BETSY HOLLIS

                                   6 Nov 1921 – 25 Feb 2018

                                     A tribute by Sam Hollis

 Good afternoon everybody. On behalf of the family, thank you all for coming. If Granny was still alive today, I suspect that she 

 would be     very uncomfortable right now.

 Such was her humility, Betsy was never one to enjoy being the centre of attention.

 Yet here we all are today, gathered together in Betsy’s honour, to treasure her long, happy, healthy life surrounded by her family and friends.

And we are joined by so many of her drinking companions all over the world who can’t be here today, but who we know will be raising a glass of something wet in celebration of Betsy.

Although she doesn’t get any right of reply today, one can imagine Betsy playfully twitching her nose in that inimitable way of hers – as if to deflect the unwanted attention – before flashing us all her big broad smile and responding with some dismissively cheeky retort like “oh bubbles to you lot”.

Betsy had such a wonderful sense of fun and inveighed us all to be “wicked” in the nicest possible way.

To the end, she was always so sparky, friendly, engaged and interested in people. She made such an effort and had this remarkable knack of making people feel so special when she was with them.

She always made one feel that you were the one person she wanted to see.  After seeing her, one always came away with a warm smile.

And she was forever ready to chat up a stranger and make new friends.

Betsy lived such a full and interesting life, but it was not without its challenges, especially in her earlier years.

She was born in Croydon in 1921 as Margaret Blayden, but she preferred to be known as Betsy.

Her mother Glone died of cancer when Betsy was only about ten years old, after which Betsy became a surrogate mother to her younger sister Jane.

Even at this young age, Betsy was already proving herself to be a tower of strength for her family – a theme that was to continue throughout her life.

After her schooling at Reigate School for Girls, Betsy learned Pitman shorthand at secretarial college before starting her training as a nurse at Guy’s Hospital in 1939.

She worked at Guy’s through World War 2, treating patients brought back from the Dunkirk evacuation, the D-day invasion, and from prisoner of war camps in Germany and Japan.

It’s easy to see how Betsy would have made such a good nurse in those trying times of war.

She had a gift of hitting it off straight away with strangers and she was quick to treat others as family – an endearing quality that she shared with Lesley, her treasured daughter-in-law who she loved and adored so much.

With her wicked sense of humour, Betsy could be a source of such fun in lighter moments, whilst having this reassuring calmness about her in more trying times, when she proved a tower of strength to those around her.

Her eldest son Mike shares this reassuring quality.

Dad, I know that it was a huge source of comfort to Granny – especially in her later years – to know that you were always there to look after her and her affairs.

You were her calm in any storm (sometimes quite literally). You were always there for her with her best interests, health and happiness at heart. You couldn’t have done any more for her Dad.

Betsy met her husband Peter in 1945 at Farnborough, where he was a doctor and she was a nurse.

They were soon to marry and their first son Mike arrived within a year.

Around the same time, Peter contracted tuberculosis and was sent to Hawkmore isolation facility.

For the first six months of Mike’s life Betsy had to bring him up alone.

Although the plan was for a little girl to be called Jennifer Jane, when Mike was five Betsy gave birth to a brother to Mike – another Peter, but to be known as Beau.

Happy years followed after Peter became TB negative and the family moved first to Bristol and then to Torquay.

A busy full time mum and housewife supporting Peter’s successful medical career, Betsy still found time to enroll in evening woodwork classes.

While the other ladies were building bookshelves and coffee tables, Betsy set about building a fully class compliant GP14 dinghy, entirely self-taught from a Bell woodwork manual, which she named Ravelrig after the family home.

The family has happy memories of sailing on Emsworth Harbour in Ravelrig, which still maintains pride of place in the garden at 63.

Tragically in 1959, when Beau had just turned eight and Mike was thirteen, Peter died suddenly after a car accident leaving Betsy widowed with a big house, big mortgage, two boys at prep school, and no income or life insurance protection.

It’s a testament to Betsy’s tireless energy, selfless efforts and streetwise smarts over the years that followed that she managed to give herself and the boys the privileged life that they have been so lucky to live, and from which her broader family are all now still benefitting.

Supported by bursaries that she hunted out, Betsy put both Mike and Beau through good quality private boarding schools – EpsomCollege and Christ’s Hospital.

Betsy re-qualified as an Occupational Therapist, went back to work and rose to the top of her profession as Director of Occupational Therapy Services in Hampshire.

With smart investments and careful financial management – Betsy always loved a bargain, which has rubbed off on her boys – she reached the point where she owned three properties mortgage-free, enabling Beau to have his house in Windsor, Mike and Lesley to have their house in Emsworth and she retired into 66 King Street, where she loved watching over Emsworth Harbour and supervising proceedings in the street below from her balcony.

Her main focus throughout her life was always looking after her family, doting in succession on her little sister Jane, her husband Peter, her two boys Mike and Beau, her niece Glone, her daughter-in-law Lesley, and then her grandchildren and great grandchildren in later years.

But throughout she was always the most interesting and loyal colleague and friend to so many.

After such selfless sacrifices over the years, it was rewarding to watch her enjoy extensive travel in her retirement that she so loved.

More often than not she was joined by or visiting her friends on her trips, and usually there was a special interest element to her travels. She loved to learn or see something new, such was her endless thirst for learning.

She also loved taking up bridge with Lesley, which she enjoyed as much for the social fun with friends as the challenge of trying to keep her mind sharp.

It is a mark of her determination and independent spirit that she still drove her car aged 92 and stayed living at home by herself well into her 90s.

Betsy would want to make a special mention to the management and staff at Hambrook Meadows, where she was so comfortable for her last few years.

In her 90s, she was known to have knocked on the doors of her neighbours to ask them if they needed anything picked up from the Co-op, before tearing off on her battery-powered mobility scooter right down the middle of the road, holding onto her hat rather than the handle bars. It brings a smile to one’s face, doesn’t it?

It took all Mike and Beau could do to stop her from trying to drive her mobility scooter into Havant to Tesco’s or Waitrose’s (as she called them). But she didn’t particularly like being told what to do.

Beau tells the story of her wiping out the end of the aisles in the Co-op with her scooter, despite being forever instructed by them to leave it outside.

And when ‘chip and pin’ cards were introduced, she’d hand over her card and call out her PIN code to the cashier, complaining she couldn’t read the keypad.

My sister Lucy and I were so lucky and privileged to have been her grandchildren.

Both of us used to look forward to our lovely long chats with Granny about anything and everything.

Those special times alone with her are what I think we’ll both miss most – especially Lucy who used to pop in all the time for treasured chats on Granny’s balcony at 66, sometimes with a cup of tea and biscuits but more often a gin and tonic!

In moments of anxiety or concern, Granny had such a calming nature.

We always left her feeling like the weight of the world had lifted off our shoulders.

When we needed advice, Granny was always such a grounded sounding board – never obviously steering us in any particular direction, but usually leading us to the right path in way that made us feel like we had gotten there on our own.

And in happy times of celebration, we were always so excited to share our news with Granny.

She had this way of making us feel like the most special people in the world.

We needed nothing or no one else when Granny was around.

Lucy has written a poem about Granny, which you will hear shortly.

It’s brilliant, perfectly portraying the fun, independent, loving, spirited, adventurous matriarch of our family that we all loved and cherished so much.

Perhaps the best thing about Lucy’s poem though is that she got to read it out loud to Betsy at her 90th birthday party, in front of her nearest and dearest.

Lucy, that will have made Granny so proud.

From a very personal perspective, introducing Granny first to Archie and then to Millie were two of the proudest moments in my life.

We are so lucky that Betsy lived to meet her last great grandchild.

As a family, how would we have known about proper happiness in life without Betsy?

She was such a central and integral part of our family it will be strange and hard not to have her around any more.

We’ll miss knowing that she’s there, but the hole she leaves in our lives will be filled by all our many happy memories of the wonderful times we had together with her.

Betsy, you never did like your own company, but now you can rest in peace with Peter.

Raise with him a glass of something wet and toast together the legacy that you have left behind.

Peter left you early but you did him proud.

He’ll be so impressed with the long, rich life that you lived; with the close, loving family that you raised; and with all that you have done for everyone who was lucky enough to have called you their friend.

We will love you always.