Tag Archives: joan

Farewell to Joan Beales

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Peter and Joan’s wedding

The remnants of summer hung on for Joan Beales’ funeral at Attleborough on Friday. When the sun was out it was pleasant, but dark clouds brought a bit of a chill, which penetrated the church and brought a shiver to the cemetery. We arrived early, which was just as well because the car park was already full and we were lucky to find a slot where someone was just leaving.

So we were in the church over half an hour early, sitting at the back of the central section, in front of Rosie and Billy Wright. It then got rather confusing, because Angela arrived and said that Peter wanted us down the front. Because there wasn’t a huge amount of space there, and we didn’t want the immediate family to run out of seats, Angela and Dot sat at the front together, with me sitting further back next to Rodney, and Vicki elsewhere. Not ideal, especially as the funeral directors produced an extra row of seats which went unused.

It was a lovely service, though, with a really nice and thorough eulogy from Margaret White, a friend of Joan’s from her acting group. There were also recordings of Joan singing and then Laura singing (Fields of Gold). The burial was at the cemetery, across the car park, and we then went to a reception at Peter Beales Roses. The rain held off, and we enjoyed food, punch and conversation with other members of the family, including Donna, who had made the trip from Wolverhampton that morning and was returning to see a show in Birmingham in the evening. That’s what I call a full day.

At the reception I kept expecting Joan to come round every corner. She was a lovely woman, and will be much missed. Afterwards Dot and I called in on Auntie Ethel, who was understandably upset that she hadn’t been able to go. But it would have been too difficult. We were relieved after a while by Angela and Rodney, who had been to Waitrose.

Yesterday, while Dot was in the city, talking to Anne and buying a new suitcase, I finished sorting out my old chess games (up to a point) and wrote an article for En Passant, featuring the game I won for the school chess championship in 1962!  After a bad night with a dodgy stomach, I delivered my sermon this morning and then – with help from Howard and Phil – cleared up some paint that had been thrown over the paving stones outside the hall. As autumn finally arrived in early afternoon, with a chill heavy rain, Dot and I  decided to stay in the house for the rest of the day, spending part of it rewriting stuff on Dot’s P4C page, using html.

Down to the Plantation Garden

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Jessie and Dot in the Plantation Garden (iPhone picture)

At last the furniture has returned, and after a few minor alarms, it turned out to be all complete, including brackets and screws. The bookshelves proved a bit tricky to get right, but everything else was pretty straightforward, if a bit tiring. So now we have a spanking brand new room, and the roof is repaired. And so far we haven’t paid a penny. This will change shortly, 0f course.

After getting everything in order, I relaxed by playing a tournament chess game against Norman Thomas, and won fairly easily. My game score totally vanished on its way home, and I had to reconstruct the game while I could remember it. I even returned to the club in case I’d left it there, but no…

On Tuesday we restarted the Tuesday Group, which went pretty well, with much catch-up talk. Then yesterday Jessie came up by bus for lunch, and we all visited the impressive sunken Plantation Garden off Earlham Road in the afternoon. There was an autumnal wind, but quite a bit of sun, so it was a pleasant excursion, especially as I had never actually seen the garden. Bit of a challenge parking in the area, but still… After tea I drove Dot and Jessie to North Walsham, and Dot stayed with her while I attended a meeting of the Paston Trustees, where I took the minutes. Lucy seemed a bit better, but Jo is very stressed. Rob was calm as ever.

Today I have spent much of my time writing a sermon for Sunday. It came rather more easily than the last one; I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not. Tomorrow it’s Joan’s funeral, and I’ve just heard that my “uncle” Richard – the widower of my aunt Vi in South Africa – has also died. I didn’t know him very well, and he was in his nineties, but it’s always sad when someone in your family goes.

Central heating not at its best

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Feeling very cold for some reason: maybe I’m going downhill. The house is reasonably warm, despite malfunctioning central heating: last night I had to kick the pump because it wouldn’t go off, and this morning I had to kick it again because it wouldn’t come on. Think I’d better get it fixed.

