1963 death date (email Kate Mawer 16.2.25)

Anne remembered staying at 9 Ashgrove with her grandfather, John Bedford and Granny Polly. She went for walks with her grandad and his wire haired terrier, Tibby. After John died Tibby went to live with Anne’s family. (Email Kate Mawer 16.2.25)
2017. Transcript of a letter written by Anne to Mike Bedford Nov 22nd ’17, but returned to her due to incorrect address. Mike never got to read this letter. “Dear Mike, Robin has forwarded your article from the New York Times, about Skipton, which has sparked all kinds of memories from school holidays visits to Silsdon.
I was midway in age between Jane & Ben, so that most of my time there was spent with one or the other, between the busier family gatherings.
When we were quite young - 6 or 7 ‘ish Jane & I sometimes slept at Granny Polly’s house (9 North St - remember your potatoe & ‘bit of dripping’ from her neighbours?) - Back to Jane & me - in the mornings we used to creep into Granny P’s bed to beg for ‘Gnome Tales’ - can’t remember much about the tales but they evidently struck a chord at the time.
Later when we were perhaps 10 or 11 Granny P would take Jane & me as a treat to SKIPTON - maybe to the pictures, as we then called cinemas, & afterwards, as a treat, to a cafe for tea, where we always chose ‘Baked Beans on toast’ (what else?) [phone call from Mike].
I also remember - this time with Ben, going on a bus to Skipton with our Saturday spending money & visiting the castle & the museum. The highspot of the museum was a cabinet containing Gall stones, taken from Cart horses, which were bigger than footballs! Made a great impression, clearly as I can’t remember anything else we saw there - poor horses!!
Favourite trips in Summer were to Ilkley, to the Lido in the morning, then up on the moor for a picnic lunch - & picking bilberries, which Auntie Kath made into a delicious pies for dinner next day - so much more flavour than blueberries, nice though those are. Winter visits included pantomines - once at Bradford, where Drivers & Booker, all in Navy Gaberdine raincoats, were met at the door by an Usher of some kind who asked Uncle Arthur ‘are you the party from the orphanage?’
I suppose Skipton will have grown considerably by this time but I imagine its main area as we remember it will be much the same - just more & more houses all around, as is happening in Devon’s nice old towns too.
I have enjoyed reading the article very much - thank you for sending it. I love the story at the end, about the Clitheroe Ukelele Orchestra! Thank you, too, for the phone call - good to hear from you.
I hope you will soon be feeling quite fit again. All good wishes to Rita too, with love to you both, Anne (with an E!)”

2024, Janaury Kate had a call from Pauline to say Anne had passed away.

2024, 12th February. Anne Lord — biographical notes and eulogy [VICKI BENNETTS - WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION]
Anne was bom on 28th December 1928 in King's Lynn in Norfolk. She was the only child of Ernest Guy Booker and Frances Isobel Booker, nee Bedford. Both parents used their middle name, Guy and Isobel, but didn't give Anne that option; still, she was happy to be known as Anne, though she did tell Pauline that as a child she wanted to be called Apple-Cheeks!
To everyone here today, she was either Mum, or Gran, or Auntie Anne, or sometimes Mrs Lord, but we'll stick with Anne today.
Anne moved with her parents to Chesterfield as a toddler, and went to school and Art College there, so Chesterfield was always where she was from. She grew up through the war years, arid remembered bombs being dropped on Chesterfield — she said they were left over from the air-raids on Sheffield, the crews would be in trouble back at base if they hadn't got rid of all their bombs!
After the war she went to the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London, now part of the London Institute; other alumni include Terence Conran, Lucian Freud, filmmaker Mike Leigh, and Joe Strummer from the Clash!
On graduating with a National Diploma in Design, Anne worked as an occupational therapist in the London area, doing home visits to patients, many of whom were war wounded; this involved teaching art and craft skills to help patients recover manual dexterity as well as mental well-being.
In 1952 she married Geoffrey William Lewis Lord, who she had known from
Chesterfield days; he was a Cambridge graduate then working as a librarian in London. They lived in Forest Gate, East London, and the following year had their first of three sons, David.
Two more sons followed, Richard in 1955 and Peter in 1956, by which time the family were living in Sheffield.
In 1960 the family moved to Exeter, where Anne slayed until 2018.
Sadly Geoffrey died in 1965, leaving Anne a widow with three pre-teenage sons — and no job. She bought a larger house and let out rooms to students from the local teacher training college; later she became a civil servant working at the Department for Health and Social Security until she retired in 1988. Anne's middle son Richard also sadly died in 1988.
In her retirement Anne volunteered with the National Trust and Age Concern; looked after her elderly mother Isobel and Isobel's second husband Charlie; travelled to various parts of the UK, Italy and the Greek Islands, pursuing her lifelong passion for painting; and played host to many friends and relations visiting her in Exeter, including sons, daughters in law and 4 granddaughters.
In 2018, approaching her 90th birthday, Anne moved to a flat in Sheffield, just couple of streets from the house where Richard and Peter had been born; this meant that Pauline and Peter could help with shopping and health matters as Anne became older and frailer. In 2022 she was diagnosed with Alzheimers, and then had a series of infections, and in 2023 a stay in hospital with sepsis from a leg wound; during this stay she also had a minor heart attack, so in September 2023 she moved into Norton Lees Care Home. She was able to enjoy her 95th birthday at the end of December, but died from a chest infection three weeks later.

