Verona Joyce Bennett, RIP

Joyce Verona Bennett, 1917 - 2013

Today I was at the funeral of my grandmother, who checked out around Christmas time, a few days shy of her 97th birthday.  It was a short and unremarkable service, but interesting nevertheless and I'm glad I went.

I'd completely forgotten, for example, that her given name was not in fact Joyce (the name she always used), but was actually Verona.  And whilst I knew that she'd travelled fairly widely around the UK and Europe, I didn't know that she had taken her first and only journey by aeroplane - from Exeter to Bristol - aged 93.  She'd made the trip just for the experience, apparently.  I hope that I can also reach such an age and have new adventures of my own.

I'm not going to labour the point, but I'd guess that 1917 was not an auspicious time to be born as a female to a family of modest means in a small provincial English town.   Getting pregnant at 21 by a soldier who then dissappeared off to war (the offspring of this congress being my mother) hardly improved her prospects. Nevertheless, she did prosper.  No doubt the widespread upheaval within society that war with Germany precipitated was a good opportunity.

Mum was mostly brought up by her Grandmother, but not without difficulty.  Being an unmarried mother in 1940s Britain would have probably been a drab and colourless affair, not helped the inflexible attitudes of the local Christians.

Yet, despite all this, she managed to to steer a life-course that was sufficiently interesting to merit a feature article in the Sunday Independent (more news to me) and a couple of Channel 4 documentaries (which we had all watched, agog, wondering what she might disclose about our hitherto unknown blood relative).

I remember her as a feisty lady of strong opinions, and as my Dad once said, she would likely have made impressive use of the opportunities that being born into a later age would have given her.  Not that I think she was in any way dis-satisfied with her lot.

Farewell, Grandma.