Jean Florence Price

December 5, 1920 - April 2, 2010

Compared with what I said at Dad’s funeral 4½ years ago, I found it quite a bit harder to think what to say about Mum. She wasn’t the one who loved the limelight, who would stand up and sing at the drop of a hat, who took up hobbies with such enthusiasm, who frolicked with the grandchildren (not that she didn’t spoil them something rotten, in her own way.) It wasn’t Mum who did all these things. She was just the one who made them all possible. They say that behind every good man is a good woman; and it’s trite, but in this case it seems so true. Everything that Dad was able to be, and to do, was possible because he had Mum at his side as his helper, companion, lover, ally and supporter.

Jean Florence Price, born 5 December 1920, the third and youngest child of Josiah and Winifred Lane. She had a pretty tough early life. Her father died early in 1925 when she was barely 4 years old, leaving our Nanny to bring up three children on her own. Mum was a weekly boarder, if that’s the right expression, at Radlett House, a children’s home nearby, from where she attended Stroud Green School. She was a bright and hard-working pupil, and got good reports which she kept all her life - we ended up clearing them out from the bungalow, as we did our own school reports, a couple of years back. She played in the netball team, though the photos show her looking rather small and grim. For the hardship of being an orphan took its toll. No doubt it put paid to any possibility of further education, and we think it also made Mum rather chary about expressing much emotion for most of her life.

Mum went to work as a civil servant with Post Office National Savings, a department which I suppose assumed greater importance when War came, when they were evacuated to Morecambe. I think she revelled in her time there, as did her own mother who joined her there and became a favourite with all the girls who worked in the office - where she became everyone’s substitute mother. There was lots of fun outside work too, for although that was a dangerous time, it was also an exciting time to be young, with greater freedom, and opportunities to meet new people from many different backgrounds and places. At the end of the War the office returned to London, and it was there that Mum met Ron Price. In photographs of that period, the smile we were so used to seeing on Mum’s face appears! We can well imagine that, having survived the War, and with 6 years’ interruption to their lives, they were a generation in a hurry. They were quickly married on 28 March 1948.

I’m sure that Mum’s unhappy childhood experience made it all the more important for her to build a secure, stable and loving home for her own family. And that’s what she did, and excelled at. It wasn’t easy either: to start with she had an ageing and presently invalid father-in-law to care for (who, for example, used to smoke in bed and at least once set the blankets on fire), and when he was most needing care she had a young child to look after and another on the way. The hours that Dad was on hand to help were limited too; I have clear memories of him going out to work on Saturday mornings, as was not unusual in the 1950s. But out of those years of austerity and all the rest, she built that home, shared 57 years of a happy, successful and devoted marriage with Dad, brought up three fine children and saw them (eventually) married to three fine children-in-law, and delighted in her 7 grandchildren. We hope she also understood she had become a great-grandmother, just 6 weeks before she died, and was able to be pleased about that.

She and Dad moved to Wales after they retired, partly to enjoy the lovely countryside around their new home, but also very much to be near to Sally and her family, and to enjoy the Welsh grandchildren. I think they had a special bond with Harri whom they looked after each week, and were able to spend much more time with than any of the other grandchildren. (I used to think that was a chore - as a new grandpa myself, I’m beginning to think differently...) And of course it meant that, when they became increasingly frail these last few years, Sally was nearby to look after them. Sally, you’ve carried the major part of the burden of this care for many years, and Jan and I (in fact, all of us), appreciate tremendously all that you’ve done, and are immensely grateful to you.

Mum was lively, gregarious, she enjoyed being with people. I remember her going out to midweek evening meetings of the Townswomen’s Guild. (What was that? A subversive urban feminist activist group? A downmarket, or slightly working class, version of the WI?) Most of all there was the weekly Keep Fit class - and I have even less idea what they got up to, though it was obviously a lot of fun, from the lift it gave to Mum; and there was the memorable occasion when she took part in a massed demonstration of whatever it was, in the Royal Albert Hall. When she was a good bit younger than her children are now, she was quite sporty, too: we marvel today at those pictures of our really rather attractive mother, in her tennis outfit. She enjoyed going back to work when she was able to, and I’m sure it wasn’t just for the money but for the opportunity to meet people. Those were the days when you went into Barclays (or any bank) and could actually talk to a real person. I know that must have happened, because Mum certainly got to know some of her customers in a way which is hardly possible now.

Sally remembers that Mum was always busy: baking, cooking, sewing, knitting, making and mending clothes for herself and the family. She was the rock, the solid presence at the heart of the home, that made it the place of refuge and safety that it was. She had a surprising knack of seeming to give way to others, but almost always getting just what she wanted. (I’m thinking of those negotiations about what we were going to watch on the TV at Christmas time.)

Dad was such a beloved friend and lifelong companion, that even though she wanted to stay at Aeron Retreat after his death, things were never the same for her. She missed him very much, and often told us how much she wanted to be able to let go of this life and be with him. We were so fortunate that for the past 4 years she found such a good home at Bryntirion. I’m not sure she was always a model resident ... but we want to express our enormous thanks to Julie and to all the staff at Bryntirion for their dedication, and for going well beyond the call of duty to let Mum stay there, and make her last weeks and days as comfortable and peaceful as they were.

Most of all, Mum was a giver. She has given so much to all of us here, and helped make us what we are today. And she was such a gift, in all of our lives. It is fitting that we gather here today to celebrate, and give thanks for, that gift, and to give it back to God the Giver, as we say goodbye to our Mum today.

God bless you, Mum, and take care of you until we meet again.