Eulogy for Mum with love from Julie ????????
Created by Julie one month agoEulogy
24 March 1956
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Miss Cynthia Holliss
I have pleasure in subscribing my name as a character witness in complete favour of this young lady.
I have known her since her early school days – she and my own daughter were companions.
Her family is long established in the locality and is much respected.
I should have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending her for any position, requiring uprightness of character, personality, responsibility, trust, reliability, good common sense and application to duties.
C Britton, Major retired
Intelligence Corps
One of several glowing references in preparation for Mum’s time spent in Australia with best friend Margaret as ten pound poms at the age of twenty five.
Cynthia May Jex Howells, Mum, was born in 1932 in The Dolphin Inn, Littlehampton to Dorothy and Victor Holliss, a younger sister to Thelma. They moved to Mannings Heath to live at The Nook with their mother and grandfather when Mum was very young. The only memory she had of her father growing up was a once yearly visit on Christmas Day but despite this, and living through the Second World War, it sounded like an idyllic childhood surrounded by love, laughter and pets, many of them.
Mum’s mum was known to take in stray animals especially during the war years and there were stories of rescued kittens that needed to be fed every few hours, cats who would nibble the bacon brought home in the shopping, rabbits everywhere, sixty of them at one point. Bantams to provide eggs, geese who knocked at the front door with their beaks, a Daschund called Plover, Daisy the goat and Jackie the jackdaw who had a very keen eye for anything sparkly.
Mum attended Horsham High School for Girls in The Causeway followed by a course in Domestic Science at Brighton College where she met dad; a dashing life guard on Brighton beach. Life took them in different directions, mum worked at Beedingwood, a rehabilitation centre for injured soldiers, where she became head cook. One Valentine’s Day out of the blue, hoping it was dad, her prayers were answered when she received a letter asking to meet under the clock in Brighton. Reunited, but having already committed to two years in Australia, they agreed to wait to get married upon her return with dad using the time to complete his National Service.
Mum inherited her mother’s creativity; along with cooking she was proficient at knitting and dress making and made us many colourful outfits including dad’s bow ties, my crimplene trouser-suits and David’s floral shirts. A life dedicated to her family it wasn’t until David and I had left home that she discovered her passion for all things ceramic after enrolling on a local pottery course. The first couple of pots she made were absolutely terrible but she told me that at the time she thought they were the most wonderful things she had ever seen. For years every Monday was spent going to Langley College and she also enjoyed being a member of West Forest Potters, a group that met for trips, talks and group exhibitions.
As the years rolled on summer months were punctuated by regular visits to potters studios and ceramic fairs. Mum had trouble containing her excitement at such events and it was impossible to leave without a purchase, or two, or more . . . thinking about one occasion in particular when we had to be helped up the hill at Hatfield House such was our haul.
Trips to Wisley, Sussex Prairies and a regular at Architectural Plants, Mum also loved nothing more than an outing to a beautiful garden or a garden centre preferably with coffee and cake.
We had a lovely garden in Crowthorne where we grew up and it was no exaggeration to say that passers by would stop to admire the roses, perennials and dad’s fuchsias that packed the front terraces. Mum went on to create two of her own gardens firstly in Wokingham and then in Milnwood Road, Horsham.
We loved having her back in Horsham and when an opportunity arose to move back to Mannings Heath it felt like things had come full circle and she was back where she belonged. The last garden was her favourite and she loved nothing more than pottering around in it, making sculptures and pots for it and last summer relaxing in her new summerhouse.
As a family we’ve had a difficult year, losing both my sister-in-law’s parents swiftly followed by our much loved friend Colin and not long after that his beloved wife Angela, and most recently my mother-in-law Shanta Ben fondly known as Ba.
We might not look like your usual congregation of mourners in our bright clothes but then mum was anything but your usual kind of ninety one year old. She loved parties and our family get togethers, surrounding herself with young people and never thinking of herself as elderly. A wonderful dedicated mum to me and David, mother-in-law to Julie and Bhasker, Grandma to James, Ben, Maya and Kiri, Great Grandma to Brai and Stirling, Auntie to George, she recently told me ‘I’ve been extremely lucky’.
The hole she leaves in our lives will be, IS immense. The end of a generation and a chapter. A glamorous colourful mum, Miss Lovely Legs of Pontins holiday camp 1976. Long flowing gowns for ladies nights, brightly painted nails, fabulous jewellery, shoes and bags.
Her final wish was to be in the churchyard at Nuthurst so she could talk to ‘Mummy’ and Grandad and she will be having a few words with dad too. A lovely friend told me something very comforting: that I will still have a relationship with mum, it will just be different. Rest in peace Mum. We are the lucky ones to have had you in our lives. You were simply the best.
