UPDATE:

A beautiful service was held to say goodbye to Kath on 24th August 2011 at St David's Church, Ely, Cardiff and a warm reception at Canton Liberals Club, Canton, Cardiff.  The family were overwhelmed by the many family and friends who came to pay their respects.  

We've managed to raise a tidy sum off-line at the reception and in the following days from people popping in or leaving lovely messages.  Thanks to all of you who have given so generously to this great charity.  

The names of those donating off-line who completed Barnardo's gift cards are set out below but I know that many others also donated and thank you very much.  

Sonia and family, Veronica and family, Ivy and Brian, Doris and Mal, Linda and Tommy, Vida and Bill Brookman, Mrs J Morgan, Georgina Simpson, Mrs Las Morgan and all those ladies at the Glamorgan Wanderers Ladies Skittles Team.  

In total, we've raised £812.08 offline.  We set no target for fundraising but it is fantastic that so many of you have responded to our Nan's life story by giving a donation to this charity which played a formative part in her own life.  

We will close this page for donations in Kath's memory on her 70th birthday, 25th October 2011. 

Thank you.

 

------------------------

 

Kathleen passed away peacefully on 14th August 2011 at Llandough Hospital in Cardiff.  This page has been set up for people to donate to Barnardo's charity in her memory.

 

Kath was born on 25th October 1941 during the war years and was brought up in a Barnardo's children's home with her younger sister Mary. 

 

She lived in Ely in Cardiff for most of her life in Bishopston Road and leaves behind a loving family: her husband, Arthur and sister, Mary, two children, Karen and Kevin, six grandchildren; Sheldon, Rownette, Levi, Aaron, Jacob and Connor.  And a little great grandchild, Harvey, who is still running about asking for his beloved "Nanny Kath".  My nan believed in an after-life, she often explained where she believed we went when we died.  She leaves us to join many friends and family, I imagine her having some special catch-ups with her own mum, Betty, her grandmother, Bella, a gypsy woman, Aunty Phyllis and Margaret, Uncles Jonny, Kenny and Teddy, her dear friends, Olive, Joan, Vera and friends of her offspring, Paddy and Seren, who she treated like her own.  We all have fond memories of Kath - please feel free to share them with us.  These are a few of my own memories and they've been chosen to try and show the measure of this great woman.  

 

The early years were hard, from the age of four she was polishing shoes and would clean, sew, and cook before and after school.  But she never complained about this experience, she saw only positive in it.  She felt it taught her to keep a good home and an abundance of skills that she used throughout her life.  

 

My nan did her bit to change how we all relate to each other in this world.  Simply by being true to her maternal instincts.  She raised a mixed race family (some of us are white and some of us are black) in the late 1950s through to the present time.  She raised us all equally with pride and joy.  Brave mothers, like her, helped destroy racism and prejudice in this country, they held their heads high and didn't flinch when well wishers gasped when they looked into the pram.  She would not know what the race discrimination act was but she accepted everyone into her home in equal measure.    

 

She loved life and had boundless energy and drive.  Activities and trips were a real constancy with my nan.  She loved getting out and about. To the beach, to the market, to the park, 'up the woods', to the allotment, berry-picking, gardening, drawing, playing cards, writing stories, cleaning on a Saturday morning to music, visits to friends and family and, of course, lots and lots of tea, cake, biscuits and 'pop' for the kids. I could spend hours with my nan, she was magical and just made everyone feel special.

 

She had her own hobbies.  She made dresses, knitted jumpers and the most beautiful baby clothes.  She collected her beautiful dolls in later years.   She played skittles for as long as I can remember.  She loved her skittles team, all the girls, and their annual trips away.  Her evenings out at the Liberals Club where she could listen to music and have a dance and catch up with dear friends.  She also loved fund-raising.  Fund-raising always had to be done in fancy dress (see the clown picture).  You could spend hours with Kath, she had that addictive quality, she could leave you feeling lighter with her warmth, you left her presence and felt you could stand taller for the rest of the day.  She was a rock which never wavered, loyal, true and honest.   

