a fund raiser); Cancer Research UK and finally Tundergarth Church near Lockerbie, for which she devised a 960 mile walk Joan Hampshire (1947) from Dungeness Point to Cape Wrath. Those who knew her will miss Jenny very much: wife, mother, Joan Hampshire was one of many sister, sister-in-law, granny and friend. Somervillians to come from Bradford Girls’ Grammar School. Sylvia Gyde (née Clayton, 1954) After a degree in English, and a Diploma in Education, her love of all things literary stayed with Born in Llanidloes, then moving to her throughout her life. College rural Suffolk, Sylvia always enjoyed life involved acting in University ‘sums’ as a child. Though initially productions and tennis, where her JOAN HAMPSHIRE accused of cheating in the 11+ talent led to a Blue. as she did so well, she gained a Oxford also led to marriage, as she met Magdalen linguist scholarship place at St Felix School Peter Nurse and they married on graduation. Moving to in Southwold. After the difficulties Belfast shortly afterwards, where Peter got a job at Queen’s and restrictions of boarding school University, they had three children, before moving to California, life, the freedom of Somerville, she and then Canterbury, as his post shifted. At the newly-formed said, ‘transformed my entire life, SYLVIA GYDE University of Kent, Joan set about starting up the ‘University and I was so happy there’. Tutored Wives Book Group’ in 1966: an invaluable way of establishing by the ‘lovely’ Jean Banister, she found her medical studies a solid group of like-minded friends in a new town. (It is still supported by Dame Janet Vaughan and Dorothy Hodgkin, and going strong to this day!) made many good friends, often through singing in choirs. Marriage to Humphrey led to Blackheath in London and four It was here, in Kent, that Joan began to fully put her superb children in six years, with medical work in the evenings at teaching skills to work. She worked for the Hearing Impaired family planning clinics. She was asked to help set up a clinic in Unit attached to Hampton Primary School in Herne Bay, a deprived area of Woolwich, to offer contraception to women teaching hearing impaired and profoundly deaf pupils aged at the Community Hall there. As they were innovative women, 4-11. Very keen to encourage children with low self-esteem they bought a portable couch and ‘set up shop every week’. to believe in themselves, one of Joan’s favourite phrases was, Word got around, and they were inundated with clients. ‘I can do this!’ and she had an impressive ability to simplify any difficult language or concepts by rephrasing, using drama or Moving to Birmingham about a decade later, Sylvia became a craft. She also worked for the Canterbury Remedial Advisory GP before being offered a research job by a young Consultant Service, where she taught and supported children with dyslexia in Gastroenterology at the General Hospital. They had a very and other reading challenges. She went on, with her colleague, large series of over 700 ulcerative colitis patients: a rare Cosette Beadle, to devise and illustrate an entire phonics disease with a high risk of colon cancer. Seven years later, reading scheme – an approach ahead of its time in the 1990s having published papers on their work there, she trained in - publishing ‘Star Track Reading and Spelling’ in 1997. Public Health Medicine, and eventually became Director of After retiring, Joan threw her boundless energy into Public Health for Birmingham. volunteering at, and fundraising for, Canterbury Umbrella, Music had been an important part of her time in Oxford, and a new drop-in centre and Community Hub providing social this continued in the years in Birmingham, where she joined mental health support for local people. With her excellent the Bach Society, sang and played the piano – the latter right communication and persuasive letter writing skills, she up to her final weeks. Retiring from Public Health, and moving doggedly pursued and secured many thousands in funding for to eastern England, she became non-executive director of the centre. She also ran weekly Art sessions, bringing welcome the local Essex Rovers NHS Trust and focused on getting fun and creativity into the lives of countless people. Clinical Governances in place. But retirement gave time for her to develop other interests, and, always a great collector of Joan surrounded her own children and grandchildren with ceramics, she took up potting herself, gaining a City and Guilds books, and spent many hours reading to, and with them, Certificate and then installing her own wheel and kiln. encouraging and inspiring them all with her love of literature Though she claims to have had a career ‘more by accident than and reading. When one of her grandchildren, aged 3, said to design’, Sylvia worked in various contexts to make a difference her one day, ‘I’m as happy as a library!’ she felt her work to people’s lives. In a life moving almost full-circle, she and was done. Humphrey returned from France to a flat in Blackheath, Joan’s love, warmth, energy, sharp mind and mischievous sense watching through the bedroom window the children going to of humour are much missed by her family and many friends. the local school hers had attended. 46