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Coral is taking part with the Team RNIB for the 2010 BUPA Great South Run, Portsmouth - Sunday 24th October 2010.

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KATHMIN BEATRICE LAWES (Née WOOD)

12^th April 1921 – 29^th June 2010

Kath Wood was the middle of 3 children of Beatrice Louise and Edward Daniel Wood. She had an elder brother (1916), Sydney Edward known as Bill and a younger sister Joyce (1924) “Joy”, all brought up as members of the Congregational church.

They were born in Lambeth and the family of 5 lived in a small flat around a cobbled courtyard (The Cooperage) near Waterloo Station. They moved flats but in the same area.

Kath was named after her Mother’s only sister, Kathleen, and her maternal grandmother Minnie (Wilhelmina), hence Kathmin. Minnie was the only Grandparent known to Kath, the other 3 having passed on either before she was born or when she was too young to remember them. The frequent need to explain her unique name annoyed Kath and the reduction to Kath avoided the questioning.

Kath’s father Edward, a waiter at the Holborn restaurant, was a keen musician and played the piano, gave music lessons, tuned pianos and had his own big band which played at the Holborn and other London venues. He passed his love of music and especially the piano to Kath. She was most keen on the then popular music, much of which she played to her children and sang to her grandchildren.

The Woods moved to New Malden in 1927 to a 3 bed-roomed terraced house. Brother Bill had the small box-room over the stairs. Kath and Joy shared a room. They had many musical evenings and parties there and Kath made special mention of those fun times when her Dad and his three Brothers played together: 8 hands on 2 pianos.

Kath left school at 14. Her class size was 50 which she felt worked well. Her first job was with the Post Office and soon she worked at one of its major offices near Waterloo Bridge.   At the declaration of War she was moved to Bath, Somerset where she was a clerk at the Admiralty paying wages. Her Dad, Edward died on 29^th April 1940 aged 57, just after Kath’s 19^th birthday while she was working in Bath. Kath joined the Army in 1942 and spent most of her war years in many locations all over England and Wales, tracking enemy fighter aircraft with RADAR and providing the gunners with target information

Kath’s cousin Doreen was best friends with Betty Lawes and so it was that her brother Frank (Francis) met Kath. They became engaged at the beginning of the War and many years later Frank put it on record with a Christmas card and “Anon” poem

“In upon a frosty night, I to my love my troth did plight”.

Frank spent the War in the Navy in , and and near , . Kath and Frank married when the war in Europe was ending, 15^th March 1945 at St Mary’s Church (now known as Our Lady of the Rosary) in Sutton Surrey. Frank was a Roman Catholic and Kath converted around the time of their marriage. They briefly honeymooned in Newquay, but both had to return to their military duties. Kath soon found she was pregnant with Susan who was born at the end of December 1945. They had a “proper” honeymoon in 1949 in Switzerland.

Kath and Frank bought a 2-bedroomed bungalow “Hawthorn” in Stoneleigh, near Ewell Surrey.  Son Peter followed shortly in July 1947. They had a pre-war in which Frank taught Kath to drive. The family firm now entitled Lawes Rabjohns Ltd moved its factory to a site on the Brooklands race track near Weybridge. Kath and Frank moved to Weston Green, Esher, Surrey more convenient for Frank’s daily commute.

Kath’s brother Bill’s job was in in the oil business. Sister Joy emigrated to in 1948, which left Kath as the only sibling to care for her widowed Mum, living still in the same New Malden house, a convenient bus ride from . Kath’s daily routine was as wife, home maker, Mum and daughter.

The nearest Catholic Church was about 2 miles away the other side of Esher, at Arbrook Lane, Claygate. After a few years the parish decided to build Sandon Hall at Weston Green. The Lawes Family became very active in establishing this new branch of the Parish which soon separated from its parent parish with its own Parish Priest its own Presbytery and its own need for funds. The family was active in the new Weston Green parish including its football pools and other fund raising schemes and Kath was a founder member of the Catholic Women’s League in that parish.

The family expanded rapidly with Mary, David and Janet in the middle 50s and Christopher in 1959. The house was extended. A 2^nd car arrived in 1961 when, Frank bought Kath a green Mini Countryman Estate car for her 40^th birthday.

Church funds continued to be raised and building was well under way for the new circular “Our Lady of Lourdes” church on the Hampton Court Way at Weston Green when in 1964 the family moved to West Byfleet where George (Georgie, Georgina) was born in 1965. In 1966 Lawes Rabjohns Ltd now renamed Admel International was sold. Frank stayed on as Chairman and Managing Director until 1968 when he retired, aged 55, Kath only 47.

The family immediately became supporters of their new West Byfleet parish as before in Esher: choir, Scouts, cubs, brownies, Youth Club, altar serving and fund raising.

One by one the older children fled the nest from the mid 1960s when George was tiny through to the mid 1970s (George was still only 10). Kath’s Mum died in 1970. Kath had cared for her, first in her Mum’s own house, then in the family home where she lived for the final year of her life.

Grandchildren started to arrive in 1972 when George was still only 6½. Great grand children arrived before the sequence of grandchildren was completed. Even with a little one of her own to manage, Kath took on the roles of Grandmother and, later, Great Grandmother with typical enthusiasm.

Kath and Frank built a bungalow, another “Hawthorn” next door to their first home of 20 years and moved across in 1984. George soon fled the nest. Kath and Frank went on a long world tour including , , , Hong Kong and for several months in 1986. Frank had a massive stroke in 1987 and died over 8 years later in 1996. After Frank’s death Kath stayed at Hawthorn until 2002 when she felt it was too much for her to manage and moved to a warden-managed site in Haslemere.

Kath formed good friendships with neighbours, parishioners and the parents of her children’s friends as they moved schools and homes to homes. She was a good friend to many. She held Alpha Club religious discussion and prayer groups at .

Kath’s life was spent caring for others: her children, her grandchildren, her husband (for 8 years bed and wheelchair ridden) her Mother, her mother’s companion Elsie, who stayed on for several years after Beattie had died, and a local West Byfleet couple John and Carol Stockton both seriously disabled whom Mum made honorary members of the family, frequently inviting them to birthday, Christmas, other anniversary events or home comings.     In Haslemere, she “adopted” her neighbour, Joan, who was blind, and did her laundry for her, even once her own sight was failing.   Kath valued her life by how “useful” she felt.

In her latter years with failing eyesight, hearing and mobility she felt less able to contribute to the family and wanted to move on. She was under some family pressure to move from Haslemere to facilitate visiting, but she insisted that her Haslemere accommodation was “useful” to the family.

In her final 6 weeks in the in the family ran a round-the clock rosta for attending to her. She was very ill and often in considerable pain, but through the night she would voice her concern: was her visitor comfortable and getting some sleep? Without fail she put the needs of others before herself to the end.

She was a wonderful Mother, wife, daughter, sister, cousin, grand mother, great grand mother, aunt, niece, friend, Christian and Catholic and will never be forgotten.