Jean Doris Barned

Our lovely mum left us on Tuesday 30th July 2024 and we realise how much she meant to all of her wider family and friends, as well as to us. Many of the messages of support have mentioned Mum’s great sense of humour, her unwavering love for her family and her kind and caring nature. The four of us had a truly wonderful childhood. Our mum was firm but fair and her love for us was unconditional and abundant. For the past two years Karen had the privilege of living with her. They had a few teething problems initially, disagreeing over silly things like whose toaster and kettle we would use, but soon settled into a comfortable routine, spending the evenings watching our favourite TV programmes together. Karen is so grateful that she had that time to enjoy her company. Andy is also thankful that he and his family moved back from Canada when they did and were able to spend time with Mum, making lots of memories to treasure.

When mum found out about her illness and we knew our time was limited, Natalie decided to buy her a memory book, partly as a way for her to reminisce, to take her mind off her illness, and partly as a way for us to record memories of her long happy life. We had no idea of the effort she would put into it and as with everything she did, she took such pride in it. After months of working on the book, each time we saw her we’d ask if it was finished and she’d say, almost, just a couple more pages to complete, or I just want to add one more picture! Needless to say, this is the most treasured of our possessions now and it has helped us enormously with writing this Eulogy.

Mum was born to Millie and Ted Page in Dagenham, the fifth child of seven. It was 1932, the year that Bonnie and Clyde embarked on their bank robbery careers and Al Capone was jailed for tax evasion. Other new arrivals that year were Elizabeth Taylor, Johnny Cash, Debbie Reynolds and Des O’Connor – she outlived them all!

She wasn’t an Essex girl for long, moving to Belvedere when she was 10 months old. Her earliest memory was when her sister Doreen was born, and she wasn’t allowed upstairs by her big sister Florrie who was then 13. She also liked to tell us how her big brothers stole her doll’s pram while she was asleep and made it into a go-cart!

In 1940, soon after her youngest brother Brian was born, their family home was bombed, and they were evacuated to Wales. The family was split up, mum was with her brother, Ted, and he used to shield her from the wind by putting her under his coat when they had to walk across 4 open fields to get to school. The school only had 2 classrooms, the infants, where her sister Doreen was, and the other for the rest, so at 8 years old she once had to watch her brother and his mates being caned! Outside of school, she enjoyed playing all kinds of ball and skipping games with her friends as well as jacks, and buttons but her favourite things to do were sliding down the slag heaps on bits of wood and crossing the black river (where they washed the coal) by straddling a large pipe.

She worked hard at school and was proud of the prizes she won for being top of the class. After the war, she took shorthand, typing and book-keeping classes and got 100% in her exams. She also won a needlework competition for embroidery and was picked to be in an athletics team due to visit Sweden although unfortunately she couldn’t go as by the time it came round, she had just passed the cut-off age. Mum wasn’t sure what she wanted to do when she left school but admired her big sister Millie’s typing skills so decided to follow in her footsteps. She started work at 17 for a solicitor in Woolwich, then fancied working in London, so got a job in Selfridges as secretary to the catering manager. After a few more job changes she went back to Woolwich working for the Co-op and her younger sister Doreen joined her there. There were various other jobs, she said it was very easy to move between jobs back then, and one of her favourites was at Belvedere Power Station when she was the only girl among an office of about 10 young men – she said they were all perfect gentlemen!

She used to go a dance studio in Erith with her sister Doreen, and that’s where she met our dad, Alan, at a square dance. While they were dating, they would go dancing a couple of times a week and the cinema once a week often as a four with her work friend Betty and her boyfriend Dick. Sometimes they would go swimming straight from work then drink hot Oxo in a café opposite.
Mum and dad got engaged on Mum’s 21st birthday, and they went to see a show called “For Better or Worse” that evening. They would take holidays hop picking to help pay for their wedding. After they were married, they lived in two rooms in the same house mum had lived in at the age of 14. After a few years, they bought their first house and had many lovely holidays in Spain, and on the English coast. It actually would have been their 70th wedding anniversary a week after she died!

Although they waited a while before starting a family, the four of us came along in quick succession. She was always very proud of us, especially when we were young and said we were so well behaved when they used to take us out! Once Natalie was at school, mum decided to become a teacher and went back to college to study for her BEd Honours degree. Whilst at college, she also studied art and won prizes for the Batiks she created – some of which we still have. Photography also became a hobby; she took photos and dad used to develop them for her. He then also decided to go into education, switching careers from engineering to teaching maths and science. They got jobs at adjoining schools in Dartford and were very happy there for several years. It was lovely for us to have both parents at home when we were off school and we had great family holidays, often to Cliftonville or holiday camps where mum would always surprise us joining in with all the competitions, she once won a holiday in a bowls contest. We also visited all our relatives in Scotland several times which was lovely.

In 1986 tragedy struck our family and our lovely brother Paul was taken far too soon in a car crash aged 21. Mum never really got over losing him but it’s nice to think they’re back together again now. When we started having families of our own, spending time with her grandchildren helped to ease the pain. She was an amazing help to us all and her and Dad were always happy to babysit and even took our children away on holidays occasionally, to one or other of their timeshares. The big family get togethers were always her favourite times and we had some great holidays together over the years.

After we lost Dad to cancer in 2001, mum lived with Natalie and her boys for 6 years and they all loved having her with them. When little Curtis was so poorly, mum’s help was immeasurable and during all the months Natalie was in the hospital with him, she knew the boys were in safe hands at home with mum.

Mum always made friends easily and enjoyed being part of the Pratts Bottom village community, but in 2007 she decided to have a change of scenery and moved down to Poole and there she made many more friends. Gradually over the years most of the family have followed her there, and we have had lots more wonderful times together. She delighted in all the grandchildren’s achievements and supported them in everything they did, going to graduations and all the events they were involved in.

In her later years, once she finally stopped teaching (she was still doing private lessons at age 80!) mum’s love of art resurfaced and she took up painting at Leisure Painters, which she really enjoyed. Her friends were impressed by how quickly her skills developed and we have many treasured portraits of family members and some landscape pictures of places we have visited together.

Even at age 91 mum was determined to keep active in both body and mind doing her “daily dozen” as she called it and completing daily puzzles such as the Wordle, the Nerdle and the 1% club. One of the things Natalie will miss the most is our online games of Scrabble. She was really clever and whatever game we played, she did her best to win and very often did.

Sadly, mum knew she was going to die but when we asked her if she had a bucket list, she said she had already lived her life to the full and done everything she wanted to do. Her only wish was to die with dignity in her own home which she was able to achieve.
Rest in peace mum, we all love you so much, thank you for everything.