Central heating, ironically, was the reason we didn’t visit the Coomes over the weekend: their boiler packed up, which meant they had no heating and no hot water. So we stayed at home and instead we all gathered at the Three Horseshoes, Spellbrook, just outside Bishop’s Stortford, yesterday and had a long Sunday lunch – long because it took them 2 hours 20 minutes to serve two courses. Happily that didn’t matter at all, because it gave us time to talk, and we all went round Phil and Jane’s afterwards for tea/coffee. David was also able to join us, so it was a happy gathering: nine of us. The repartee was, needless to say, dazzling.

On Thursday Dot had recovered enough from her virus-related vertigo to travel to Baldock and stay at Joan’s – it took her three hours because an accident blocked the road at Elveden. The following day she did an inspection at Duxford while I caught up with much work. Granted an extra day on Saturday, as it were, I did the church accounts.

Football with a French accent

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children
An enthusiastic Amy tries to put a spring in Oliver's steps

At last the weather has turned warmer. Walked three miles back from Joe’s at lunchtime after beating him 3-0 at chess (the first luckily on time, but the other two quite good games), and stepped into John Lewis’s to research TVs for Andrew, adding a diversion to Timberhill to buy Claxton Opera tickets. Very pleasant.  The weather was quite good at the weekend too, which we spent at Caddington to celebrate prematurely David’s 38th birthday – actually today. On the Saturday we were joined by Philip Coomes and family, and had a really good time, rather too much of it spent playing football in the garden, which meant I was exhausted in the evening and went to sleep through Dr Who.

Oliver is developing into a really good little footballer, and Lydia and Alistair aren’t bad either. Meanwhile Amy has developed a French accent, though only while talking to her dolls. The various French numbers feature strongly, but although I didn’t recognise any other words, they sounded as if they ought to be proper French words, even if they weren’t. Taught Oliver a bit of guitar after I managed to get it roughly in tune and Dot finished it off. Oliver is also learning cello, and Vicky came round in the evening to give him a lesson. Amy has a keyboard in her bedroom, so it’s just a question of time… On the Sunday we had lunch at the Harvester nearby: just right for a family, though Oliver was feeling rather poorly, with a cold suddenly developing. Had a decent steak.

On the way home we decided on the spur of the moment to call in to see Joan at Baldock. Against the odds, she was in and had a couple of friends with her. They insisted we stay, so we had a pleasant hour or so there. The female friend had been to Wall Hall College, so she and Dot had something in common, though they weren’t there at the same time. Joan has just had another granddaughter (Harriet’s) and is going up to Leeds to see her today.

Yesterday Dot had to go to Acle school in the morning, but she got back in time to come with me to the lunchtime Norfolk and Norwich Festival concert we’d booked for at the Assembly House. Good value at £7. Superb cellist Jessica Hayes paired with Polish accordionist Rafal Luc. An unlikely team, but I thought it worked well, though Dot was not as convinced. Both agreed that the accordion solo of Mendelssohn’s Organ Sonata No 6 was brilliant, sounding just like an organ: tremendous force and amazing dexterity and feeling. Called in at John Lewis afterwards for tea and looking for an iPod dock, but couldn’t find what we wanted: similarly failed later at the Apple Store.

We’ve been fortunate with our Festival choices: on Friday we went to St Andrew’s Hall for the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, which was absolutely brilliant, especially during the opening Borodin. The final Shostakovich I found less memorable, though it was technically well-nigh perfect. Violinist Chloe Hanslip was great (except in actual stature) for her performance of Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No 1, which I thought was brilliant. At the end the orchestra did a couple or encores featuring their livewire redhead drummer Alla Mamyko. The percussionists were fascinating throughout.

