Celebration of the life of May Ellis

Born Mabel Elizabeth Boncey 26.11.1905; died 29.11.2002

An amended version of the text delivered at her funeral on 20th December 2002

 

When a person lives to be 97, as May did, it is inevitable that most contemporaries will no longer be around to explain what made their lives special.  Therefore, I asked to pay tribute to her on behalf of the family she married into 70 years ago and to whom she showed such great love (see picture below, right of my grandparent's 25th wedding celebrations in 1934 - May & Horace are standing at the extreme right of this photograph).

 
 
The fact that the relationship lasted so long is an important part of the story because it was not inevitably so.  When my Uncle Horace went missing during a bombing raid to Norway on 22nd January 1942 they were only just starting the tenth year of their marriage (they were married on 10th December 1932) and no one in the family would have thought less of her if she had made a new life and lost contact with us.  My Grandmother used to say that she could not have wished for a better daughter-in-law but she was also a very caring 'big sister' to my mother, a favourite aunt to my elder brother Ian and me and a good friend to the widening circle of 'in-laws'.

 
 

 
She was 'good fun' (she is pictured, right, in party mood with her sister Doll, who is nearest to the camera) and people enjoyed having her around so, as I grew up, she was an integral part of the party round in Ealing, Hounslow and Harrow at this time of the year and at birthdays, confirmations, tennis club 'dos' and all the other occasions that tend to merge into one another as time goes by.  Over Easter she would be with us at Herne Bay, where my Grandparents moved shortly after the end of the war.  When my parents moved to Northumberland in 1963, she visited and did much to ease my mother's homesickness (In 1965 she accompanied my parents on a cruise around Norway - the picture below right was taken on their return).  By the time they moved again to Trentham in Staffordshire, in 1975, May was already acquainted with my wife, Elisabeth's family but she soon became the welcome excuse for many a get-together during her subsequent regular visits.

 

In more recent years as age took its toll, we suggested that May should move to Trentham, so we could be of more immediate help but she preferred to stay here in Ealing, near Church and friends.  So I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the love shown to her by those who cared in later years, especially to her good friend Queenie Mount-Stevens, Yvonne, the Matron of Lammas Park Nursing Home, where she ended her days, and Father Andrew Davies, Vicar of Christ Church, Ealing.  May's final lingering decline has coincided with the illness and death of several members of my immediate family, culminating with my mother (Dorothy Newman), at Easter this year.  It has been a great comfort to know that such good people were caring for her, as she had for others.  It was in character that during the last proper conversation that we had, shortly after Christmas 1999, she was more interested in learning how others were than talking about her own condition.

 

May showed me that making people smile and feel better about themselves is a good way to put this into practice.  I think that that was a very special gift.

Paul Newman

December 02

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