On Tuesday morning, 7th April, my sister’s ashes were interred in the Garden of Remembrance at St. Stephen’s, Albans, where once those of our parents had been scattered. A short service was attended by small group of close family and friends, after which the urn was placed in the ground and a course of Bob Minor rung on handbells at the graveside. Jean was an active ringer for only a few years, but those who rang with her during the sixties and early seventies still have fond memories of her.

A note in the back of her tower book says "It all started on a Friday in 1963 when I was having confirmation classes". This would no doubt have been at St Mary’s, Disley, as she and I spent much of our childhood in this Cheshire village. The Derbyshire border was only a few yards down the road so we attended New Mills Grammar School in the neighbouring county. Jean was four years my junior and didn’t get drawn into ringing until after I had left school. I’m not certain where she learnt to handle a bell, but she made rapid progress in her first year as a ringer with the Marple band. Her records show that she had rung in at least six towers by the time we moved to St Albans in September 1964.

The Hertfordshire ringers gave this enthusiastic young ringer every opportunity to progress. She wrote a charming account of her first quarter in May 1965, rung after a wedding at Redbourn: "It went on till 4.15 or 4.20, about 40 or 45 minutes. Got paid too – unexpectedly". Her preference though was for handbell ringing; tunes as well as changes, so much so that in 1965 our parents bought her a Petit and Fritsen set of her own. She rang her first peal in the same year, on handbells with Geoff and Joyce Dodds, Joyce conducting Plain Bob Minor. Her second peal was on 1-2 to Plain Bob Major in June 1966 with Walter Ayre conducting, and Julia Fellows and Gerald Penney on the inside pairs. The timbre of her Dutch bells didn’t suit change ringing, however, but Jean organised many a tune-ringing evening, when members of the young band at St. Stephen’s, as well as school friends, would meet at 26 Willow Way to play carols and other popular airs on her bells.

She completed her sixth form studies at St Albans Grammar School for Girls and from there went on to Bournemouth College in 1968. After a three-year break her name appeared in the peal columns once more when she rang her first tower-bell peal at East Coker with the Salisbury Diocesan Guild on 22nd February, 1969. Seven more peals followed in that year, four of them in hand. With the exception of Plain Minor in 14 methods all were of Major, including Cambridge and Double Norwich. The Minor at Great Gaddesden was the only tower-bell peal she ever rang with me, although we did ring two handbell peals together, one in 1970 on a cabin cruiser on the Norfolk Broads with Ken Brown and Ken Darvill.

I believe that was Jean’s penultimate peal. She didn’t keep a peal book, or if she did then I haven’t found it. Thanks to Andrew Craddock’s PealBase, and some research by John and Dorothea Mayne, we have come across her name in twelve peal reports, eight of which were on handbells. Her last peal, on 8th May 1970, was one of three rung with Dan Matkin’s band at 8 Gerald Road during her first two years at Bournemouth.

On her return to St Albans in 1972, after graduating with an external London B.A., Jean was employed as secretary to a consultant surgeon at St Albans City Hospital. Five years later she accepted a post with the Crown Prosecution Service, eventually becoming the personal assistant of the Chief Crown Prosecutor. She was able to buy a flat of her own in the heart of the City and enjoyed an active social life with a wide circle friends. She was still doing some ringing at that time; Steven Chandler recalls her driving him to practices at Apsley End, and ringing with Walter Ayre, Frank Byrne, Gus Good, and others. Handbell sessions continued, at Christmas mainly, but Jean lost interest in ringing as she became more and more involved with her childhood passion for bird watching.

She amassed a vast collection of books and detailed records of sightings over twenty years of visits to wildlife sanctuaries and remote bird reserves, Skomer Island in particular. After our mother’s death in 1998 Jean moved out of the city centre to the family home at 26 Willow Way. She still entertained family and old friends there, but in 2002 there were signs that all was not well with her; she had to stop working in 2003. The next five years saw a steady decline in her condition, yet she denied herself all offers of help. The end came suddenly, shortly before Christmas last year. Her funeral service at St Stephen’s on 29th December was the occasion for a large gathering of family, old friends, some from Disley days, ringers, and former colleagues from both the Health Service and the CPS. How sad it was that Jean never realised in how much regard and affection she was held by so many.

Peter Dale