8 February 2008

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Dot and our friend Joan pictured during a walk down the Yare Valley from Cringleford to the University Broad yesterday. We returned on the other bank, through some woods and up on to Colney Lane, which has been closed to through traffic – making a rather exclusive and semi-private little community. Can’t imagine how that happened.

Joan, who taught with Dot at Muswell Hill around 1970, stayed overnight on Wednesday, after arriving just after lunch, which Dot and I had enjoyed with her aunt Jessie at Caffe Italia. Jessie was in the city to visit her husband, who was taken into hospital on Monday when his illness worsened suddenly. But he is doing remarkably well there.

Had a cup of tea with Jackie Willis on Tuesday in the massive Sainsburys store at Longwater – first time I’ve been in there. She has set up a company, Care Motoring, to teach driving in a more thorough way, hopefully improving road safety. Many of her clients are people who have already passed the test. We met some time ago when I was writing about road safety in the Eastern Daily Press.

Incidentally, the EDP has finally got round to mentioning that my page has ended after 11 years. They’ve put my farewell page on their website, and it contains a reference to my own website, though they may not have noticed. Seems a bit more satisfying: I had been feeling rather in limbo. I’ve been putting the occasional commentary piece on my website and hope to carry on doing so.

Dot has done another church school inspection – at Salhouse – which turned out to be a bit fraught through no fault of the school’s. She was pretty tired when she got home (Shrove Tuesday); fortunately I was cooking for our normal Tuesday invitation meal, and we all managed to stay awake. Well, more or less. Must have been the pancakes, courtesy of friend Bridget.

Last night we had a very lengthy DCC meeting covering a multiplicity of church topics. Never really enjoy these: I’m not very good in meetings and find it hard to balance between not taking part at all and being more forceful than I mean to be. We have agreed to drop our Ditchingham weekend this year, which will disappoint a few people, including us. Everything is changing, it seems.

Lovely weather yesterday for our walk down the Yare: a bit chilly, but dry and a certain amount of sun. It seems much the same today. An article in the EDP today said we need to get used to not having winter – so stand by for several feet of snow over half-term. Still, a case of wine has just arrived from Cooden Cellars, so we will probably survive.

Have been having an exchange of e-mails with Jeanette Eglington, who is Beverley’s half-sister and my cousin once removed. She also lives in South Africa and has given me more information about the family, which I am about to insert in my tree on Genes Reunited. Great to be in touch with her and Bev, and to find out more about the African branch of the Lentons.

17 November 2007

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This is a not very high quality picture of grandparents and grandson taken not long ago with the Mac Photobooth facility.

The visit to Baldock went very well: beautiful sunny day, though cold, and we enjoyed catching up with Joan, who we hadn’t seen since 2005. Hurtled back to get to the DCC/LMT meeting at 7.30, only to find (after several phone calls) that we had to cancel it because so many people were not going. The following morning I sent out an e-mail to all members suggesting broadly that better organisation would be a good idea. Actually, this was quite restrained. As well as our coming home early, VM was intending to go despite all her problems with her Dad being seriously ill, and PK had made special arrangements because of a family commitment.

Yesterday I paid another visit to the chiropractor, but my back is very much better. Walked into the city and bought one or two things, then caught a bus home, because I could. For free. I’m hoping I will use the bus pass to increase my walking, not replace it, but sometimes it’s handy.

In the evening a very pleasant surprise: I had booked us into Under Milk Wood at Bergh Apton Village Hall, and the performance by the Oxfordshire Touring Company was absolutely superb, in the round and with really imaginative direction, including a blind actor and a deaf one. Stunning stuff. Tea and cake for £1 each in the interval, and I had a chat with KW, who used to live two doors away from us in Yelverton. Indeed, he still lives there. He was an overseer in the Eastern Daily Press composing room, and he mentioned various others who had since died: very sad. He and his wife are still going strong, presumably in their 80s.

Today Heather and Sam came round for lunch, and we had a really good time. Dot cooked a roast that was superb. Weather is still very, very cold.