Thank you for visiting Madeline's website.

Madeline was a gifted artist and a dedicated teacher of fine art, crafts and architecture. She was an inspiration to the many children she taught in schools around the world as well as to her adult pupils.

In the last few years Madeline and John, as members of Egerton DFAS, made meticulous records of several local churches, taking details for the National Archive. Madeline's knowledge and love of gothic architecture contributed to the delight she took in the National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies’ (NADFAS) church recording. Her drawing of Westwell church porch now forms part of the V&A archive.

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Below is the Eulogy from the service:

Madeline was a gifted artist, a talented teacher and mentor, a guide and a friend to her hundreds of students all round the world. She loved people, and this came through in her portraits. In her words “good portraiture comes from an affinity with the sitter, a sympathetic and truthful portrayal of the character of the subject”. As one friend wrote to John after Madeline died “She created the best possible portraits of people of all colours and creeds. Right now her very large picture of my family including three generations are looking down at me and hopefully will forever.”

She was a decisive person. In 1962 she and John drove past the Bell House for the very first time and Madeline yelled “STOP!” John stopped, reversed -- managing to avoid hitting anything --and she said “That would make a wonderful house!”. John in his usual practical way looked at the pile of mouldering ragstone that became the family home --“The Bell House” – and said “Yes, dear.”. His ability to put into practice what Maddy envisioned made them a great team.

Maddy had a great sense of humour. When John was principal of a school in Nigeria and Madeline was the art teacher, at a visit from state inspectors when one remarked on the quality of the equipment in the art room and asked “How did you get this equipment, Mrs Ireland?” she told him “I slept with the principal.” – Who of course was John!

She would laugh at herself although she often had to have a joke explained. We used to laugh and tell her she was like Margo in The Good Life with the catchphrase “Did I make a joke, Jerry?”

Madeline was born and grew up in Doddington and went at 17 to St Martin's School of Art. By 27 she was head of department at one of Britain's first three comprehensive schools, with eight staff and with 2,000 rowdy south London children to teach -- as one student put it -- “art and good manners”.

All quite a big step for a girl from a small village in the 1950s. But the adventures didn't stop there.

She met John in 1956, they married, and by 1965, having renovated the Bell House, they were off to Fiji with three small children – William was three months. By 1970 the family was in Nigeria in the heart of the Niger Delta just months after the war with Biafra. Madeline's home-making talents were never more vital. In fact she made beautiful homes wherever she and John went. Fiji, Nigeria, Botswana, Papua New Guinea.

She was also an enthusiastic and generous hostess.

She loved parties. She loved having people around her whether it was for a vast pot of boeuf bourguignon preceded by John's gin and tonic, or just tea and shortbread.

And she would have hated to miss such a gathering of her family and friends today.

Maddy's friends and relations have described her in cards, letters and on the phone in the few days since she died as “warm”,  “full of life”,  “inspirational”, “a one-off”, "loved enormously", “a huge character”, “beautiful”.

She was all those things and many more.

But I'd like to finish with John's own words: “Madeline was a wonderful wife, a marvellous mother and a generous and adoring grandmother. I was privileged to know her for 54 years and be married for 52. She left me with three lovely children and daughter-in-law, and five gorgeous grandchildren. I could not have asked for any more bounty.”