17 March 1915 - 13 January 2005
Funeral at Lodge Hill Cemetery, Weoley Castle, Birmingham
Wednesday 26 Jan 12:30 and after at Moor Pool Hall
One version of the oration (90% written by Nick):
Betty Hayes, pragmatist, beloved pedant and matriarch.
Betty was born on the 17th March 1915 the second of the six children (five sisters, and one brother, Fred). The Stout family were furniture manufacturers and traders based in Leigh in Lancashire. It would seem that she had quite a severe upbringing by today's standards, never being good enough compared with her older sister, once being thrashed (her words) for going into the house of one of her schoolfriends on the way home. She attended Leigh Girl's Grammar School an establishment so formidable that it left its mark on the Stout girls for life. In fact my Uncle Ron would often say, "Bryce, how would we know, we didn't have the benefit of a Leigh Girls Grammar School education?". It was at about this time that we have some of the first evidence of Betty's style, as she wrote to her Uncle Jim :
Dear Uncle Jim
I would like to go to Scotland. The train fare is 14 shillings.
Love Betty
And go to Scotland she did, with her friend Mary, this was the first of many ventures North of the Border in Betty's life and was made memorable for her by one particular incident. While plodding through the pouring rain (this was Scotland after all) they saw a familiar car approaching, it was their Headmistress, she drove straight past, but waved. This brief encounter and the following bout of hilarity "we roared" was so firmly etched on Mum's mind that she could still remember the number plate.
In fact cars were an important part of Mum's earlier life, she recently recalled driving over Shap (with Mary again) with the bonnet up and a suitable young man standing on the running board armed with a spanner to clout the petrol pump every time it failed, a Morris of course. She was also the mistress of the double declutch, some sort of arcane driving technique guaranteed to cause frustration in lesser mortals like my father, who she taught to drive..
She decided not to go to University as it was too expensive, instead becoming a clerk at an accountants firm in Manchester, commuting from Leigh. Then came the war and Betty joined the Wrens to work in the signals group, becoming adept with a soldering iron. According to her she was nearly killed twice, once when she nearly backed into a spinning propeller, and once when the radio mast was struck by lightning, actually maybe three times, as she was taken up in a swordfish and subjected to aerobatics. She was sick - greatly sick.
After the war she attended Gosta Green College of Education in Birmingham where she met, a rather tall, dashing chap called Bryce. They married on consult certificate and in the fullness of time their life was made "perfect" by the arrival of two boys.
A few years after our arrival, Betty joined the Keep Fit (the forerunner of Modern Rhythmic Gymnastics, without the running), taken at that time by Audrey Antrobus and taking place in the Moorpool hall, with Miss Murray tinkling away on the piano, in fact Joyce and Joan are now the only one's left from those first classes. Keep Fit was something she went to for the next forty years or so, sometimes twice a week, with forays into tap and a regular visit to London once a year to criticize, I'm sorry, comment positively on the attempts of other Keep Fit groups.
The move from High Brow to Moorpool Avenue, brought with it a large garden and a weekly Thursday visit to Mr Rutter's gardening classes. The garden benefited with a mixture of heathers and azaleas, following Betty's lead, secateurs will be available later for anyone who wants to purloin the odd cutting.
As Steve and I moved away, then more free time became available and Betty and Bryce, like a lot of others, started venturing abroad to explore "the Continent". One such trip was a cruise down the Danube, this coincided with some of the lowest water levels on record and the last major Smallpox epidemic in Europe. Dad commented that it would have been the perfect time to smuggle anything, as the customs officers stood with their backs to the wall in the customs hall and waved everyone through.
Then came bowls, crown green, naturally, none of this prissy up and down rink stuff. Both parents took to the sport, some might say with a vengeance.
Sadly Bryce died two years into his retirement, and Mum entered what we might call her Third Age. It would be honest to say that from this time she was beset by depression and anxiety, though it was said of her that she was two different women, an invalid in the house and an assassin on the bowling green. This was the era of,
"Why don't you go to the Butchers?"
"I haven't been able to walk that far for two years!"
Followed by fifteen ends of bowls in the afternoon.
In fact on a trip to her Nephew, Roger's in France Betty decided that she should investigate the Palombiere, a tree house sitting forty feet up a rustic and rickety ladder, she duly ascended causing the owner conniptions and prompting another American Cousin to remark to Steve, "Your mother - respect".
Prior to this time, older sister Emily died and it came down to Mum to look after Fred on a permanent basis, as we all know she soldiered on at this for about fifteen years before finally admitting that it was too much for her and Fred moved into a home. Incidentally Fred has made the wreath I hope and will be attending the "do" in the Moorpool Hall after, we hope that you will all come along, as, typically, we had instructions.
Early last summer she had the first of a series of small heart attacks and decided that she would be better of in Nursing care, and so moved to The Field House, in Harborne. One of the last times I/Nick talked to Mum she had just finished her fortnightly "Key Worker Assessment", a chat about the service provision in the home. It went something like this:
"I think that visitors should be allowed to have meals with the residents."
"I think that having this assessment every two weeks is ridiculous I mean what happens in two weeks? I think it should be monthly or even every two months."
Then a gleam of pure mischieviousness,
" I think we should have an exercise bicycle."
Finally on of the sons managed to present Betty with a grandchild, prompting the reaction, "Typical now that I'm too old to enjoy them!" Now the thing about Mothers is that they are always right, unfortunately for us, with Mum that tended to be the case, sorry that WAS the case, with one exception (pause for lightning bolt), she was not too old to enjoy her Grandchild.
Lets's now do as were have been told, and remember the good things.