editing its journal. Back copies from that era do not credit her Helen Mawson (née Fuller, 1957) endeavours, but in 1955 she was listed as assistant editor. She had presumably been doing it all long before she got a mention After school at Haberdashers Askes on the back cover. where she was taught by Diana By this time, she had met Michael Nightingale, precocious Zvegintzov (née Lucas, 1926: Lit. secretary of the association (and nominal editor of the Hum.), Helen Mawson gained Open Museums Journal), while he was in the act of going through all Scholarships at both Oxford and the rubbish bins in the street looking for some mislaid papers. Cambridge. She chose Oxford and During this period the MA helped establish the Regional came to Somerville to read Greats Museum Service to give expert advice and assistance to small and retained great affection for the regional museums. Prior to its move to offices in the Adam- college throughout her life. designed 33 Fitzroy Street in the late 1950s, the association’s After graduation she was appointed HELEN MAWSOM address is listed as the ‘Meteorological Buildings’ in Exhibition lecturer in Philosophy at Fourah Bay Road (now the Dyson School of Design on the corner of College, now the University of Sierra Leone and at that time Exhibition Road and Imperial College Road). Later in life Hilary a college of Durham University. After 3 years there, she came recalled that when she left her office, she would walk through into contact with the British Council to whose overseas career the galleries of the Science Museum in the dark but with all the service she applied successfully and she was posted to Lagos models still whirring away. in Nigeria. There she met and married her husband, Stephen. At After a year working in Italy, Hilary returned to England and the time, marriage meant the end to her British Council career, married Michael in 1956. They settled in Wormshill in Kent, but she took a temporary job with the Ford Foundation writing where she brought up her family and managed 350 sheep on a report on English teaching in Nigeria, and thereafter followed the farm. Stephen to postings in Malaysia and India. During this time, Helen had two children – one during a 24-hour curfew from After all her children had flown the nest in the 1980s, she race riots and the second during the Indo-Pakistan war with trained as a conservation bookbinder at the London College trenches dug outside the house. With a colleague’s wife she of Printing. It is tempting to ponder what else she might have ran a kindergarten in Delhi and also went to Sanskrit classes, done if she was setting out today. adding that language to her Latin and Greek. Hilary was a dearly loved mother to five children and ten Back in the UK permanently, as soon as both children were at grandchildren. school Helen undertook a PGCE course and became Head of Classics at More House School in London. She wanted to teach Vivienne Rees (née Farey, 1951) Greek so after a few years moved to a similar post at Surbiton High School, where she enjoyed taking groups of girls on trips to Italy and Greece. After retirement, she continued to teach at A father in the RAF meant that the Open University, and lived for part of the year in a village Vivienne went to thirteen different on Lake Como where the west front of Como Cathedral bears schools before (with some relief) statues not of saints but of the two Plinys. she gained a place at Somerville to read History. After graduating, she Later afflicted by vascular dementia and macular degeneration married her husband and soulmate (a great trial to her as she could no longer read), she remained of 52 years, Jim Rees, and soon she cheerful and her personality and intelligence were unchanged. embarked on a teaching career at A fall led to a hip fracture, after which she died in hospital. Carlisle Grammar School. She successfully combined her scholarly interests with being After a break to bring up their two VIVIENNE REES a wife, a mother and a grandmother. Unfailingly kind and children, Alison and Bernard, Vivienne generous, many people will miss her acutely – especially her returned to teaching, as History teacher, and Head of Sixth husband of 56 years. Form, at the Lakes School in Windermere. She was to work there for 25 years. Hilary Nightingale (née Jones, 1948) Retirement gave Vivienne the chance to direct her sense of social responsibility into local politics and community affairs. She was a Liberal Democrat District Councillor for South Born in Swansea, and brought up by Lakeland, which she only gave up aged 87, campaigning for her widowed mother, Hilary secured affordable housing and flood action. She was also a Parish a state scholarship to read English Councillor, chairman of the Grasmere Village Society until her at Somerville. She achieved a first death, and chair of the Village Hall Trust. She supported the (one of only five in her year group Wordsworth Trust and organised local events and exhibitions, of 300). as well as fundraising and improving facilities at the hall. After Oxford she went to work for Being chair of the Grasmere Players involved not only the Museums Association (MA), organisation, but acting and directing, and indulging her HILARY NIGHTINGALE lifelong love of Shakespeare. 51