It is a truly sad, but great, honour to stand before you all today, in person and those watching online, to pay tribute to my darling mother Vivienne.
How is it possible to sum up a life of almost 80 years in a few brief minutes? How can I share all the stories that would paint most completely the portrait of her life? Of course, I can’t. So I will try instead to give an overview, a sketch as the artist would call it, of Mum’s amazing time amongst us.
Mum was born Vivienne Rosalind Wakely in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin on 24th Feb 1943. The youngest of three girls, her sisters Maureen and Pamela preceding her, Mum grew up in Clontarf near the Bull Island and its famous sandy beach of the Dollymount Strand. She loved the water and learnt to be a strong swimmer, outpacing the rest of us for most of her life!
She went to Greenlanes National School before advancing to Alexandra College in Dublin. She made some of her life-long friends in these years, many of whom are, I know, following this service today. As a youngster Mum was a proud Girl Guide and Sea Ranger, and even met Princess Margaret when she came to inspect her troop.
Mum had an infectious enthusiasm for music, art, languages, and travel – the latter ignited by her father’s perks as a Regional Manager for Great Western Railways (Ireland), enabling family holidays to be spent all over the continent on his company 1st class travel pass. That must have been quite an experience for a teenager in the 1950s!
Later, she worked for a time in Paris as an au pair where she developed her love of all things French, particularly the language. She used this period on the continent to explore further afield, and her adventurous spirit took her to the south and beyond to Corsica.
Music of any sort was a cornerstone of Mum’s life which never left her, but the drama of grand opera was her passion. In her youth she sang alto in the chorus of the Dublin Grand Opera Society (now the Irish National Opera), where she shared a stage in the 1960s with, among others, the great Pavarotti. Indeed, music played a key part in her meeting her future husband. When she moved to England in the mid-1960s she joined the Woking Choral Society, and at a rehearsal for JS Bach’s Mass in B Minor she caught the eye of a certain Martin Root, a slimmer and far more dashing tenor than Pavarotti!
The rest, of course, is history. They married in St John’s Church, Clontarf and settled in Woking. Life… naturally, took its path… and before long there were three of us children: Rachel, myself, and Rosalind. We lived in Woking until 1981 when we relocated to Freeland, Oxfordshire for Dad’s job. This was a handy location given its proximity to Woodstock where lived Mum’s Uncle Fred and Aunt Sadie; her cousin Derek and his family; her niece Elaine at Oxford; and a little later, her sister Pamela with her husband Edward and their family.
In the mid-1980s, Mum’s parents Hilda and Bill took the huge step of moving from Ireland to live with us in Freeland. We created a happily extended family home, in, appropriately enough, an extension / annexe for Gran and Grandad.
Mum was very much a people person. Taking on some part time work, she excelled at jobs that involved interaction with others, whether patients (at the Witney Community Hospital); tourists and visitors (at the Woodstock Tourist Information Centre); or students (at the Oxford University Admissions Department). The relationships she built in the work place were no less vital to her as the friends she met through us as school children. Relationships that have, like so many, stood the test of time.
In her spare time, Mum played an active part of church life at St Mary the Virgin, Freeland. She continued singing: she was a regular member of the Woodstock Choral Society; the Oxford Operatic Society (occasionally alongside me); and a faith-based acapella choir, Christian Harmony, alongside Dad. In later years she would enjoy visits to Verona, Covent Garden, and even The Met in New York with Rachel. She took Rosalind to the ballet, and instilled in all of us a love for theatre. (That’s something which I took very much to heart, in following my own particular line of work.) In fact Mum always wanted her children to have the best opportunities in life, encouraging us in extra-curricular activities such as youth theatre, riding, ballet, orchestra, and school trips. Together with Dad, she supported us in achieving strong grades at school, getting to university, and building our careers.
A good education and healthy careers were not the only thing Mum wanted us to gain. She also passed on to us her love of travel. We enjoyed summer holidays in Ireland with our extended family and began regular trips as a family to France. After her father died in 1991, Mum was able to buy a small cottage in rural western Brittany. It was a dream come true for her: a second home in the country she probably loved as much as Ireland. The Bretons welcomed Mum’s Celtic heart with open arms; and so began a 17 year love affair with this secluded, tranquil spot known as “Kerrsossignol”, a Breton-French portmanteau for “Place of the Nightingale.”