PETER LORD - EULOGY:
Thank you all for coming today. Each of you here today will have your own unique memories of Anne and what she meant to you, but I think there are a few common characteristics that stand out.
Firstly, she was devoted to her family. It wasn't easy bringing up three boys on her own; we weren't exactly saints, we squabbled like all brothers do; our obsession with playing football meant there were mountains of washing; in our teenage years there was usually loud music, under-age smoking, under-age drinking, and frequent late night home-comings under the influence. But she rarely complained, and even though she didn't approve of our misdemeanours, I guess with three teenagers you learn to pick your battles. Later she took great pride in her four grand-daughters, and helped out despite the distance — Pauline recalls her coming to stay after the births of Anna and Jenny, producing cups of tea, hot meals and a medicinal glass of
Mackeson stout when needed; she provided similar support to Jane and Dave when
Kate and Sally were born, and even for Kate and Will when the first great-grandchild
Bella arrived. For her later great-grandchildren, Theo, Robin, James, Bloom and Birdie, she wasn't able to visit them to help out, but really loved welcoming them to her flat, and looking at photos and videos of their progress.
She was also great at keeping in touch with the wider family. There were Bedford cousins in Yorkshire, Booker cousins in Chesterfield, and Geoffrey had three sisters - Anne always kept in touch with them and their families despite geographical separation; I remember trips from Exeter to visit Auntie Marie, Uncle Jack, Glynne and Glynis in Chesterfield and later in Cheshire; Joan and John and their sons Richard and David in Chesterfield,' Auntie Annie and Uncle Frank near Barnsley;
Auntie Kath and Uncle Arthur in Silsden near Bradford. Auntie Bessie had emigrated to Australia, but there was always a phone call at Christmas.
And there were reciprocal visits to Anne in Exeter from all these families, and more besides — including nephews and nieces from the Australian branch. Anne was always a willing host and enjoyed showing visitors the delights of Dartmoor and the Devon coast.
She was also a very loyal friend. She made friends at art college in Chesterfield who always remained a big part of her life; she would go on painting holidays with them in the UK and abroad, adding new friends to the group along the way. In Exeter she had long-term friends who were parents of schoolfriends of D9Vid, or Richard or me; she developed friendships through Exeter Art Society, and through her volunteering at Age Concern. Many of whom she helped to care for in their advancing years. And even in her final months in the care home, she became great friends with June who talks fondly of the chats and the laughs they had together.
Anne was always a generous host. Our big house in Exeter provided accommodation to trainee teachers, four at a time, so Anne was a professional host providing cooked breakfast, lunch and tea for eight of us in total; they were mostly mature students doing a two-year course and they invariably stayed with us for both years. In summer the four spare bedrooms meant that we could accommodate visits from friends and family visiting the West Country.
My brothers and I enjoyed life in this big house near the city centre, which became a gathering place for our friends, who Mum was always ready to welcome, or at least tolerate. It was two doors away from the swimming baths; close enough to St James Park that you could watch Exeter City, and on the full-time whistle at twenty to five, run home in time for the football results at ten to.
It also became the social hub in our teenage years, with all our friends calling in on the way to experience Exeter's night life — cue more loud music, smoking and drinking. The three of us Shared a huge bedroom at the front of the house, walls decorated with posters of Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones and so on, the usual loud music and a dense cloud of smoke! Even now, our cousins remember their visits to this den of iniquity at the front of Auntie Anne's big house.
This tolerance of her teenage sons and their friends illustrates another of Anne's defining characteristics, a stoic attitude to life and whatever it threw at her. This gave her the strength to cope with her parents' separation when she was about 20, the loss of her husband in her thirties, and later the loss of her middle son as she approached 60. It helped her to live independently in Exeter until the age of 89, and semi-independently for another five years. Even when she went into care, the carers would talk about her as a "strong-willed woman" — others might have used the word "stubborn" - which could make her difficult to help — if she didn't want a shower, she wasn't going to have a shower! At which point I'd like to add a big thank you to the staff of Norton Lees Care Home for their excellent end of life care which was a great comfort to Pauline, David and myself as well as the rest of the family.

Anne had many interests, often around art and design. She belonged to several art societies and liked to exhibit her paintings at their exhibitions; she sold a fair few to

help pay for the materials, and other paintings are now with family members as a lasting reminder of Anne and the places she loved to paint. She also tried her hand at woodwork, pottery, glass engraving — when the glass engraving teacher retired, Anne took over the role. She supplemented her income with freelance work for advertising agencies — her line drawings of women's fashion or school uniforms often

graced the pages of the local paper, and for years her lifesize silhouette pictures Of Victorian ladies and gentlemen, with penny farthings and top hats, featured on the walls of a local pub — which we boys felt it only right to visit in the interests of art appreciation!
She was also a great lover of words, literature, nature, the outdoors — Saturday's Guardian crossword featured in our weekly telephone calls for years, her bookshelves were laden with dictionaries of quotations and Jane Austen novels and wild flower books and maps; she loved visiting National Trust properties, art galleries and museums; she would take long walks on Dartmoor most weekends — looking back I think that was partly to get away from her teenage boys and their entourage!. Even in her nineties, she loved to get on a bus from right outside her flat in Sheffield and take a trip to Chatsworth, Bakewell or Hathersage.
So goodbye Mum, Gran, Great-Gran, Auntie Anne, Apple Cheeks; Goodbye Anne, and thanks for all the memories.