Thanks for taking the time to visit Tish's Page.

Tish was all about giving. She gave her time, her energy, her advice, her practicality, her compassion, her sense of fun and above all her love to everyone who knew her and needed her help. She was there for countless people throughout her life in many different ways and always went out of her way for others with little thought for herself and her own well being. This was my father's Eulogy for her at her funeral in Oxford on January 31st:

"I suppose it’s appropriate that not long after Tish was born, the Blitz started. Her childhood was mostly distressing, whether at the hands of nuns who had probably been brutalised during childhood themselves, or courtesy of a grandmother who wrung Tish’s pet chicken’s neck in front of her and who delivered kicks in the back that helped to condemn her to a lifetime of back pain. Tish used to take the chicken to church under her hat by the way. Like you do.

Tish was allergic to education. In ten years of it, the only things she learnt were defiance and Irish dancing. She literally dug her way out of her first school by creating a path for herself under a gate. Then when she was five her parents split up and she and her three sisters were sent into care at Nazareth House in Hammersmith where the teaching nuns here were mostly uneducated.

Many here will have heard Tish’s awful nun stories, and although she was bullied, psychologically and physically, it was at this Dickensian hellhole that she first showed her compassion towards both the younger children and elderly people she wrangled her way into looking after so as to avoid schoolwork. She looked after kids and the elderly all her life. It was here too that she developed her cunning and her talent for the pre-emptive strike. She shinned up drainpipes to get into the kitchens or storerooms to steal back from the nuns sweets supposed to have been given to the children or maybe lard to help ease the chilblains of other girls.

Surprise, surprise she got expelled. On her return to Oxford when fifteen, she worked at the Kings Arms and was still a teenager when she met Norman, her first husband who truly swept her off her feet. He loved dancing too. Norman was part of a close but extended family and it was through him that Tish learnt what love and a loving family life could be like. They had two children in quick succession, Tina and Nigel, and ran a taxi business together, before starting one of the first launderettes in Oxford in Little Clarendon Street.

Then tragedy struck when Norman died of a heart attack at the age of 40, leaving Tish to cope with a business and two children in private education. But cope she did and after more than a year she plucked up courage to go into a pub on her own for the first time and so, with a baby sitter living upstairs, began what we can call her nightclub decade. Her life at this time could not be called ecclesiastical. There was a mix of relationships and flings – and marriage proposals turned down – one engagement ring got flung in the Thames opposite if anyone has any diving gear.

Then one day a fresh-faced divorcee arrived in her house as a new tenant with a 7-year old daughter bewildered by what had happened to her Mummy and Daddy and she rapidly embraced us both. It’s amazing what a Chinese takeaway can lead to. The rest of Tish’s story, most here have been part of. As you can see, she had a wonderful talent not just for making friends but for keeping them. I should know. I paid the phone bill. But many here know they have lost their best ever friend.

In hospitals she was magnificent, an inflatable matron, fighting to win friends comfort and respect. “Doctors are not gods, they just think they are” was the battle-cry.

The second big tragedy of her life was the loss of her son to Aids when he was only 33, but it was typical of her that while still grieving she embarked on two years of helping to nurse and look after David, another Aids victim she met immediately afterwards, just as she later looked after a tenant who became a bed-ridden stroke victim for two years until his death in Abbey Road. She would drop everything to help anyone. She was not just a Good Samaritan, but the best. Her Christianity kicked in as she left the church. So did her appetite for a drink of course...

There was the total stranger whose life she saved by rushing him to hospital after his throat was cut in a fight. She spent the journey barking at him, “DON’T MOVE YOUR HEAD”.

There were the two tearful teenage girls she spotted being assaulted by two lads in the early hours outside a nightclub. Armed with the two metal bits of her CrookLock from the car, she weighed into the boys and bundled the girls into her car to take them home. “Thank you, thank you,” they bleated, only to get the biggest ticking off they had ever had in their lives for being so stupid, so they burst into tears again. Tish was 60 when she did this.

She spent her life proving that goodness need never be dull. There’s a book to be written about Tish and her tenants. Some became lifelong friends. Others got hit on the head with a huge Indian brass tray and evicted. One could not resist pinching her bottom when she was in the kitchen holding a knife. Quite a big bottom. Much bigger Mistake.

Yes you had a short fuse, my love, but what a wonderful, wonderful firework. You were fearless but great fun; selfless but sexy; generous and jolly. Sometimes impossible. And now just impossible to replace. "

In her memory we would like to raise and give as much money as possible to Helen and Douglas House. They care for children and young adults with terminal conditions and provide tremendous emotional and practical support for their whole family for as long as they need it.

This is a charity that was dear to Tish's heart and also to her church St Mary Magdalen. Her love of children and their love of her illustrates why we can't think of a better charity that could benefit from the death of someone who had such a love of life. Their tireless work also sums up what Tish herself did for so many people both young and old. We would be very grateful for any donation towards this vital hospice.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate -We raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.