He's too cute for school! Won't send him to school for a good few years yet, then, in that case.
Saturday 24 July 2010
Monday 19 July 2010
Remembering Sheila, now a magical grandmother
With the arrival of our son, whose name is getting close to being known, I'm thinking about my mum, who died just over a year ago, and want to have a few things to show him (in due course) to remember him - and just in case the obituary disappears from the newspaper website!
Sheila Tippett | Other lives | Guardian obituary
Obituary
Sheila Tippett (1944 - 12th May 2009)
Liz Turner
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 6 September 2009 18.36 BST
It was typical of my friend Sheila Tippett, who has died of cancer aged 65, that, having had plenty of time to think about her epitaph, she should suggest: "She did little harm." While this is quite true, it belies the enormous influence she exerted on her family and friends and underestimates her strength of character. Never once in over 40 years did I hear her waver in what she believed was right; her commitment to equality and fairness was never in doubt.
Her professional career was short. After graduating from Nottingham University in Chemistry, she married Bill and, while he did a PhD in the same lab as my husband, she taught first at the Bluecoat school, Nottingham, then Harrogate grammar. By all accounts she was a good teacher, but her real ambition was to be a really good wife and mother – and she was. After Joanne was born, she gratefully gave up teaching, never to return. Matthew followed Jo a few years later and from then on Sheila devoted her life to them and to Bill – providing a stable, intelligent and structured environment which allowed her husband and children to reach their full potential, and, in so doing, fulfilling her own.
The family were exiled to South Carolina for seven and a half long years in the 1970s when Bill's job moved there. It was a traumatic and difficult upheaval, but Sheila kept it all together. However, she and Bill wanted to return to the UK, to her friends and family – and a country which shared her values. She was a keen and informed reader and theatregoer, but at heart she was an outdoor girl and was never happier than when she was on the allotment, playing tennis, skiing or out walking in the hills, particularly if there was a decent pint at the end of it.
Her bravery and stoicism in the face of two bouts of cancer, over 10 long years, left all her friends speechless. How often can you say that visiting someone whom you know to be terminally ill and near death was a genuine delight? But with Sheila, it was. We had a terrific time with her and Bill only about a month before she died. We "did lunch" at a really good pub and then played bridge – just as we have been doing since about 1968. Shortly before she died she told me that, despite everything, the last few months had been the happiest and most contented of her life.
Her dying words were about her beloved family – "So, so proud and love them so, so much" – which just about sums up how we all feel about her. She is survived by her husband and children.
Sheila Tippett | Other lives | Guardian obituary
Obituary
Sheila Tippett (1944 - 12th May 2009)
Liz Turner
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 6 September 2009 18.36 BST
It was typical of my friend Sheila Tippett, who has died of cancer aged 65, that, having had plenty of time to think about her epitaph, she should suggest: "She did little harm." While this is quite true, it belies the enormous influence she exerted on her family and friends and underestimates her strength of character. Never once in over 40 years did I hear her waver in what she believed was right; her commitment to equality and fairness was never in doubt.
Her professional career was short. After graduating from Nottingham University in Chemistry, she married Bill and, while he did a PhD in the same lab as my husband, she taught first at the Bluecoat school, Nottingham, then Harrogate grammar. By all accounts she was a good teacher, but her real ambition was to be a really good wife and mother – and she was. After Joanne was born, she gratefully gave up teaching, never to return. Matthew followed Jo a few years later and from then on Sheila devoted her life to them and to Bill – providing a stable, intelligent and structured environment which allowed her husband and children to reach their full potential, and, in so doing, fulfilling her own.
The family were exiled to South Carolina for seven and a half long years in the 1970s when Bill's job moved there. It was a traumatic and difficult upheaval, but Sheila kept it all together. However, she and Bill wanted to return to the UK, to her friends and family – and a country which shared her values. She was a keen and informed reader and theatregoer, but at heart she was an outdoor girl and was never happier than when she was on the allotment, playing tennis, skiing or out walking in the hills, particularly if there was a decent pint at the end of it.
Her bravery and stoicism in the face of two bouts of cancer, over 10 long years, left all her friends speechless. How often can you say that visiting someone whom you know to be terminally ill and near death was a genuine delight? But with Sheila, it was. We had a terrific time with her and Bill only about a month before she died. We "did lunch" at a really good pub and then played bridge – just as we have been doing since about 1968. Shortly before she died she told me that, despite everything, the last few months had been the happiest and most contented of her life.
Her dying words were about her beloved family – "So, so proud and love them so, so much" – which just about sums up how we all feel about her. She is survived by her husband and children.
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