DOROTHY EVELYN JONES
St Luke’s Church, Crosby, 30 July 2019
When I was a youngster I got in trouble with Auntie Dot for saying something a little bit mean about the Queen. We were talking about it being the Queen’s birthday and her age; all I said was, “Wow, she’s getting old, isn’t she?” And the reason Dorothy didn’t like that, was that, as many of us know, Dot is a year older than the Queen.
Well, whilst our monarch continues to reign in seemingly fine health, we are here today because sadly Dorothy’s life has come to an end. But what a life - for some of the things Dorothy did, she received official royal recognition. She lived life to the full, until pretty much the very end.
Our Auntie Dot, sister, sister-in-law, friend, Dorothy Evelyn Davies was born on the 16th April 1925 in Crosby to Jessie and Cyril Davies, the first of 4 children: Gladys, Muriel and Les following on.
By the time Les was born Dorothy was 14 and the Second World War was soon underway. In these years Dorothy lived with Auntie Evelyn and and Uncle Rob Gubbins in Chorley, Lancs. As part of the war effort she took a child care course, and for leisure she enjoyed dancing with American soldiers based nearby. Dorothy was close in age to her Hollywood heroine Deanna Durbin, a leading actress and singer of the 1930s and 40s; but whilst by then twice-married Deanna Durbin ended her public career in 1949, at that time Dorothy’s life was just taking off.
Dorothy met Harry Jones at a dance - he wasn’t an American soldier but he did have the glamour of having had a life at sea - and they married on 20th March 1948 at Christ Church Waterloo. For their early married years lived at Walmer Road, Waterloo.
Harry was a Customs Officer and in the 1960s they moved all the way to the south coast when Harry was posted at Shoreham Airport. For the next twenty or so years, Lancing was their life: with Dorothy working as the warden of Rotary House sheltered accommodation, and immersing herself into the Red Cross, and the life of St Michael and All Angels Church.
The residents of Rotary House were well looked after in Dorothy’s time there. With her trademark energy she busied herself checking in on everyone, shopping for them, making sure their meds were well stocked, organising social activities, days out and so on.
Dorothy’s main work as a young woman was hairdressing, and she did mobile hairdressing around Lancing; but her nursing skills also came into their own, at Rotary House and the Red Cross. Her great commitment to the Red Cross meant that eventually she became commandant of her detachment. Because of this, on occasions she met the Queen, attending garden parties at Buckingham Palace.
Dorothy and Harry became close friends with the then local priest Fr John Lloyd-James, who would end his daily round of visits in the parish by unwinding with a whisky at their Rotary House flat. Dot’s friendship with John and Ann lasted for many years after Harry died; her view of how church life should be - in a word, traditional; well, two words: very traditional - always went back to the way they’d done things at St Michael’s.
One thing Dorothy did there was the flower arranging. She won several prizes for her displays and of course this carried on until quite recently - she was part of the flower arranging teams here at St Lukes and also at Liverpool Cathedral.
Harry died on the 28th of December 1988 and not long after that Dorothy moved back to Crosby to Fairfield. Dave Gates and I will never forget our 24 hour return trip to Lancing when we completely filled a Luton Van with all her worldly goods and then completely filled her first small Fairfield flat from floor to ceiling with everything she had. She somehow managed to clear a space to live in, and at Fairfield she soon got involved in her usual way, and made many good friends.
Dot enjoyed her years attending worship at Sefton Church which was very much her style. She also joined St Lukes Church and loved the 9am service; got involved in the Mothers Union, the Women’s Fellowship with all their outings; flower arranging as I’ve already mentioned, here and at the Cathedral. Her skills were endless. With the Knitting Group Dot spent her time filling shoeboxes at Christmas and encouraging her neighbours at Fairfield to do the same; with the so-called Crafty Ladies Dot enjoyed learning card making skills. She supported several charities and she filled a huge bottle with coins for the RNLI.
Thinking back to their Lancing days, many of us will remember their Pug dog Sam who Dorothy and Harry dearly loved. Dorothy and Harry never had children of their own but Dot was always keenly involved with her sisters and brother, her nieces and nephew. After Harry died at Christmas Dorothy found that season difficult, but she still enjoyed her Christmas meals with Allison, Jasmine and Jade, who she has been especially close to and cared for over the years; and your care for her has meant so much to her.
With Dorothy dying, so has a lot of knowledge about the family. She took a big interest in family history; enjoyed visiting Tarporley where her mother Jessie, our Nana, was born and buried; she kept in touch with the Cheshire side of the family. She enjoyed all her family occasions: Saturday afternoons out with Muriel, and their holidays abroad, lunches out with Les and Audrey, graduations, and celebrations of any kind.
Now if Dorothy was sitting next to you in a church pew now, you know that she’d be in your ear making comments like, ‘What’s he saying, I can’t hear him?’ or ‘I don’t agree with that.’ She was loud, Dot, she knew her own mind very well indeed and expressed herself without constraint. This could make her difficult to live with at times - until you realised that often she was right, or at least that she was fighting for something she felt was right. How many residents of Rotary House have received extra help from social services or the NHS because Dorothy has stood up for them; how many Red Cross missions have been strengthened by her determined leadership.
Her life closed in on itself a little in her later few years, as physically she couldn’t do all the things she used to. She was losing her sight …. but she never lost her spirit. The last thing she said to me from her hospital bed was, ‘Don’t get old.’ If you think of age as being more a state of mind than a physical condition then in a way I don’t think Dorothy ever did get old. She was one of the most energetic people any of us here have ever known. And we’re grateful to have had that tour-de-force, that force of nature, in our lives, stirring things up, and supporting us all so much.
In all honesty I can’t imagine Dot resting in peace; rather instead I sense her today entreating us to live life with the kind of zest she had: to live passionately; to take each precious moment and use it well.
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