We are all going to miss Edith, one of the village’s longest living members, a place she loved and she, in return, was loved and respected by many. I have known her for the past 25 years and have always admired the way in which she kept herself well-dressed and smart, indeed elegant and well-presented. She had a quiet gentleness, a people person who loved to have a good-old natter about things and events and especially times past in the village.
She was a member of the Historical Society and served on the committee and was noted for her assistance with the refreshments at our meetings. She came to several of my historical lectures at the Village Hall and showed that she had a very alert and lively mind. Her clear memories of the people and places and customs of the village were invaluable. She also knew what was going on in the world in the present time. I remember one day when we were setting up for a social function she insisted that the tables were laid out in meticulous order. Of course, she had worked at Barclaycard and the Masonic Hall organising and supervising the catering arrangements and seeing that wedding functions proceeded smoothly. One had to lay a table correctly!
Edith loved coming to the monthly coffee mornings here at the church and always looked forward to them and meeting up with friends.
She was widowed 31 years ago when Eric passed away, and she continued to live alone independently. After she retired from Barclaycard where she had worked in administration before she worked for the Masonic Hall for more than 30 years Edith finally had more time for herself. She spent a lot of time with Sally and her grandchildren in Windsor. Edith often said to me that she looked forward to seeing them and at Christmas going to St George’s Chapel in the castle for the Christmas services. She travelled extensively with the family, especially to France. She joined a class called OperaPlus , studying operas in depth, which met during term time, attending it until spring last year.
Her close friendship with Kathy Sargeant, David and Kate also brought her much joy. Spending time with Chris and Kate and their four young children on their farm in Yorkshire brought her much happiness and laughter. On one occasion, I gather, at a ploughing match she jumped a ditch, and she was well into her eighties then. Kathy and she were a wonderful support and companions to each other. Kathy tells me that Edith would come over at 8pm every evening to have a chat and a glass of wine, so regular that the dog would go to the door to wait for her. Yes, we are going to miss Edith very much, but we lay her to rest with our love into the sureness of God’s eternal joy.
Condolences to Sally, Ben, Tom, Sarah and all family and friends.
EDITH 1923 -2020
What a life Edith had!
Full of constants, contrasts and contradictions.
It might be supposed that someone who had lived their whole life in a small Northamptonshire village would, necessarily, be narrow in views and experience: not a bit of it! She rode the changes from bicycle to jet plane and cart horse to combine harvester with alacrity.
Thanks to Sally, I had a long telephone chat with Edith only 2/3 days before she died. We recalled times and people past:
– Milton (as it was then known) population about 500, small cottages arranged in ‘yards’, mostly without mains water, gas and electricity, few cars, bathrooms and telephones, many horses and outside loos.
– People were often known by whether they attended Church, Chapel or The Pub; but at Christmastime, Church and Chapel would get together to form a choir whose tour of the Village would include the Pubs. Edith and I recalled, rather wickedly, how hardened war veterans would weep into their beer, moved by the sound of the carols.
Edith was of the Church category.
How right it is that we are celebrating her life in this place which meant so much to her. So much of her life was spent here attending services, arranging flowers and helping with whatever was necessary to keep the place going. She was joined in this by other members of the Henshaw and Yates families. Mementos of some of them are around us today.
The ties between Edith’s and my strands of the family were especially close – our fathers were brothers and our mothers sisters. My parents were a long time married before I arrived and that gap was filled when Edith and her cousin Mary turned up for lunch on Sundays, complete with aprons.
Our families remained close throughout their lives. Special occasions were usually spent together : Christmas Day would be spent at one house and Boxing Day at the other – and vice versa the following year. Even with wartime rationing, the feasting was formidable.
During our last chat, Edith, then in Windsor, said “I was thinking last night that this is the first time in many years that there is not a Henshaw living in Milton Malsor”. That really brought home to me what a vital link Edith was to the past. Without her, who could I talk to about the events and characters of our early years.
And there was plenty of material!
At peak, Edith had 3 grandparents and 10 Yates’s and Henshaw’s of her parents’ generation living in the Village with another 4 of her parents’ siblings living in Blisworth or the near fringes of Northampton. Just think of the number of cousins!
Inevitably, as ease of movement and communication increased, this concentration thinned out and, as it did, Edith became ever more important as the hub through which the family kept in touch.
Edith went to the local Village School until, at 11, she went on to secondary school in Blisworth. She was always lean and fit and enjoyed some success as a long jumper. She got to the Area and Regional Finals of the Schools Athletic Competition where she found herself competing with girls who took things very seriously and who were properly kitted-out for the job. Later, she showed her fitness on the dance floor – especially at the exotically-named Salon de Dance in Northampton.
So, Edith’s roots were firmly in local soil but, as I said earlier, her interests and activities were wide. It helped that her father was among the first “ordinary” people to acquire motor transport. At first it was a motor bike with sidecar and then a car. I have a vivid memory of the family setting off for outings – Harry driving, Kate and the young John in the sidecar and Edith on the pillion. They got to places which were out of reach to most people at that time.
The coming of World War II played a massive part in Edith’s broadening process.
The first London evacuees arrived in the Village on 1st September 1939. We watched as they disembarked from the buses which had brought them from the train and went into the School to be documented and allocated to billets. The Turnell sisters, aged about 10 and 5, were taken to Edith’s house and it is a tribute to all involved that they kept in touch for the rest of their lives.
Edith had to grow up quickly. She was 16 when the War started and soon found herself making artillery shells at the Express Lifts factory in Northampton. I remember her getting onto her bike to ride to her nightshift in the blackout with the sirens having already sounded and search lights probing the skies.
She met Eric at Express Lifts and they married in this Church on Easter Monday, 1948. She had made a good choice: Eric was a wonderfully kind, helpful person with a great sense of humour. They soon moved into one of the new houses built in the Village after the War – 3 Stockwell Road.
Sally arrived in 1953.
I was working in a large house being used as offices, immediately opposite the Barrett Maternity Hospital. I became the Messenger. Each day, Edith would appear at a window and signal if she wanted to talk. Messages were passed through the open window and taken back to Milton for action.
No child can have been more welcomed or adored than Sally. With all those relatives around her, she could do not wrong. Getting to the Grammer School was just one of the memorable milestones. It is tribute to her that she turned out to be “normal”.
Sadly, Eric’s illness came to bear on their lives far too early; Sally was still at the Village School. Edith coped magnificently, helped by Eric’s unfailing cheerfulness, and they passed their 40th Wedding Anniversary before he died in 1988. But the anxieties and pressures of Eric’s illness were a great test of Edith’s steel at a time when she was also being the mainstay through her mother’s illness and an important haven for my parents in their declining years.
Malcolm has referred to Edith’s long widowhood and I’m only going to add my appreciation of the parts played by a loving family and good friends and neighbours while Sally was keeping a sensitive balance between Edith’s conflicting needs for independence and support. However, one overarching feature of Edith’s life which I must mention is “Music”.
Perhaps it started with parents who both had fine voices.
Edith and her brother John liked most kinds of music. The rafters of this Church have echoed many times to the sounds of their voices – including Stainer’s “God so loved the World” which was played at the introduction to this service.
Edith took John and me to our first operas, orchestral concerts and solo performances and she would get to The Proms whenever she could. She just loved music and embarked on piano lessons at the relatively late age of 20, turning out in all weathers to practice on my mother’s piano in an unheated ‘front room’.
Edith’s passing affects all of us in different ways. To me, it feels like saying ‘Goodbye’ to a generation: but her many admirable qualities will not be forgotten. She was a role model in so many ways.
Frank Henshaw
9th March 2020
