Thank you everyone for joining Ken, Peter and Jacqueline and their families in our service to celebrate the life of a much loved Mum, Grandma and friend – Betty Alma Lunn – affectionately known to most of her family as Grandma. To remember Betty and to say your goodbyes to a lovely, happy lady who I know will be sorely missed.

Some faces here today are familiar to me but for those of you who have not met me before I would like to introduce myself. My name is Carol Stevens and I call myself a Life Celebrant because I believe that our lives are very precious gifts that we have been given and as such they should be valued, cherished and celebrated, which is what we will be doing today for Betty.

And so our service for Betty will be as her family know that their Mum would have wanted – with her family and friends – a true celebration of her long and happy life.

When I spoke to Peter about his Mum he shared many happy memories of her with me, some of which I will read shortly and between us we have endeavoured to make our service for Betty an uplifting and very caring tribute to her life from those who loved her and with music that we hope Betty would have approved of. As you entered the Chapel you listened to a song that Betty chose herself for today.

This is Betty’s story from her family...

Betty actually wrote about her life herself and so some of what I will be reading is in Betty’s own words and Peter’s. Betty wrote...

I was born in June 1919 in Plumstead eight months after my father Arthur Leonard Croad was killed during World War One and lived with my Mum Emily and my grandparents until I was twelve years old when Mum and I moved to a flat in Plumstead.

In 1932 I won a scholarship to Woolwich Polytechnic and in 1935 began working in Dover Street in London as a seamstress.

Betty’s claim to fame was making the outfit that the actress Margaret Lockwood wore in the film ‘The Lady Vanishes’.

A certain Leslie Lunn had been watching Betty from afar until he eventually plucked up the courage to cycle up to see her – and the rest as they say is pure history. Betty wrote... in 1938 Leslie and I got engaged on my 19^th birthday. Les was in the Territorial Army and in 1939 was called up on the 1^st of September and we were married on the 3^rd of December.

In 1940 I worked at North Woolwich at Standard Telephones doing war work and used to walk through the tunnel at Woolwich but was terrified of the bombing.

Your Dad came home from Dunkirk on my 21^st birthday after we had just moved into a flat on Plumstead Common. In 1941 we were bombed out during the Blitz and went to live in Sway, Hampshire with Mum and where Dad was stationed.

Peter has fond memories as children how they used to spend their summer holidays at Sway and where Nan Emily remained living until approximately 1969 whwn she moved in with Betty and Les in Hartley.

In 1942, Betty wrote, Ken was born and we moved back to Plumstead to live in a prefab and Dad was sent to Africa. Les transferred to Italy and then Greece and eventually came home after five years away.

Betty always said that Les was never the same after his return from the war and he never really spoke of his experiences.

In 1946 Peter came into the world in their prefab, Betty and Leslie’s first home and Betty wrote – it was lovely – mind you we think she was referring to the prefab and not baby Peter!! Seriously though Betty and Les loved their prefab and spent some happy years there.

In 1953 they bought their house in Swanton Road in Erith [they even taught their budgie to say the address] and three years later Jacqueline was born and it goes without saying that Betty was very proud to be a Mum and she loved her three children dearly and that never changed.

During that time living in Erith and after Jacqueline was born, Betty took a part-time job at the Cooperative Society in Woolwich, working in the hire purchase department, and she really enjoyed this job. She did try to learn to drive but quickly decided it wasn’t for her. She also went to various night school classes. One was for continental cookery, before it became fashionable, and she also took up amateur dramatics. She appeared in a production at the Erith Playhouse.

Peter told me that Betty was a lovely Mum, she wasn’t strict but her children knew the rules. Betty was also a good cook and she loved her food. In later years she baked cakes and gave them away to her male friends who were on their own. She was a grest hostess and loved entertaining.

In 1968 they moved to Hartley and they loved it. Betty became a school dinner lady and became very involved with the local community after moving there. She joined the Hartley WI and became very involved in their drama productions. She also joined the WI darts team to play other WI districts. Their ‘home’ venue was the railway Tavern in Longfield and one year they actually won a trophy. Betty took this so seriously that Les installed a permanent darts board in the hall at home and every time her family visited they had to give her a game.

As her children left home to start out on their own and grandchildren Tina, Jessie, Alice, Alfie and Emma came into the family. Betty loved them all. Then great grandchildren Jenna, Harry and Alex came along and Betty loved to see them. She was a lovely Grandma and great Grandma who spoilt them all. Jessie is here today from Australia to say goodbye to her beloved Grandma and all her grandchildren kept in touch. To Betty they were all very special young people who filled her life with absolute pride and joy.

Betty’s granddaughter Alice would like to say a few words about her beloved Grandma...

Memories from her granddaughter Alice at Betty’s cremation at Bluebell Hill, Kent

I know I speak for all of us here when I say that I am so grateful to have had Grandma in my life. Listening to her stories gave an incredible insight to a time gone by and her memories will forever live on inside all of us who were lucky enough to hear them. Tales of life through the war and anecdotes that she brought back to life with her wonderful attention to detail and a genuine fondness for a time which felt so long ago to those listening, but which to Grandma, obviously seemed like they were just yesterday.

Grandma was, like so many of her generation, a strong and proud person and I have such admiration for the things she had lived through and the strength that she must have shown. She was so beautiful and always managed to see the humour in life. I always tell my friends who don’t know her, how my Grandma is so funny. She told so many funny stories that I will always cherish, from her own experience through childhood to her observations as a mother and grandma. “Oh I’ve got a wicked sense of humour” she would say with a laugh, retelling how she would leave me and Alfie fishing for newts in her pond, telling us the only way to catch them was to scoop at the top, full well-knowing they lay at the bottom. “It would keep you busy for hours” she’d chuckle. And later her amusement at watching “all the old pensioners” bob up and down in their chairs as the dinner bell rang at her residential old-people’s club. Yes, Grandma was very funny and she enjoyed good comedy and opportunities to laugh.

