1921 - 2009

Trudi did not have the best start to life, at the tender age of six weeks she needed surgery and spent time in Great Ormond Street Hospital. Later she had stitches in a cut hand and then treatment for a dog bite the day before her sixth birthday. Her father became very ill with TB and her parents had little choice but to apply for relief, which they collected from the Council. As a result Trudi was allowed to leave school three months early in order to start work but the money she and her sister earned was deducted from the relief money until there was just sufficient to keep the family. Trudi’s sister was called up into the army, Trudi followed three months on and three months after that their father died. Four and a half years later they were both demobbed. Trudi returned to her office job and her sister trained to be a teacher and moved to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

Trudi came to bell ringing in 1953 and joined the band of All Saints Edmonton, North London. She quickly progressed, ringing her first peal on her 33rd birthday, which was also her sister’s wedding day in Rhodesia. She was appointed captain of All Saints’ ringers in 1954. In 1955, through bell ringing, she met her husband-to-be Tom. Trudi went on to become Chairman of the Northern District of the Middlesex Association and Tom its Ringing Master. They married in the 1970s and their wedding was reported in The Ringing World as "Chairman and Ringing Master Spliced". Over the years they taught countless people to handle a bell and there are many who have them to thank for being introduced to the world of ringing. Their dedication and willingness to give their time seemed to attract new ringers both to Edmonton and, following their move to Norfolk in 1978, Shipdham, where they soon became an integral part of All Saints’ Shipdham ringers. Her ringing friends at Edmonton never forgot her and made an annual trip to ring in Norfolk where they would adjourn to Trudi’s for a fish and chip lunch and later a ‘bell ringers’ tea’. Sadly, six years after their move to Norfolk, Tom died.

Trudi’s love for bell ringing never waned and she continued to teach and ring whenever and wherever she could. Perhaps her favourite "call" would be a touch of Stedman with stand called on the last hand stroke. It was therefore fitting that the ringers of All Saints’ Shipdham rang that touch and stood as Trudi left this earth.

All Saints Edmonton and All Saints Shipdham ringers