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Eulogy – Olwen Spiers

“It’s a great life if you don’t weaken” was a familiar refrain from Olwen and a maxim to guide her life. A life well lived. A life of service, a life of adventure. A life of compassion, a life of fun.

We are here today to join in sadness at Olwen’s passing but also to celebrate her life and remember some of the great things about her and the long life she lived.
I have a fair bit to say but Olwen herself was loquacious, so hopefully she would have approved.

Olwen was born in Manchester in February 1932 to Amy and Arthur Parry, a younger sister to Joyce.
Her Dad was a prison officer and had met her Mum whilst she also was working as a prison officer. Consequently, much of Olwen’s young life was steeped in the prison service environment and this clearly influenced her future career choices although that didn’t become apparent until many years later.
Olwen was seven years old when the Second World War broke out and the family moved from Manchester to London.

In September 1940, the Germans commenced nightly bombing raids on London and so began several years of evacuations from the city for Olwen and Joyce, which must have been very disconcerting for such young girls.
The first evacuation took Olwen and Joyce to family friends in rural Lancashire but they soon returned to London. For the next evacuation, the sisters went with the other children from their school on a long journey to a location which was not told to their parents. The destination turned out to be Somerset where the children arrived in a town square to be confronted by the 

local prospective foster parents who proceeded to inspect the children and choose the ones they would take to their homes. Fortunately, Olwen’s Mum had instilled in Olwen and Joyce the importance of sticking with one another, and so they insisted on being housed together, and eventually a newly married couple took them in. Olwen and Joyce spent nearly a year in Somerset before returning to London and being reunited with their parents.

It wasn’t long before they were evacuated again, this time to Surrey and a particular memory of Olwen’s from this time was when the house next door suffered a direct hit and the windows and roof of their foster home were blown out. Olwen and Joyce were carted off to a children’s home which Olwen remembered as being rather unpleasant and from which they were rescued by their mother, only after managing to write and tell her of their plight.

Another short stay in London followed before again being evacuated to Surrey, this time to be billeted with a wealthy family where a maid named Bertha was assigned to look after them. Bertha often took the girls for long walks in the woods and then bribed them with sweets to play for an hour or so while she had a rendezvous with her Canadian soldier friend.
Eventually, the girls returned to London on a more permanent basis but those war years coloured Olwen’s approach to life and made her appreciate that there was so much joy to be had in life and that what mattered most were people, not material wealth and possessions.
From around 1943, Olwen’s childhood returned to a more normal trajectory and she spent 3 years at St Martin-in-the-Field High School for Girls in Tulse Hill, London and then completed her school education at Wakefield Girls’ High School where she gained her School Certificate in eight subjects and her High School Certificate in three subjects.

Joyce reminded me the other day that Olwen was quite precocious as a youngster, always wanting to do everything her sister did, despite being younger than Joyce by more than two years. Olwen also showed signs of her high intellect, scoring so well in her “11 plus” exams, which all children in England took at that time as a prelude to commencing high school, that she could have had the pick of the best schools had her parents wished.
On leaving school, Olwen went to study at the West End Hospital Speech Therapy Training School in London. Looking back, we are not sure what prompted Olwen to take her career in this direction but Joyce suspects that it may have been because several older girls had taken that path and it seemed to be quite a well-regarded route to follow at that time.
On completing her two year course and qualifying as a speech therapist, Olwen secured her first job as a speech therapist with the Wakefield Education Authority working single-handed with a range of patients from very young babies to the elderly and including many patients with disabilities.

At some point during her time working as a speech therapist, Olwen took the decision to change direction and pursue a career in the prison service. Obviously, with Olwen living with her parents during her years working as a speech therapist, her family may have had some influence on this move, but knowing the independent thinking person Olwen clearly was, we must presume she was charting the course which made sense to her.

In 1961, after seven years working as a speech therapist Olwen embarked on the Assistant Governor Training Course at the Prison Service Staff Training College and so commenced her 20 year career as a civil servant with the Prison Department of the Home Office. Olwen progressed through the ranks from Assistant Governor to Governor to Deputy Regional Director for the north region based in Manchester and then for the final few years of her service she was Operational Controller for all custodial establishments for female offenders. The latter role was located at Head Office in Central London and Olwen became a commuter, choosing to endure a long daily train journey from and to Leicestershire because of the stage she had reached in her personal life, which we will come to in a moment.

On retirement from the Prison Service in 1981, Olwen pursued various roles in the Leicestershire area, mainly working with and for people with disabilities. Part of the reason for Olwen seeking this work is that she had been involved with many people with various disabilities over the previous 30 years and wanted to put that experience to good use. Also, particularly, during her last five years with the Prison Service she had been assigned a personal secretary who was a registered blind person which made Olwen acutely aware, not just of the difficulties such people faced in their everyday lives, but also the great potential for them to live active lives and contribute fully to society.

