How well
do we ever know our family and friends? Everyone here will have known a
different aspect of the character of Una Beryl Willmot. And no two assessments
will be the same. Even her children have different impressions of her. This is
very likely because we see other people through our own eyes, which are
coloured by our personality, and our own experiences both with, and apart from,
Beryl the mother, sister, grandmother, great grandmother, aunt, great-aunt,
friend or acquaintance.
I started
thinking along these lines because whilst looking through her papers this week
I found out something about her that no-one knew and she had probably long
forgotten.
She was
christened Una Beryl but didn't like either name. She would rather have been
called Barbara, but obviously not enough to insist people did so. She was
called Betsy as a child by her family and later on Beryl. It was only the
medical profession who called her Una.
She spent
her early years in the beautiful village of Whatstandwell on the river Derwent
in Derbyshire where she recalls many happy days either looking at, or being
with, nature. Her family then had to move to the Wirral in Cheshire due to her
father's workplace burning down. And she lived there until she married, apart
from a short time spent in North Wales as an evacuee to have a respite from the
nightly air raids and continue her education.
She was of
an age where on the whole she had an enjoyable war, a vivacious and attractive
girl with her different male friends on leave at different times.
But it's
rare to go through a world war without tragedy touching and Beryl's fiancé,
Bill was shot down and killed in 1944 when she was 17 years old.
I came
across a book of verse she had compiled starting in 1945 and in it she reveals
that she was still mourning him 3 years later in May 1947. Most of the poems in
this little book she either copied or stuck in a cutting from a magazine. She
liked Longfellow and Patience Strong. Under a verse by Patience she wrote
"I dedicate this to my Bill with all my love. This verse is very true when
one loves as I loved and still love Bill."
I was
surprised to find in this book some delightful poems with the initials UBD and
then in a later hand UBW underneath. As most of the poems she copied had the
poets name at the bottom I infer from this that she wrote her own verse during
1947! I have never heard her mention this and neither had her sister Margaret.
Anyway
they are worth reading so I want to read a few. In October 1947 she wrote a
poem called Thoughts.
I heard
you say you needed me,
One day
when the lights were low,
I heard
you say you loved me,
One night
in the firelight glow.
Your voice
was ever soft and low,
Filled
with your love for me,
You found
it hard to let me go,
And vowed
forever close you'd be.
I tried to
answer as I felt
Your
dreams were in your eyes,
Then I
forgot and began to melt
My heart
in the starry skies.
You asked
me if I needed you,
That day
when the lights were low.
You asked
me if I loved you true
That night
in the firelight glow.
My answer
dear I cannot say
For this I
do not know,
With all
my heart I hope one day
That my
love for you will grow.
And if my
answer should be no,
Please
think me not unkind,
It will I
think be better so,
Then
you'll find peace of mind.
Peter and
Beryl were married in December 1948 so her answer was obviously yes in the end.
If you
knew her well, especially when she was younger you will know that occasionally
she would get a prophetic vision.
This poem
is entitled the Cottage and in a later hand she has written Lower Hardwick,
which was the first real home she shared with Peter, my father. She wrote it
just before the Thoughts poem.
Peeping
through the trees one day,
I saw a
cottage old, but gay.
It's lattice
windows shining bright
In the
morning's early light.
I wondered
who could live within
This
lovely cottage, so proud and trim.
The walls
a sturdy black and white
Weathering
many a blustering night.
The
chimneystack so tall and straight
Where the
pidgeon calls his mate.
Peter and
Beryl had a very close relationship because not only were they husband and
wife, they were also best friends and on the same wavelength, especially
spiritually. They would have their 'Quite Time' early every morning before we
four children got up.
However
after Dad passed away 14 years ago Mum lost her faith. I actually don't think
she really lost it - just misplaced it somewhere. She would tell me so often
that she didn't think there was a God when I visited her but you cannot discuss
these things on a mental level during a few day's visit. It needs to be lived
and experienced. So during these last two years when I had occasion to stay
with her for two months last year and 7 months this, she started to ask me
about my own faith and lost her doubts and as a result felt happier and more at
peace.
She told
me she that although she would not want to hasten death unduly she was ready to
go whenever the time came and in fact was looking forward to it so she could be
with her beloved Peter again.
Those who
have been with her recently can attest to her breathing becoming more and more
difficult and on her last evening it was very difficult. She kept asking me to
help her to relax because when she could not get her breath she became fearful.
I used the technique (called EFT) of tapping on the meridian end points on the
face, torso and hand, which she would often ask me to do because it relaxed
her.
However it
wasn't working as well as usual so I prayed and asked how I could help her and
repeated the following mantra. "Peace, be still and know that I AM
God." I AM, of course, is the name God said was his name forevermore when
he spoke to Moses from the burning bush.
As I
repeated it, Mum joined in as best she could whenever she had breath to do so.
And this is what calmed her and gave her peace and enabled her to "Let go
and Let God" as the saying goes.
And so she passed away.
I wonder
if you would like to join me in saying that mantra a few times so we can all
feel the peace of God that passeth all understanding.
"Peace, be still and know that I AM God"
(x3)
