Churchwarden Pamela Jennings died on 27th May, 2010, fortified by the Sacraments.
Jesu mercy, Mary pray.

Homily preached by the Rector at her Funeral Mass on Friday, 18th June, 2010.
Gospel - Our Lord in the boat calming the storm (Mark 4:35-41)

We gather in love to celebrate the funeral rites of Pamela, our dear friend and sister in Christ. With expectant hope rooted in Christ, and the confident trust that he forgives our sins and remembers the good we have done, we pray that God will gather Pamela to himself.

And as well as praying for Pamela herself, we pray also for those who mourn, especially the members of Pamela’s close-knit family, who were constantly in her mind and heart and surrounded her always in the many treasured photographs; and for Pamela’s ‘other’ family – her many dear friends she met and made along life’s way, and amongst whom she made her home, here in Downham and in St Edmund’s, and in Boughton.

Many of us, even who knew Pamela well, had only hints and glimpses of the details of her story; her characteristic Christian humility meant that she never ‘went on’, or boasted about her professional life and achievements. I express my gratitude (indeed on behalf of us all) to Pamela’s sister Diane, who shared with me so much more detail about Pamela than I already knew. This recollection of Pamela and her life, which I hope will deepen our appreciation and love, is very much on behalf of the family.

Early Life
Pamela was born to Augustus and Florence in 1932. Her father being a career soldier, in 1st Bttn. Royal Warwickshire Regt, Pamela was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and was still a babe when they moved to India. Her father’s transfer to 2nd Bttn. brought the family to England, to Tidworth, Aldershot and then Warwick, during which period Pamela's sister Diane was born. Being in his new unit also meant that Pamela’s father – to whom she was very close – went as part of the BEF to Europe early in WWII, when Pamela was aged 7. In the Dunkirk evacuation, he was numbered among those murdered in the infamous massacre at Esquelbec. The family didn’t hear much until 1943, and then only that he was missing; and they knew for certain about him only as recently as 1988, which touched Pamela deeply.

The family lived in Rugby, eventually being allocated a council house. Their grand-mother played a big part in bringing-up the girls whilst their mother trained as a teacher. Diane said that Pamela was always the ‘bossy big sister’, and an avid reader, getting through ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ at an early age. And that she always wanted to be a Nurse.

Nursing Vocation
After leaving school at 14, Pamela worked in a chemist’s for a year, before entering the Coventry & Warwickshire Hospital aged 15 as one of the first of the new cadet nurses. She qualified as an SRN at 21, and served for the required year as a Staff Nurse before embarking on her midwifery training - Part 1 at the ‘Woolwich Home for Mothers & Babies’ and Part 2 with an Anglo-Catholic Nursing Order in Deptford, which meant working in some of the most disadvantaged parts of London, Deptford, the Isle of Dogs, Greenwich, the East End.

Nyasaland (Malawi)
After a year at the Mile End Hospital, Pamela undertook tropical medicine training at Sefton General Hospital in Liverpool, followed by a course in theology at Selly Oak, Birmingham. The culmination of this was to go to Nyasaland for 3 years to run a Mission Hospital, aged just 25. This was on a remote island on Lake Malombe. Boat was the only way to get there; and on one occasion during a storm the lake was so rough that the crew had to lash Pamela to the mast to stop her going overboard. (So there is a first resonance with today’s Gospel of the Calming of the Storm.)

Even at this young age, Pamela displayed a great determination and strength of character. On another occasion when the mother of an expectant mother refused to give the necessary permission for an emergency Caesarean, Pamela took decisive action - she grabbed another nurse, barricaded themselves in the operating theatre and, in the absence of a surgeon, simply carried out the Caesarean herself!

Sister Pamela and a new challenge in Malawi
After that 3-year posting, which she loved, Pamela returned to England in 1960 to study for her Sister Tutor’s exams. The Course was the then-substantial sum of £350. Her home church of St Oswald’s Rugby and the Mission Hospital agreed to pay half each, as long as Pamela did another year in Africa. The completion of that year coincided with the independence of Nyasaland in 1964, which took the name Malawi. The new government asked Pamela to stay on to establish the first Pupil Midwife School in Malawi, so she stayed on for another 3 years setting up the training school in Zomba.