Mostly I loved the stories about Granddad. Having not had the pleasure of spending so much time with him, I would love listening to her reminisce and describing their life and all they had encountered together. With 50 years of marriage, there were lot of stories and I really felt their love for one another. I, like many of us, would sit for hours with her, listening to her retell the past. And we all know that Grandma sure liked to talk, so I would draw on her experiences and ask her questions about him. I will miss these moments and will always love and remember her, not just the time I can remember spending with her, but I will remember her incredible stories of life when she was young. When I look at her wedding photo, I see a beautiful young woman, who looked like a film star. She had a cheeky smile and a beautiful face and a sense of fun that lived on, right through to her old age.

I would like to read a poem, by Mary Elizabeth Frye*, which has been slightly adapted:

I give you this one thought to keep
I am with you still – I do not sleep
 

For I am a thousand winds that blow
And I am the diamond glints on snow.
 

I am the sunlight on ripened grain
And I am the gentle Autumn rain
 

When you awake in the morning’s hush
I am the soft uplifting rush
 

Of quiet birds in circle flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night
 

So do not think of me as gone
For I am with you still – in each new dawn.
 

Betty loved a game of cards and went to friends’ houses to play. She was very, very good at Scrabble and could knock many youngsters into a cocked hat when playing. Betty was also an avid reader of detective storiesand enjoyed watching Morse and the like on the telly. She loved pigs and had ornaments of them everywhere.

Betty was also a member of the Hartley District of Civil Service Pensioners and used to go on numerous walks and outings.

She was a very outgoing, sociable lady with many friends who loved meeting people. She loved being the centre of attention and would come out with some lovely sayings ‘couldn’t dine with the Queen’ and ‘Cor that’s a bit dark over Wilf’s Mum’s’ being just a couple. The meanings of which no-one really knows.

* Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905 – 2004) was an American housewife and florist, best known as the author of the poem Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep, written in 1932.

They celebrated fifty years of a happy marriage whilst in Hartley but sadly Leslie died just three weeks later on Christmas Eve 1989. Betty was devastated when he passed away and she grieved for him in private but her family knew that lif was never the same without Leslie by her side.

However in her usual stoic way Betty got on with things and kept herself busy.

When Leslie was alive they used to go up to Leamington Spa to visit Jacqueline and her family. Leslie had no interest in going abroad, saying that he had had enough of foreign travel during the war and so, after his death, Betty got herself a passport and started going abroad to Cyprus, Portugal, Madeira, Spain and lots of little jaunts about.

She joined Age Concern and was probably the liveliest one there; she loved a party and the coach trips with her club.

In recent years Hilary and later Debbie came in to help her with her housework and any problems. Betty knew she could call them and they were so good to her.

Betty was very fussy about her appearance and especially her clothes. She was always immaculately turned out, always a bit of jewellery, her nails done and her hair looking lovely, right up to the end of her life. Recently because her hair didn’t have the body it once had she chose to wear a wig and made jokes about it. She had a mobility scooter and always said that she couldn’t wear her wig on a windy day in case she lost it.

Betty suffered with cancer and came through that, she had a hip replacement and during her life had endured so much but she came through it all. She made her 95^th birthday in between hospital visits and she had a good day at home with her family and friends.

She was, as I am sure you all know – outspoken, very. Betty called a spade a spade but to your face, she was honest and youalways knew where youstood with her. She had a really good sense of humour and was a real giggler once she got going. She told many stories and the older she got so the saucier her stories became. She was a very kind and caring lady who would help anyone if she could. Betty didn’t show her feelings easily but her family all knew that they were loved.

Her passing I know has saddened everyone who knew and loved her but though Betty will be missed always, this lovely lady will never be forgotten.

I am sure that you all have your own special memories of Betty and as we listen to her family’s next piece of music for her I hope that youwill take thistime to reflect and remember Betty as you each knew her – perhaps with love or maybe a spacial time shared with her that meant a lot to you.
 

Reflection music – ‘Cavatina’ – John Williams

As we near the end of our service for Betty I would like to read a verse by Janice Ross, the words her family feel Betty would want said about today...

Now my life has come to an end
and you’ve come to say your goodbyes
 

The life that I had I lived to the full
so please don’t be sad – and don’t cry.
 

But remember me and the laughs that we had
Remember the good times we shared
 

Remember the ways that I loved all of you
Remember I always cared.
 

So be strong for each other – my family, my friends
Enjoy life and carry on.
 

For while I am in your thoughts and your hearts
You know I’ll never be gone.
 

And so we remember Betty who lived her life surrounded by those who she loved and who loved her so dearly. A long life, not without sadness but a life that Betty lived with the man she loved and the family she treasured.

Some people come into our lives and they very quickly go – very special people don’t come too often and when they do they simply stay a while – but when they leave us we are never, ever quite the same.

Our Mums, like our Dads, are very special people and when they leave us our world is lonely without them but Betty has left her own special legacy – her children, her grandchildren and so many precious memories and for that we thank her.

We will now listen to Betty’s family’s last song for their Mum and as you listen please think of her – not with sadness for today or recent times but with a smile remembering the happy times, the good times that you shared with her – perhaps when she was young and well and life was good for her – because I am sure that is what Betty would want you all to do.

As the curtains close and you prepare to leave the Chapel please take away with you your own special memories of a truly unique and very special lady – Betty Lunn – too dearly loved to ever be forgotten.

CURTAINS TO CLOSE
 
Leave the Chapel to – ’We’ll Meet Again’ – Vera Lynn
 

Thank you
Carol Stevens
19^th November 2014