Mary Campbell, former headmistress of the Royal School, Bath, and Member of Soroptimist International St Albans and District, died peacefully, aged 92, on 3rd September 2016. Her funeral service will be held at The Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban, in The Lady Chapel on Monday 26th September, at 1pm. Any donations are requested for ‘The Cathedral and Abbey Church of St. Alban’ or ‘The Alzheimer’s Society’
Mary cared deeply for her “girls” from school and maintained contact with many of them – sending and receiving about 400 Christmas Cards every year – each with a personal letter (she started writing her Christmas letters in October!).
When Mary moved back to St Albans she became very involved with St Albans Abbey Cathedral, including working as a volunteer guide. She had many great friends at the Abbey.
Mary was an active member of Soroptimist International. She joined the Bath Club in 1977 and transferred to the St Albans & District Club in 1982. The spirit of friendship is strong in Soroptimists which is why Mary was such a wonderful Member.
Mary was always at the heart of any Soroptimist social activities (see picture below in 2002 at Brenda Hillier’s summer barbecue – Mary is front row in green throwing her head back with raucous laughter). With her apparent larger than life personality and delicious sense of humour she was great fun to be with.
Our Club had a number of, now sadly passed, Members who were historians and this took Mary on Swan Helenic Cruises with Soroptimist friends – she was particularly enthused by the Baltic cruise with Mary Barkess and Betty Masters and gave a presentation of their adventure to the Club.
It was in 2002 that we realised that Mary had never been a Club President due to personal and Club circumstances – so we asked her and she was delighted, although concerned about her age. The Club’s Executive Officers of course told Mary that her age was unimportant and that she would be a great President (which of course she was) – with the support of everyone in the Club to cover anything that Mary was unable to do like emails and travelling distances to outside events. The photograph above is Mary in the Club President regalia in 2002.
She was also the Club’s Membership Officer and prospective Members were delighted to receive one of Mary’s famous hand-written letters which were both personal and business-like at once – such a skill! I expect many people have kept their letters. Even after she handed over as Membership Officer she continued as a Member of the Executive sharing the views of the “old-guard” as she put it, and keeping her finger firmly on the pulse – and of course offering us the use of her dining room for the meetings and plying us with refreshments and delicious biscuits.
Mary was always very generous with sharing her wonderful home on Clarence Rd for different social events. The strawberry teas in Mary’s garden were very popular. It made a fabulous Friday evening venue for our many Soroptimist Members and friends who had travelled from afar for the weekend of celebration when it was the Club’s 50th Anniversary in 2007. The annual event that all Club Members looked forward to was the supper at Mary’s after carol singing at St Albans City Station. When we got back to Mary’s she would have laid on a great spread of ham and cheeses and the waft of baking jacket potatoes made you feel ravenous. She also made her legendary sherry trifle – which was not for anyone who was driving! Mary insisted on paying for all the food herself – so we all then made donations to the Soroptimist Appeal of the year. Mary’s generosity will have raised thousands of pounds for good causes over the years. These evenings were when we all felt that Christmas could begin properly. Mary was also generous with her donations of M&S Vouchers for raffle prizes and for funding different activities that the Club needed some financial help with (very discretely of course – we are talking about Mary here…).
Sadly Mary’s health deteriorated in recent years and she was very upset when she had to leave the family home in Clarence Rd. She was well cared for at Abbeyfields in St Albans for some time, but when dementia took hold she needed special care and spent the last 20 months in a care home in West Sussex where she was happy and close to her adopted family.
Of course the most generous part of Mary was her humanity – she really cared about people and did everything she could to make everyone she knew feel like a special friend.
RIP Mary