But Kerrossignol was more than just a holiday retreat. It became a place where Mum could finally dedicate herself to one of her life’s ambitions: working professionally as a fine artist. On leaving school she had worked in a graphic design agency in Dublin illustrating adverts. Later, during our family holidays, Mum would spend her days happily painting watercolours while Dad took us kids on a hike up a mountain somewhere. By the time we children had all finally left home Mum was able to do a part-time foundation course at Banbury School of Art before progressing to the Fine Art course at De Montford University. She was awarded a 2.1 BA Hons in Fine Art in 2003 and exhibited in London.
Thus began an extraordinary period of creative energy which fed into a huge body of work. Many people here, and watching online, will over the years have received Mum’s legendary hand-painted Christmas cards, rich in colour, vibrant in tone, passionate in their very making.
And when Dad retired (hurrah!) both he and Mum were able to extend their sojourns in Leuhan (the village where Kerrossignol was situated), often for months at a time: Dad composing his music, examples of which we have heard today; and Mum working towards one exhibition or another (many held in Brittany itself).
These were golden years indeed. Mum’s heart filled this glorious haven, and she and Dad made a happy home there amongst the (sometimes admittedly unruly) garden of hydrangeas, arum lilies, phlox, and montbretia. It was an open house, always ringing with Mum’s joyful laugh and bright conversation; full of family, friends, both local and étrangers visiting from near or far to enjoy her legendary hospitality; classical music from her favourite station Radio Classique mingling with Radio 4 from… some other part of the house.
Everyone had a connection to Kerrossignol, not only because it was where our parents spent so much of their time. There was an aura to the place. It became a refuge from the hurly burly of city life, where time slowed down enough for hearts fully to open, stories to be shared, and bonds between us deepen.
Some years later Mum developed a brutal (there is, sadly, no other word for it) cough, subsequently diagnosed as Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, which is scarring of the lung tissue. This was a chronic condition that became increasingly debilitating over the course of the next almost decade, but Mum faced the challenges of the illness with characteristic fortitude and courage.
In 2015 Mum and Dad moved to Cranleigh to be closer to Rosalind’s family in Guildford. Mum was incredibly proud of all her grandchildren – Jacob, Isabella, and Joseph – and their wide-ranging academic, creative, and sporting achievements, and she adored seeing them grow up so close to her.
With her reduced mobility it was not easy to get out and about and to establish many new friendships, but she did build some close relationships in her few years here, and I know Mum held those newer friends as dear as some of her lifelong friends from her childhood, and later life in Surrey and the Cotswolds.
Mum was, unquestionably, a true People Person. I have capitalised those two words because it seems appropriate to acknowledge her natural instinct, her talent, her essence, for putting other people first. She sent greetings cards and holiday postcards at the same time as emails, text messages, and voicemails (to the same recipient). She remembered birthdays, anniversaries, and other important occasions (for example an exam, a new job or retirement). She knew who was married (or engaged) to whom; who had just become a parent. She sent condolences when a loved one died. She knew her family tree better than many of us know our own phone number. I wish I had recorded her detailing the intricacies of the various branches of the extended Boucher, Wakely, and even Root families as far afield as Australia, the US and Canada.
Mum leaves behind a rich tapestry of relationships, as gloriously unique as any of her paintings: as close friend, Godmother, special cousin, treasured aunt; adored sister to Pamela; dear mother-in-law to Ross and Beth; inspirational Grandmother to Rachel’s son Jacob and his step-siblings Sophia and Alex, and Rosalind’s children Isabella and Joseph; beloved mother to me and my sisters Rachel and Rosalind; and of course a darling wife to Martin.
Mum owned – WAS – a truly Celtic heart. There was never a dull moment around her. She was a passionate, creative spirit: romantic as she was funny, wise as she was sensitive. She exuded light, warmth, generosity, and love. She has left an enormous vacuum in the lives of all who knew and loved her. May her soul now sing for eternity amongst the heavenly host.
Eulogy read by Rebecca Root, and written by Rebecca, Rachel, Ros and Martin.