Deaths

Janet Ward, mother of Jonathan (H71), Robert (H77), Edmund (T80) and Damian (T84).

Janet was born in Edinburgh in 1928, the second of five daughters of Joan Feilding and Ian

Bruce, a career soldier. Up to the age of 12 she lived largely on the south coast, sometimes in the

charge of the family nanny, while both her parents were abroad, although she did spend some

time in India and Egypt. Following Dunkirk, Janet, her mother and sisters were evacuated to

Beckley Park in Oxfordshire.

During that time, Janet went to Rye St Antony School in Oxford. She loved the school, and put

her lifelong love of literature down to the inspiration of the charismatic headmistress, Elizabeth

Rendell. It was also at Rye that she met Jean McCann, whose family has remained great friends

with ours ever since.

On leaving school, Janet dreamt of studying at the Sorbonne, but this was just after the war, and

her father was concerned for her safety. So she learned secretarial skills and worked briefly as

secretary for an Oxford don, and soon after got a job at the Catholic paper, the Tablet, taking dictation

from the formidable Douglas Woodruff and Evelyn Waugh. On marriage she left the Tablet,

but then became their regular reviewer of children’s books, staying in that role for nearly twenty

years, and providing us with a continuous supply of the latest children’s fiction.

In 1949 Janet met Peter and they married at St Mary’s in East Hendred, Oxfordshire in September

1950. They first lived in London, but in 1953 moved to Waterdell House, where they have lived

ever since.

Janet was always ready to face a challenge, especially if someone said “you can’t do that”, and

she was also ahead of her time. Despite bringing up eight children, she set up her own school at

home so that she could teach her children herself. Her education methods were liberal, involving

an unstructured but principled approach, with large amounts of play in the garden and yet ensuring

all the children were able to read and write by the time they were five.

Janet’s school stayed open for 17 years, but - after Damian had left and started prep school -

Janet wanted a new challenge. So, in her forties, she studied for a BEd, specialising in English,

graduating with a first class degree, and joined St Bernard’s Catholic School, High Wycombe,

where she later became Head of English, succeeding among other things in getting the first pupil

into Oxford and producing plays such as ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ and ‘Man for All Seasons’. She

remained at St Bernard’s for nearly 20 years until her retirement.

Many of the people Janet taught and worked with have referred to her energy, inspiration and

commitment to raising the aspirations of her students. Retirement did not quell her passion for

education. In her sixties she became a governor at the local Catholic School, St Joan of Arc, here

in Rickmansworth, where she also helped individual children with literacy each week. But the

school to which she had the strongest connection for her whole life was her old school, Rye St

Antony. She was a Trustee and Governor for 43 years, the final 12 years of which she was Chair

of Governors. In recognition of her service, in 2005 the school named the new Performing Arts

building after her. The headmistress, Alison Jones, wrote this in praise of Janet’s influence on the

school:

“she helped Rye grow and develop … to reflect the religious, moral and intellectual ethos of the

Catholic tradition, maintaining the founding vision but helping make it fresh, live and relevant for

each new cohort of pupils.”

And it is in thanks for Janet’s contribution to the school that Alison and Chris Gill, Director of Music

at Rye, are here today with five choristers, whose singing we will be hearing later.

Everyone who has known her will know how much Janet loved her garden. She worked on it all

year round (once, when we were all squabbling too much, even on Christmas Day!), and on summer

days she would work outside from dawn til dusk. She loved sharing her garden too, and

opened it through the National Garden Scheme for many years, Peter ensuring that the teas were

up to standard! Always busy with her hands all her life, once retired, Janet took up painting and

was able to give more time to her other passion, woodwork. She made furniture for all her children

and many of her grandchildren - and these were substantial pieces, such as grandfather

clocks, dining tables, armchairs. She also carved people in wood, drawing inspiration from her

children and grandchildren.

Father Jim will no doubt talk about Janet’s deep Christian faith, which - for somebody brought up

in a pre-Vatican II sheltered environment - was enlightened. Her faith touched everything she did

and inspired her in many ways, including in her studies: her degree dissertation was about John

Henry Newman; hence the opening hymn today.

Mum and Dad had been married for 67 years. The absolute support, loyalty and respect for each

other’s needs and foibles, underpinned by a deep love, has provided us children with a model to

emulate, for which we are all grateful.

Mum and Dad established many pleasurable routines, such as the family summer camping holidays,

with us squeezed into a VW camper van, in France, Spain and - for many years - in Jugoslavia,

where Mum would wake up at six and go for an early morning swim before heading to

market before breakfast. These holidays form the background of many family memories, a legacy

which also includes being read to by Mum (not just children’s fiction, but poetry, Dickens, Kipling),

a love of the theatre and doing cryptic crosswords.

Mum adored her grandchildren, endeavouring to make Waterdell a grandchild haven of fun, adventure

and education. She furnished it with toys, puzzles and videos, and for the garden, footballs,

goals, bikes and she constructed a sizeable wooden fort. She encouraged them to read the

books in her collection, do puzzles and taught them a wide variety of skills, from how to write to

how light fires. Most of all she loved to brag about their achievements - to anyone who would listen!

We have all watched with sadness as Mum’s dementia over the last years took her further away

from the person described here, but what endured towards the end when all her faculties were

leaving her was her strong love for the people around her: for Peter, her family and her carers.

Mum used to tell us what her father told her: “one thing is for certain: the world will be a different

place for your having been part of it, so you may as well make it a better place.” I think we can be

sure that it is a better place for Mum having been part of it.

 

 

Rest in eternal peace.