Page 51 - QARANC Vol 14 No 6 2013

Miss Elvira Thomas was born in 1916 and lived most of her life in Pontyclun, a village ten miles west of Cardiff and three miles south of Llantrisant. On leaving Cowbridge High School for Girls in 1935 she trained as a nurse.
During the Second World War she served in the near east, Egypt, Italy and France receiving the King’s Commendation. On returning to Wales after the War she completed her studies
in Midwifery and other allied matters. In 1948 she joined the National Health Service becoming a Health Visitor in schools and homes stretching from the lower Rhondda Valley right down to Llantwit Major near the Glamorgan Coast. She eventually became Superintendant of the health visitors in the area. She retired in 1976 aged 60.
Miss Thomas was a member of the Hope-Penuel Presbyterian Church,
THE GAZETTE QARANC 49
Maj Pat Parker QARANC
I first met Pat Parker in BMH Singapore in 1961 she was a theatre sister and I was a Midwife. We became firm friends and enjoyed holidays in the Far East.
Her previous posting had been in Paris, during which she was received into the Roman Catholic Church at the
Sacre Cover, she had also served in the sick bay of the Troopship Oxfordshire.
We returned to the UK in 1963 Pat was posted to The Royal Herbert Woolwich and I went to the Louise Margaret in Aldershot.
Some time later Pat pursued her new vocation in religious life. Pat resigned
her commission in 1965 and entered The Carmelite order of Contemplative Nuns in Sheffield.
Pat sadly died on the 10th January 2013 RIP
Veronica M Fahy
Capt (Retd) QARANC
Pontyclun for 80 years and in 1980 was elected Elder of the Church. At the same time she became secretary of the church, serving for fifteen years until 1995. In 2006, at the age of 90, she moved, with her brother and sister, both of whom predeceased her, to the Manor House Residential and Nursing Home in St. Hilary, near Cowbridge. It was here on 24 June 2012 that she passed peacefully away aged 95.
Miss Elvira Thomas 1916 – 2012
Mrs Jean Kearney (Nee Gray) 10 October 1934 – 2 October 2012
As this is a service of Thanksgiving, I am sure you will allow me to start by saying how grateful Sean and I are to Colin Fox for his friendship and support, and for agreeing with Marc Zammit’s approval, to lead us on this sad day in our church which Jean so adored.
Secondly, I should like to express my deepest gratitude to all those generous people who have Sean and I through the last two weeks. The level of your support has been quite remarkable and has been much appreciated.
But my greatest appreciation is, without doubt whatsoever, owed to the doctors, nurses and staff at Salisbury District Hospital and our local Avon Valley Practice. They were truly magnificent in their care, attention and kindness.
Jean was born in Warkworth in the coast of Northumberland. As a child she delighted in playing on the majestic beaches of the North Sea. The Second World War began when she started her first year of education. She vividly remembered taking cover when her school was being machine gunned by a German Bomber on its return to the continent. Later during the war she and her family were bombed out of their home in Alnmouth.
On leaving school Jean trained as a State Registered Nurse In the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle-Upon- Tyne, and she then became a sister in the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps. Posted to Germany, she cared for soldiers in the British Army element of the civilian hospital in
Munster where some of the German Nurses were nuns who wore long dresses with very wide dresses. During the worldwide influenza pandemic in 1957 she calmed some extremely ill soldiers who became distraught on seeing a number of nuns on the ward.. The men wrongly feared that they had died and the nuns with their large head-dresses were angels.
The move to Germany gave Jean a new found freedom which she relished in the excitement of night clubs. One evening when she was the hospital duty officer she decided to go clubbing rather than stay in!. She subsequently got into very hot water because Quick Train was called – this was the exercise to test the whole British Force in moving swiftly into the field as a counter to a possible Russian incursion.
Despite this incident, at the end of her Short Commission Jean was welcomed back into the QARANC and served in Colchester where she met her husband, Marshall. Within five days if their marriage he was in Kenya with 19 Brigade following the 1961 threat by Iraq to invade Kuwait. Jean had to resign her Commission on being married but her wide knowledge of medicine and pharmaceuticals helped her gain a civilian medical appointment in the garrison.
Jean loved life and parties, and seeing and learning about things new to her. She would read a novel a day and seldom forget in later years any author, main characters or plot. She would sketch dresses, make them and, if necessary make curtains too.
She loved music and sang in choirs all her life.
Cricket assumed an important interest in her marriage, especially when our son Sean was became a member of Midhurst Cricket Club in Wear Sussex. Sean subsequently became the bowler to take the highest number of wickets in the 200 year history of Midhurst. Jean was immensely proud of his career at Midhurst. Jean was an inventive cook, incredible cook. She was always ready to try something new.
So many kind letters were sent to Jeans husband and son following her death from cancer identified not only her outward beauty and elegance but the beauty of her inner self – her care for others, her readiness to help those in distress, the gentle way she tended flowers and presented food. If her last weeks were troubled by the uncertainty of the future she drew strength and comfort in her faith. She died peacefully at her home in her Wiltshire village of Enford.
She was a dedicated nursing sister, a lover of fun, a remarkable cook, loyal wife and proud mother. She loved tennis, bridge and maj-jong, was widely read and knowledgeable of the theatre and cinema. She was a penetrating thinker and an admirer of beautiful things.
This version slightly adjusts the one delivered at the Service on 15 Oct 12. It was a wonderful feature of the Army’s Regimental Spirit that the QARANC sent a representative to Jeans funeral. Mr Kearney