On behalf of my Sisters and Brother, I thank you all for coming here today to say farewell to Rena and to celebrate her life.
We all knew her in different ways - Mother, Grandmother, Friend or Neighbour, as a golf partner or on the tennis or badminton courts and of course across the bridge table. We can all remember different things.
To Mother manners and the proper behaviour were important. Letters received a prompt reply but you would not get another letter until you had replied to her. My siblings would send me occasional messages suggesting that mother was worried about me or was I merely procrastinating (apparently a Petrie trait not a Gaunt one).
She treasured letters and postcards from all her friends. There are neat bundles of correspondence filed in drawers and boxes according to the occasion or the writer. She was an excellent correspondent.
Reading some letters brought back memories - mostly happy and a reminder of her wide circle, which was sadly diminishing at one end but happily expanding into the younger generation.
She was never happier than when looking after guests in her home.
Rena was born in Ayr and moved to Edinburgh as a schoolgirl. George was the boy next door - number 10 Netherby Road for the Petries and number 4 for the Gaunts. Lomond Park Tennis Club was one focal point.
On leaving school she learned hairdressing and then shorthand and typing. I still remember the home perms at 47 Stirling Road in the post war years. I also remember that I as a young teenager, curious about the world, asking her about her life before marriage and was told tales of the fascinating world of insurance but not of her relationship with George.
She was a private person. Two years ago she told us that she had destroyed her private letters. I only wish that she had destroyed some of her old insurance policies and renewal notes instead. But she did leave enough of her and George's letters for me to know now that it was a love story and not a boring domestic saga. George and Rena were in love for over sixty years. I can only imagine 1942 when George was posted missing in North Africa, but I do know Father's feelings in 1981 when Mother nearly died in Melbourne. I can now understand how Mother could so selflessly look after Father at home in his declining years.
After George's death in 1997 she was upset by officialdom when she was deemed too old to return to voluntary work as a driver but the silver lining was to Angela and my benefit. She adopted Paddy Bain (Angela's Mother) and visited her regularly.
Mother was a cook, a gardener and a dog owner. The recipe books, the gardens and the dogs all showed her skill and love.
There are many facets and incidents in her life that I have omitted. Rena once (or often) said her one ambition was to get married (to George was, of course, unsaid) this she achieved successfully and has now left us to rejoin him.
Goodbye Mother.
MGMP
Continue with service
Text for downloading (MS Word 95)