You are the most beautiful person I have ever met.
May you rest in peace. xx

Thanks Mum

These are the words in memory of Joan that were shared at her funeral service on Friday 19 July: In Memory of Joan Gibson 1927 – 2024
97 years is a heckuva long time! Our lovely Mum has seen off the jet age, the atomic age, the computer age and the digital age. She witnessed the withering away of the most extensive empire the world has ever seen…
So let’s start in India, where Joan grew up as big sister to Jack and Elizabeth. She often used to tell my brothers and me exotic and sometimes hair raising tales of the glowing eyes of jackals shining out of the jungle as she cycled home, of cobras that crept silently into the lavatory, of being raised by an Aya, of a massive explosion in Bombay harbour.
After a bit she was sent off to the Lawrence Military School at Sanawar, up in the hills. It’s still there and considered one of the best schools in modern India. Until only a few weeks ago Joan would sing the school song word for word. The last line ended, “To the last bugle call!” so she often added, “Toot-de-ti-tooo!” in gentle mockery of its more pompous sentiments.
Reading between the lines, life could be rather lonely in India. Almost every time she came home for the holidays, her dad’s work for the Royal Signals meant that she went to a new and unfamiliar place. Even when her brother and little sister joined her at the same school, they were kept apart, each one accommodated on a separate hill of the three that made up the school site. She always thought it was very unfair of the school to take her to task for the misdemeanours of Jack and Bess when she wasn’t allowed near them!
On leaving school Joan joined the Wrens. She treasured her commission letter, signed by the Viceroy himself, General Wavell, even if the bit addressed to “my trusty and wellbeloved Joan Taylor” made her giggle. The war with Japan was just coming to an end and she was allocated to the coding section. She looked really glamorous in her uniform and often got lifts from young servicemen with motorbikes, which was very convenient. She even took part in a recruitment photoshoot, lounging with three other Wrens against a sleek sports car…
Then came 1947 and everything changed. Joan went to stay with some of her Mum’s relations in Sheffield. The British in England turned out to be very, very different from the British in India. Joan studied to be a nurse and a midwife and went around Barnsley taking care of newborns and their mums.
After moving to Bedford she met the love of her life, our Dad, Ian. Like her father, Ian was in the Royal Signals and that was how the connection came about. One day he took her up to Braemar, where he had been a highland dancer - and a very good one - and proposed to her there. One of the things Mum made us promise to do at some point after this service is to go up to Braemar, scatter both their ashes, and have a ceilidh. Joan took both Ian and Scotland to her heart.
Joan and Ian were married at Bedford in 1952. She was extremely proud when Ian took part in Queen Elizabeth’s coronation parade. He was the smartest and straightest soldier there and of course her opinion was completely unbiased.
Nonetheless army life had its difficulties as they were posted to one place after another. Young Ian was born in Germany, I was born in Bedford, Andrew in Shepperton and Douglas in Scotland. Four boys! They kept trying for a little girl, but all they got was us. Joan used to say, “Even the dog in this house is male!” The odd thing is, she chose that dog herself…
Ian left the army and made a highly successful career in electronics, and then in business. He got right to the top of the tree when, out of the blue, disaster struck. He died very suddenly, aged only 49, leaving Joan and her four young boys absolutely devastated. The only thing that kept her going was having us to look after.
So she gritted her teeth, trained at secretarial college, and got herself a job with Dad’s old firm. Well done Mum, getting us and yourself through such a dark time. In due course we all grew up and Mum has always been amazingly proud of us and all our different achievements. She was absolutely delighted when, one after another, each of her boys somehow managed to persuade a young woman to marry them – girls in the family at last! Now she has 10 grandchildren and, so far, 3 great grandchildren, and Joan adored them all.
Our Mum was a creative person. She learned the piano at school and played Claire de Lune, Debussy’s beautiful but fiendishly difficult composition, which we will be listening to shortly. She loved colours: India clearly influenced her colour palette. I remember her, in the days when money was tight, buying patterns and creating her own clothes. As the boys began growing up and leaving home, she had more time to spread her wings. She joined the Embroiderer’s Guild and knocked out a few masterpieces in miniature. She was a big fan of Kaffe Fasset, bought a knitting machine and tried out her own designs.
She loved driving and kept going until she was 94 – wow! She had especially fond memories of her MGB GT sports car in the 1970s, in beautiful Harvest Gold… She had a mischievous sense of humour. Perhaps in reaction to the Raj, she loved quietly to subvert pomposity of any kind.
About 30 years ago Joan moved to Hove and made a new life here. We are here in St Andrew’s today wanting to say thank you to you as community for all that you have done for her. You befriended her, healed her of loneliness and birthed her faith. I so well remember her standing shyly in this church at the age of 83, being blessed by the bishop at a confirmation service, a candle in her hands and a new flame shining in her heart. I would like especially to thank the Bible study group as you studied and laughed and prayed together. It meant so much to our Mum…
And so to our Bible reading: