Notices
Mrs Helen Clare West (née Ridley)
In College 1943-48 St Margaret's and Fauconberg
Helen Clare West (née Ridley) was one of several Cheltonian generations, sequentially, her great aunt Florence Mosley (a member of the music staff), her mother Betty Ridley (née Mosley) (St Margaret’s and St Helen’s) and her daughter Nicola Isaac (née West) (Bunwell).
She came to Coll (as she invariably and fondly called it) in September 1943 and left in July 1948.
St Mag’s wasn’t warm in the war – the second war – and rations were basic but these frugalities bred a strength of character and a resilience which later helped Clare’s generation combat the philosophy of the have it all society. She knew that a Christian needed to resist such enticement. Resist she did and to a greater extent than many of us.
Clare was a music student (Runge and Shimmin were names to be conjured with) who was accorded the honour of a piano recital in the Princess Hall before she proceeded to the Royal College of Music. She married a soldier and became a traditional wife and mother. She was elected a corporate member in December 1990.
To sum up Clare: love and courage predominated, she was, after all, a good priest’s daughter and a pastoral bishop’s grand-daughter and to her mere things mattered little, people were enthroned in her heart.
She died in Cheltenham where, in a sense, she had begun her journey.
1952 2005
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