24 March 1956
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Miss Cynthia Holliss
I have pleasure in subscribing my name as a character witness in complete favour of this young lady.
I have known her since her early school days – she and my own daughter were companions.
Her family is long established in the locality and is much respected.
I should have no hesitation whatsoever in recommending her for any position, requiring uprightness of character, personality, responsibility, trust, reliability, good common sense and application to duties.
C Britton, Major retired
Intelligence Corps
One of several glowing references in preparation for Mum’s time spent in Australia with best friend Margaret as ten pound poms at the age of twenty five.
Cynthia May Jex Howells, Mum, was born in 1932 in The Dolphin Inn, Littlehampton to Dorothy and Victor Holliss, a younger sister to Thelma. They moved to Mannings Heath to live at The Nook with their mother and grandfather when Mum was very young. The only memory she had of her father growing up was a once yearly visit on Christmas Day but despite this, and living through the Second World War, it sounded like an idyllic childhood surrounded by love, laughter and pets, many of them.
Mum’s mum was known to take in stray animals especially during the war years and there were stories of rescued kittens that needed to be fed every few hours, cats who would nibble the bacon brought home in the shopping, rabbits everywhere, sixty of them at one point. Bantams to provide eggs, geese who knocked at the front door with their beaks, a Daschund called Plover, Daisy the goat and Jackie the jackdaw who had a very keen eye for anything sparkly.
Mum attended Horsham High School for Girls in The Causeway followed by a course in Domestic Science at Brighton College where she met dad; a dashing life guard on Brighton beach. Life took them in different directions, mum worked at Beedingwood, a rehabilitation centre for injured soldiers, where she became head cook. One Valentine’s Day out of the blue, hoping it was dad, her prayers were answered when she received a letter asking to meet under the clock in Brighton. Reunited, but having already committed to two years in Australia, they agreed to wait to get married upon her return with dad using the time to complete his National Service.
Mum inherited her mother’s creativity; along with cooking she was proficient at knitting and dress making and made us many colourful outfits including dad’s bow ties, my crimplene trouser-suits and David’s floral shirts. A life dedicated to her family it wasn’t until David and I had left home that she discovered her passion for all things ceramic after enrolling on a local pottery course. The first couple of pots she made were absolutely terrible but she told me that at the time she thought they were the most wonderful things she had ever seen. For years every Monday was spent going to Langley College and she also enjoyed being a member of West Forest Potters, a group that met for trips, talks and group exhibitions.
As the years rolled on summer months were punctuated by regular visits to potters studios and ceramic fairs. Mum had trouble containing her excitement at such events and it was impossible to leave without a purchase, or two, or more . . . thinking about one occasion in particular when we had to be helped up the hill at Hatfield House such was our haul.
Trips to Wisley, Sussex Prairies and a regular at Architectural Plants, Mum also loved nothing more than an outing to a beautiful garden or a garden centre preferably with coffee and cake.
We had a lovely garden in Crowthorne where we grew up and it was no exaggeration to say that passers by would stop to admire the roses, perennials and dad’s fuchsias that packed the front terraces. Mum went on to create two of her own gardens firstly in Wokingham and then in Milnwood Road, Horsham.
We loved having her back in Horsham and when an opportunity arose to move back to Mannings Heath it felt like things had come full circle and she was back where she belonged. The last garden was her favourite and she loved nothing more than pottering around in it, making sculptures and pots for it and last summer relaxing in her new summerhouse.
As a family we’ve had a difficult year, losing both my sister-in-law’s parents swiftly followed by our much loved friend Colin and not long after that his beloved wife Angela, and most recently my mother-in-law Shanta Ben fondly known as Ba.
We might not look like your usual congregation of mourners in our bright clothes but then mum was anything but your usual kind of ninety one year old. She loved parties and our family get togethers, surrounding herself with young people and never thinking of herself as elderly. A wonderful dedicated mum to me and David, mother-in-law to Julie and Bhasker, Grandma to James, Ben, Maya and Kiri, Great Grandma to Brai and Stirling, Auntie to George, she recently told me ‘I’ve been extremely lucky’.
The hole she leaves in our lives will be, IS immense. The end of a generation and a chapter. A glamorous colourful mum, Miss Lovely Legs of Pontins holiday camp 1976. Long flowing gowns for ladies nights, brightly painted nails, fabulous jewellery, shoes and bags.
Her final wish was to be in the churchyard at Nuthurst so she could talk to ‘Mummy’ and Grandad and she will be having a few words with dad too. A lovely friend told me something very comforting: that I will still have a relationship with mum, it will just be different. Rest in peace Mum. We are the lucky ones to have had you in our lives. You were simply the best.
Pictures
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