff 24 June 1934 – 8 January 2021

Written by Sister Avis Mary SLG

To her students, Miss Kirby, to family, Juno or to friends, Barbara, we in the Anglican Community of the Sisters of the Love of God in Oxford knew her as Sister Barbara June. She was born to Scottish parents in India in the foothills of the beautiful Himalayas; her father was a tea planter in Darjeeling. After World War II she came to England, joining other family members in Southampton. There she received a sound grammar school education, following which she read for an arts degree at the University of St Andrews and entered our Community immediately afterwards in 1955. That was hard for her family; the pain of separation surfaced in her later years. She had to promise her father that if anything happened to him, she’d leave to care for her mother and young sister, Priscilla. He did die young, two years later, and she returned to Southampton. Her fortitude in providing for her family is impressive. Miss Kirby now had unexpectedly to find paid work and began teaching: supply at first, then in Swanage. In 1959 she went to St Mary’s School, Gerrards Cross, but two years later her mother died and she returned once more to Southampton to care for her sister. In 1962 she began her teaching at St Swithun’s, principally English, and stayed until 1966. She then entered the Community again, her sister being married now with a young child. I first met Sr Barbara June in 1977 and I entered the Community the following year. Tragically, Pris was killed in a road accident in 1978, yet mercifully the memory seemed not to plague Sister’s final years, given the age gap. Mostly she missed her parents and a first cousin who grew up with her in India. In the last years of her life, she faced multiple losses courageously: health, sight, hearing, mobility and, as dementia claimed her, speech and ability to make sense of the world and of abstracts. Her last two and a half years were in residential care, the final year being at the height of the pandemic, with the pain of severely restricted visiting; she didn’t catch COVID, however, and thankfully it was possible for me to be with her when she died.

Sr Barbara June perhaps had three ‘vocations’: her first, and last, as a nun; a second as a teacher; and her third, from 1997, as an ordained priest exercising pastoral ministry. A St Swithun’s teaching friend told me she was an inspirational teacher. I can recognise this from the classes she gave to her Novices when Novice Guardian and from her individual teaching and example. She loved babies and children of all ages. Even at the care home, she longed to teach or instruct or just be of service to others, saying, “I just long to have a class,” or regretting she had not been able to help anyone all day! She loved language, literature and all things German and was also a spiritual teacher. She had a strong visual sense, loving pictures and outward symbols speaking of deeper realities, including religious ones. She was a wonderful companion on holidays and days out. At the home, she often longed to go back to India, to Scotland, or just the convent garden to see the poppies growing there. She was a remarkable character, who leaves a gap which will not be filled. ■

Phyllis Churton Lee née Taylor

(HH 1956) 9 December 1938 – 27 July 2021

Written by Christopher, Phyllis’ son

Phyllis Churton Lee (nee Taylor) died peacefully in a nursing home on 27 July 2021, while recuperating from a hospital stay. Despite declining health, she spent most of the previous year in her own home with her daughter, though separate from the rest of her family due to COVID-19. She faced this challenging time with her typical determination, humour and stoicism.

Phyllis was born on 9 December 1929 to Arthur and Winifred Taylor in Calcutta, India, where her father worked as a solicitor, returning to the UK with her sister to go to boarding school in 1936. With the outbreak of WWII, the sisters undertook the perilous journey by sea with their maternal grandparents to join their mother in Australia. There, they attended the New England Girls’ School in New South Wales, while spending holidays with their mother and grandparents in a series of hotels. During these years, she only rarely saw her father when he was able to make occasional visits from India.

Returning to the UK in 1946, she was enrolled at St Swithun’s for the autumn term. During her time at the school, she became, amongst other things, the President of the Mission Society, as well as being a school prefect and she achieved entrance to Bedford College (now part of Royal Holloway, University of London) to read Social Studies.

Having qualified as a Hospital Almoner in 1949, supporting the social welfare of patients recovering from long-term illness, she worked in Birmingham and University College Hospital, London, before taking a position at Peppard Chest Hospital, a TB sanatorium, in 1959. There she met ‘Lee’ (Dr Gang Tong Lee), a Chinese doctor who charmed her with his record collection. Much to the shock of their respective families they traded in both their Morris Minors and brought a VW camper van before their wedding on 19 July 1961. Despite coming from very different backgrounds their shared values and outlook on life resulted in a very loving and successful marriage, which endured until Lee’s death aged 98 in 2018.

Following her husband’s move into General Practice, and a move to Swindon in 1966, Phyllis started the unsung job of a GPs wife, whilst bringing up a young family. Despite her focus on family activities she continued to have a keen interest in the wider world and was always concerned about what people where inflicting on each other and the natural world. Even with debilitating health issues she was very active in the community and involved in the local parish and charities.

For the last nine years of her life she lived in Birmingham with her husband, very close by to her daughter and frequently visited by her son, daughter in law, grandson and granddaughter.

She will be particularly remembered for her strong sense of social justice and the warmth and interest she had for the people who came into her life. ■

Whole school photo (including boys) with former headmistress, Miss Mowbray. Dated 1906

Alresford Road, Winchester, Hampshire, SO21 1HA. Tel: 01962 835782 Fax: 01962 835779 office@stswithuns.com www.stswithuns.com St Swithun’s School (Winchester) Company Registered in England and Wales Charity Reg. No. 307335 Company Reg. No. 110692