Whilst Olwen was working as Governor of Bulwood Hall Women’s Borstal in Essex in the late 1960s she first became acquainted with Dr Stan Spiers who, along with working locally in general practice, was also the GP for the borstal. The two became friends over the years, aided by Stan’s friendship with Olwen’s Dad Arthur, by then a widower and spending a lot of time with his younger daughter.
After moving up from her role as Governor at Bulwood Hall, Olwen was in a position of more choice about where to live and relocated with her Dad to a small village in rural Leicestershire. Sometime prior, Stan had accepted a role as GP at the Medical Centre of Loughborough University and Olwen’s move allowed the two to develop their blossoming friendship.

Arthur passed away in 1976 and later that year, September 23rd to be precise, Olwen and Stan were married in the Quaker Meeting Hall in North London. And so began a wonderful period for the two of them as they enjoyed a thirty year marriage only cut short when Stan sadly lost his battle with cancer in 2007.

The pairing of Olwen and Stan was very nicely balanced, both of them having great wit and formidable intellect; they complemented each other and somehow together they became something that was greater than the sum of the parts. Enduring happy relationships are rare and require hard work and sacrifice, but Olwen and Stan had a great thing going. Happy couples often have the knack of interacting with each other through what might be termed ‘affectionate teasing’, and Olwen and Stan were masters of this.
Olwen also became a much-loved step-Mum to Stan’s four children who were in their teens and early adult years when Olwen and Stan married. This was a difficult challenge which Olwen handled with her customary astute reading of people and understanding of what she might be able to do to help develop successful relationships.

Throughout their years together Olwen and Stan were keen travellers. They had numerous adventures with campervan trips in Europe (and I remember Stan was particularly insistent that the vehicle was fitted with an Oz-style Roo-bar). They preferred the less travelled roads and the opportunity to meet local people whenever they could. They also travelled to various continents which included visiting family and friends in Australia on several occasions, visiting my brother Iain and his wife Kirstie when they were living in New Zealand as well as going to exotic places like Cuba.

Closer to home they made full use of the narrow boat moored at the foot of the drive of their house on the banks of the River Soar. Their central England location gave great access to the inland waterways of England and Olwen and Stan were always very generous with allowing family members to experience the leisurely thrill of a weekend or short holiday on the narrow boat.
And then there was the villa in Spain, located at Benidoleig, a rural area comfortably inland from the bright lights of Benidorm where they spent many happy holidays and again especially enjoyed meeting and interacting with the local people.
Before we move on, I should just add an interesting little side note about Olwen’s romantic life. The other day I asked my Mum whether there had been any boyfriends in the years prior to Stan. She said “oh yes there were a few obviously, as she was a bright and vivacious young woman.” “But Mum were there any serious relationships, any significant exes?” “Well,” said Mum “there was some ghastly middle aged man who was a really smarmy git!” So it probably wasn’t too much of a challenge for Stan to trump that but I certainly think it ended up being a fine match for both of them.

In the photo tribute which follows there is a picture of Olwen as a little girl dressed in a nurse’s uniform. Mum told me that Olwen always said she would marry a doctor. It took her a while to find him but she did eventually get there – and well worth the wait.
When Stan passed away in 2007 Olwen quickly made the decision that she wanted to join her sister and other family in Perth. We sponsored her emigration and by 2009 she was living in Perth, initially with Joyce but before long she moved to the retirement village at Ocean Gardens in the suburb of City Beach.

At Ocean Gardens Olwen had a lovely little unit with views out over the ocean and quickly made many friends and acquaintances, something she was always very good at. There was also a bit of family life which she became part of, with my wife Christine’s extended family being particularly welcoming.

In her retirement Olwen continued to fight for some local causes often involving sticking up for the individual against various bureaucracies including the local council, many times locking horns with the mayor, who was a pompous twit she frequently brought to account.
Sadly, there eventually came the day when her health deteriorated to the extent that she needed a higher and more regular level of care and she moved to the Wearne Hostel nursing home in Cottesloe. Again she had a room with ocean views, again she made friends with several other residents and even became popular with the staff who frequently commented to me what a lovely lady she was, despite often giving those carers a bit of a hard time.

I think I have just about come to the end of this potted version of Olwen’s life story. I apologise if I have left out any important episodes or anecdotes but obviously there is a lot to tell.
In closing I would just like to draw out a couple of themes.
Olwen was a compassionate person. In my mind this goes beyond mere empathy – it is empathy plus the intent to do whatever she could to make the situation better. This compassion was reflected, not just in a life of service, but also in her many interactions with family and friends.
Olwen was a fun person. I know this very well from personal experience as I couldn’t imagine having a better Auntie, but also from hearing tales of her various adventures and interactions with all those she came across.

It’s a great life if you don’t weaken, and she didn’t. A life well lived indeed.