Return to England
Although her heart was in Africa, in 1968 Pamela declined the opportunity to stay for a further 3-years and returned to England in order to look after their mother who had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and who by this time had moved to Devon with Diane. Pamela was appointed Assistant Matron for Maternity at the North Devon Infirmary, Barnstable, in which post she served for two years.

King's Lynn
In 1970, a new opportunity and challenge arose, and Pamela moved to be District Nursing Officer for the new Queen Elizabeth II Hospital, King’s Lynn, to open the first phase of the Hospital, ‘Maternity, Paediatrics & Gynaecology’ and re-structure maternity and midwifery services for the whole area. Pamela and her mother found a house at the Howdale, Downham Market, and this period was the beginning of her love of Norfolk. It was also during this period that Pamela herself was first diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis - though, as we all know, she never let that stop her!

Guys, Lewisham and Southwark
From King’s Lynn, Pamela was eventually headhunted to be Director of Nursing Services for Midwifery & Gynaecology for Lewisham and North Southwark, one of the top Nursing Management jobs in the Country. The famous Guys Hospital is on the south side of the Thames, near to where HMS Belfast is moored. The first 9 floors of Guys were Pamela’s! And it was in this appointment that Pamela continued until retirement, which came a little early because of the increasing MS.

A busy life in Retirement
Pamela’s dedicated working life in midwifery continued also into retirement, when she was invited by the Royal College of Midwives to work with Ruth Ashton to produce a significant Report on the “Practice and Training of Midwives in the European Community”, which involved travel to many different European Countries for research and to present the Report to different European bodies.

Sometime after Pamela’s retirement, when they were still living in London, her mother fractured her pelvis and moved to a nursing home in Devon, nearer Diane (where she died in 1996). After her mother’s move, Pamela decided to come back to Norfolk and moved to Church View, Boughton in 1995. Here she set-to with a will, creating the beautiful garden from scratch with Alan Jarvis, and getting involved in village life, Boughton Church (as well as St Edmund’s for its faith and tradition), and its Church and Community Project. She also enjoyed taking part in the annual village Open Gardens event.

A person of surprises!
Many people have some surprising secret interests and Pamela was no exception. She loved cricket, delighting in seeing Don Bradman play at Edgbaston in 1948, and growing up in Rugby she loved that sport too (and to think that I always thought she was just humouring me when I reported back from Welford Road and the latest Leicester Tigers match, but she was genuinely interested!). But perhaps Pamela’s most surprising sporting interest was that she was a devoted Speedway fan! Supporting the Brandon Bees.

The heartbeat of Pamela's life
The so-far almost unspoken thread in the story of Pamela’s life is her steadfast Christian faith. I’ve not mentioned it explicitly so far, not because it was some sort of separate bolt-on ‘extra’ that can be dealt with as such, but because her deep Christian faith, received from the Apostles down the Apostolic line and moulded and formed in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, was the heart of Pamela’s life, upon which all else was built, and from which all else flowed.

Reflection on the Gospel reading
The measure of the authenticity of faith in a person is the authenticity of the life that arises out of it. I can only speak for myself here, though I imagine that you will all share similar thoughts, that Pamela’s life and faith have never been less than a constant inspiration and encouragement. Even at the most difficult times for her, she has radiated the authentic joy and love that is the hallmark of one who is truly ‘in Christ’.

At its heart, today’s Gospel reading is about the nature of faith. During the course of her life, Pamela has had the reality of many troubling ‘storms’ so to speak to contend with. At all times, and in all things, even in these latter times (especially in these latter times!), her response has been to trustfully refer everything to Christ, who is the centre of calm and peace of every storm. ‘What difference in life does faith actually make?’ people outside the faith sometimes ask. Look at Pamela, and you will see a clear and very practical answer.

A dedicated servant of the Church
Of course, I would like to pay tribute to the ‘particulars’ of Pamela’s service of the Church, but with there being so many things I can’t possibly mention them all *.  When I first arrived in our parishes in 2001, Pamela was already a valued member of the Deanery Synod as Boughton’s representative and of its Standing Committee.

