Dorothy Maud Newman (nee Ellis): 20.02.1914 - 27.03.2002

A summary of her life, an edited version of the address delivered on Wednesday 10th April 2002

My mother was born in West London in February 1914 and lived there for most of the first fifty years of a life that ended exactly two weeks ago. From London, she moved to Northumberland and, twelve years later, she came to Trentham. In 1939 she married William Hope Newman (they are pictured to the right, in 1941 with friend Kay & Harry Miller and their son Robert); they had two children, Ian in 1941 and me (Paul) in 1946, and their life together lasted 42 years.

The First World War started within a few months of my mother's birth. Her father, Harold Ellis, went to serve his country in India and remained there for the next six years. My mother and her elder brother, Horace (who died during the Second World War), went to live with their grandparents, Edward and Jane Noakes (the picture of the two children, aside, was taken in 1916). My grandmother (Charlotte, Florence - she preferred to use her second name) worked at the Times, often at nights and because the grandparents had a business to run, the children's Aunts Sukie and Sarah cared for them. As a result, Aunt Sarah's expression "you want to be waited on hand, foot and finger" became familiar to subsequent generations. The year of my grandfather's return home saw the arrival of a new addition to the Noakes family, Margaret (The fourth photograph down, taken in 1968, shows Margaret, far right, with her husband, Tom Miles and daughter Elizabeth - she is holding the arm of her aunt Florence Ellis, who is also with her grandson Ian, his wife Heather and her first great grandson, Michael). Last Sunday, she recalled one of her earliest memories of the two of them doing things together, which also involved my mother's friend Kay (the two are pictured together, third photograph down, in 1922). That friendship lasted until Kay's death because her friends were very important to her. Despite her tendency to refer to other people as 'a bit of a pain', she made new friends throughout her life and corresponded with them regularly, even after they ceased to live close by.

Although she was very proud of the academic achievements of her children and grandchildren, my mother was never a keen scholar herself. She preferred to reserve her energies for leisure pursuits. In her youth she was a member of the 'Women's League of Health and Beauty' and in later years gardening became an important hobby but her heart really lay in sport. She was an enthusiastic player of hockey and of netball, a swimmer and an ice-skater. Her greatest love, however, was tennis, as anyone who ever saw her in action on the court, or who heard her reminiscences, will testify. The tennis club was where my parents met and it remained the hub of their social life. My brother Ian and I had good reason to refer to ourselves as 'tennis orphans'.

She did not like moving to Northumberland at the age of 49 but Ponteland, where we lived, had a tennis club, so that helped to soften the blow. My father's deteriorating health prompted them to move to the Midlands in 1976, by which time she felt able to talk about what she did 'up north' with as much enthusiasm as for her exploits 'down south'.

Sadly, her mother died shortly after they moved to Trentham and her husband five years later but my mother lived there for longer than in any of her previous homes. For almost ten years after my father's death my mother enjoyed 'doing what she wanted for a change', as she put it. However, in 1989 her apparent good health faltered and by February 1990, after a series of small strokes, she had lapsed into a coma. A hospital Consultant told Ian and me that she was unlikely to recover in any meaningful way. Two and a half years later, however, she was well enough to reclaim her independence and was then able to fulfil her ambitions to travel to Canada and Australia. She is seen in the centre of the picture, taken at Christmas 1993 (below, right) with her two sons, daughters-in-law and five grandsons.

In recent years arthritis and other problems increasingly restricted her movements but did not diminish her independence or her competitive spirit. She became a familiar figure around Trentham, scattering all before her as she travelled on her electric scooter. A further stroke in November 2000, following a fall from that scooter, meant that she could no longer look after herself. Somewhat reluctantly at first, she allowed herself to be cared for in New Park House but, by the end, had made more new friends and seemed to be fairly content. Ian discovered that she had written to three of her old friends in West London the weekend before her death on a very upbeat note, amongst other things, telling them of the electric wheelchair that she had just ordered to give herself more freedom and flexibility.

Perhaps the best summary of her life came from Harry Miller, husband of Kay (see first picture, above) and now nearly 98 years old. He felt that he had to telephone to express his personal sense of loss and he called her 'a great character': an epitaph that I think my mother would have liked.

Paul Newman

April 02

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