 

The main picture shows her in Covent Garden last year.  In two full days with her friend Veronica, we traversed Madame Tussaud's, several restaurants, Petticoat Lane market, a trip to see the musical, Jersey Boys (she was pretty surprised that swearing was allowed on stage) and dozens of shops.  Ever on the hunt for a bargain, she managed to buy almost a dozen black pairs of trousers in Petticoat Lane for her the girls at Skittles and in the Liberals Club for (I think) around £10 for the lot! She seemed to know everyone's size.   She loved the ambience, colour, spectacle, exchange that takes place in a market.  We left my nan and Veronica in Petticoat Lane market for a few hours.  We, apparently, were bored and were dispatched to get a coffee so that the bargain-hunt could really begin!  She did come a cropper once in a market though, in Morocco, where she and grandad stopped on one of their cruises.  She admired (and touched) a carpet in the souk and was then badgered to buy the carpet all the way back to the boat.  My grandad came to the rescue and shooed the stallholder away.  She was so at home in markets that in later years she would drive down to the Bessemer Road car-boot and set up her own stall.  She rarely made a profit since I doubt that was ever her real purpose, she was just having a lot of fun and in her own way seeking to ensure that things didn't go to waste.    

 

Of everything wonderful about Kath, the thing which is always remarked upon is her selflessness.  What she did for people.  She nursed and cared for so many during her life: family, friends and strangers.  She played a huge part in bringing up her grandchildren, all of us spent large parts of our childhood in her home.  But, even we all knew, that for her being maternal extended well beyond the front door.  Community and neighbourliness were a way of life.  Whenever a relative, friend or neighbour was in need, my nan was there.  She would nurse, listen, shop, clean, cook, do whatever she could.  She never expected anything in return.   

 

Even so, her wish to give and share could lead to some surprising outcomes.  I remember many but two stand out just now.  Some were just sublime others reached comedic proportions.  Always best to start with the comic first.  I remember taking her to see Shirley Bassey.  Shirls started to belt out "Big Spender", I glanced at my nan to see if she was enjoying herself.  Well, she was, she had finished sending several bags of Revels to the people in our row (no mean feat since there were 40 - 50 people to a row) and was now sharing out the Maltesers with the row behind us.  To the tragic or sublime, her last hours, just 12 before she passed away.  I sat with her, she was very unwell her body was giving up but she was lucid.  After a discussion about the riots in London and across the country "why would they do that, the poor things", she told me how concerned she was about the "old lady" in the bed across the way.  Could I tell her visiting brother - "too young to be her husband" that the lady had a terrible chest infection which gave her difficulty breathing during the night - she needed a nebuliser and greater care.  That was Kath, always thinking of, and doing for, others.

 

This is not an obituary.  I could never do her justice.  I can only say that I have travelled the world and never met a finer lady.  She was a matriarch in the best sense of the word.  She was from a generation of women whose gradual loss all society mourns.  As my mum put it to me, 'the end of an era'.  

 

I've set up this page as I know that my nan would not want flowers.  Flowers were pretty but essentially withered and died and were 'expensive'.  Of course, a bottle of Chanel No.5 was better than flowers but she can't take that with her either.  She'd much rather ensure that if people do wish to celebrate her life that they do so by giving to others - in the same way she did all her life.  Even if you didn't meet her personally, if you've met her offspring, you've met this woman, her mark is indelibly printed on us, so you will have felt her hospitality and warmth that have all been programmed to give. 

 

Barnardo's is a fantastic charity.  It played a formative part in Kath's life.  And it continues to play an active part in the lives of many of the most needy children in this country.  Children who without that help would be far worse off.  Similar to those post-war years when Kath got her support, this country is now in economic distress - families and children desparately need your help and support. 

 

Kath loved children, they always brightened up her life and made her smile.   Please make her smile one more time by giving a donation to Barnardo's in her honour.