1941 – 12 July 2025
One time ringer at Seend, Jan started ringing around 1991 under the tutelage of Bob Godwin, in the days when Sam Cottle was Tower Captain. Jan was involved in the fundraising efforts to have the bells overhauled and re-hung and collected the money for the 100 club which was instrumental in successfully having the work done in 1996. Rex (Jan’s husband) tells me that they accommodated the two engineers from Nicholson Engineering in Bridport (where Rex had grown up).
Jan was born in Morecambe, Lancs, in 1941. The family moved to Chessington and eventually to Greenford in Middlesex where she met Rex, married in 1963 and raised their two daughters. It was while they lived here that they joined the Salvation Army. They moved to Wiltshire in 1988 and lived in the same house at Bowerhill ever since.
A couple of years after moving to Wiltshire Rex was inveigled into joining the church choir at Holy Cross. Jan wasn’t bothered about singing but was drawn to the bells. Her name appears on one of the peal boards when all the ringers rang to join in the village celebrations of the new millennium on January 1st 2000. A regular Sunday Service ringer and supporter of the practice nights, Jan continued to ring until around 2016/17 when her memory began to play tricks on her and she couldn’t remember the sequence of plain hunt for more than one round. We invented the ‘Jan method’ whereby we rang plain hunt for one cycle, then rounds, then back to plain hunt and so on. Eventually though, Jan had to give up ringing completely as her handling skills diminished. In recent months Jan was living at Brookside Care Home in Melksham but had more recently been hospitalised with pneumonia and died on 12 July aged 83.
It is with much sadness that we bid farewell to Jan who was always smiling, enjoyed a good hug and gave of her time with generosity and love. Jan’s funeral service will take place at Holy Cross, Seend at 1:00pm on Friday 25th July when the family would like to celebrate her life. Bright colours will be worn and bells will be rung unmuffled – the ‘Jan method’ will be rung for her!
The picture below shows Jan (in turquoise) with other Seend bellringers: Mike & Rachele Taylor, Ruth Beavin, Sarah Chard and the author of this obituary, which was taken in July 2013.
Len Murray
Tower Captain, Seend
