Wendy Payne (1935-2017)

Wendy's funeral was held yesterday in Stroud. Wendy was my mother's (much younger) cousin - she said she always regarded my mother (Beryl Seel) as more of a sister.

Here are the presiding minister's remarks (the Reverend Brian Woollaston).

"Wendy was born in Bristol in 1935. The family moved to Haydon near Radstock shortly afterwards as her father worked on the railway as a steam locomotive fireman. She thoroughly enjoyed life in the Somerset countryside, going to school in Kilmersdon.

Her father had a promotion when she was 15 to a locomotive driver at Gloucester, and they moved to Longlevens on the outskirts of Gloucester. Wendy, being a country girl, did not like living in a city, but having left school found an office job in a local printers.

After a couple of years her father got her an office job at the locomotive depot at Barnwood, checking the drivers' time sheets etc. She settled down in Longlevens joining Holy Trinity church and the choir there.

When the depot closed she moved to the other locomotive depot at Horton Road and then to Eastgate station (now ASDA!) in the area manager's office. She was well known for riding a 'sit up and beg' bicycle to and from work in the early days.

She met Derrick at Eastgate station, as he was also working on the railway, and travelled from Stroud daily, calling in at the station to collect mail etc. They were engaged in 1975 and married in 1978, and for a while Wendy continue to work at Gloucester, travelling daily by train from Stroud where they lived at Cashes Green.

As this involved a long day she left the railway service and had several jobs in Stroud before becoming a full-time housewife. Her interests still involved the church and she regularly attended both Randwick and Cainscross churches, enjoyed flower arranging and gardening and the simple things in life. She knew flowers and loved gardening.

She would help anyone and would go out of her way to do so and thought well of everybody."

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Here are some other photos of Wendy.

Wendy (aged 3) and my mother (aged 16) at Radcliffe bay in 1939

Wendy and Beryl Porter in the late 1940s

Wendy with Clare and myself in April 2017

Wendy was incredibly organised and full of energy. She bore her final illness with extraordinary stoicism and was truly thinking mostly about the future of others through her final days.