(* Some of Pamela's other areas of service, not mentioned in the Homily, included parish Pilgrimage Secretary, Ward Secretary of the Society of Mary and Cell Secretary of the Society of Our Lady of Walsingham.  She was also a regular and joyful pilgrim to Walsingham and Lourdes.)

2006 Churchwarden at St Edmund's
In Spring 2006 she was already the PCC Secretary for Boughton when I asked if she would consider standing as Churchwarden here at St Edmund’s in view of an impending vacancy. When she said she’d have to pray about it, I knew it wasn’t simply words to boot the thing into the long grass for a bit, but that she really would pray about it. I asked her not because she could go leaping up and down ladders (which she was the first to say she couldn’t), but because at the centre of her life was what should be at the centre of the life of every Christian, prayer, regular and committed prayer.

Pamela has served as Churchwarden of St Edmund’s since May 2006. Because of some unfortunate and unexpected circumstances, for most of that time she has been either single-handed or with someone brand new to the role. Even with a combination of Multiple Sclerosis, advanced Cancer and Kidney Failure, Pamela has served faithfully and well as Churchwarden, and has died ‘in harness’ as we say colloquially. Not (it has to be said) because she stood for election again at this year’s Annual Meetings, but because no-one else would do it in which case the term of office runs on to 31st July.

“Isn’t she marvellous” people have often said of Pamela. And indeed she is. But such a comment risks being no more than sentimentalism if it goes no further. Love is about looking outwards, not inwards; of going the extra mile, of taking risks. In thinking of Pamela recently, something said by Eleanor Roosevelt has come to my mind. Inspired by her husband who suffered disabilities, President Roosevelt, she said: “In life, always aim to do the thing that should be impossible for you”.

Celebration in the context of the Eucharist
We celebrate Pamela’s funeral rites within the context of the Eucharist, as part of her express wishes. For some of you here this may seem a new thing. But for the Christian there really should be no surprise in this ancient custom. For in the Eucharist, the Church celebrates the saving sacrifice of Christ for the life of the world. Holy Communion is his pledge to us of eternal life and the foretaste of the heavenly banquet. And it is the expression of our ‘communion’ (our ‘fellowship’) with God-in-Christ, with one another, and with the whole communion of saints who have gone before us in faith.

A life lived 'Eucharistically'
But celebrating the Eucharist as we come to pray for Pamela is also so appropriate because she has lived ‘Eucharistically’. By this, I don’t only mean that she received the Eucharist faithfully and frequently – which of course she did – but rather that Pamela is someone who has understood the meaning of the Eucharist for daily life, and has put that meaning into action making it a reality in her daily life.

The word Eucharist is a very ancient used word for the Holy Communion Service, and it derives from New Testament Greek. It means ‘thanksgiving’. Pamela has lived her life ‘Eucharistically’.  In other words (thinking of the actions of Christ in instituting the Eucharist, repeated by the Priest at every Mass) in union with Christ, Pamela has (1) laid hold on life and taken it in her hands, she has (2) given thanks to God, profound and deep thanks, recognizing him as the source of that life and of all good gifts, and she has willingly and sacrificially (3) broken open that life in order to (4) share it with others for their enrichment, for their nourishment, for their benefit. That is life lived ‘Eucharistically’.

And that is why there are so many of us here today. And that is why all of us have such good reason to be thankful for her. Pamela has made a positive difference to our lives. In her passing from this earthly life the sadness is ours, for this is the pain of love. But for Pamela herself we must surely rejoice, for now has come the moment for the consummation of her life of faith.

An inspiration - what about us?
Throughout her life Pamela has brought to bear her life, her time, her talents, offering them with an authentic Christian sacrificial generosity for the benefit of others - through the work she loved, the communities to which she was committed, the Church to which she was dedicated.

We pass this way only once. Life is God’s gift to us; what we do with it is our gift to God. As we reflect on Pamela’s inspiring life and faith, and pray for her to God with thanksgiving, it is also my own hope and prayer that we may all feel inspired and encouraged to develop and use fully the gifts of nature and grace that God has given us, just as Pamela has done, for which our lives – and the lives of so many others – have been made all the richer.

+ May she rest in peace. Amen.

Fr James Mather ssc
Rector