In Loving Memory of Nan Hymas
Friday 21st April 2023
11.30am - Methodist Church, Watling St S, Church Stretton SY6 7BG
Nan was born on 29 September 1922 in Langenhoe, near Colchester, Essex, the 10th child in the family. Lived in a 3 bedroomed Council house in Abberton. She went to Primary School at Langenhoe and secondary school at West Mersea until the age of 14.
Most of her sisters had gone into service at large houses in the area but her mother noticed her ability at sewing and arranged for her to be apprenticed to a firm of dressmakers in Colchester. She cycled the 4 miles to work every day.
In 1940 she joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force as a barrage balloon operator. From living in her immediate locality, she was sent all over England at the age of 18, including Sutton Coldfield, London docks and Southampton.
She met her late husband, Frank, at a dance in Abberton Village Hall in 1943 and it seems it was virtually love at first sight.
They married in 1946 and lived in Colchester. Their sons Michael and Geoffrey arrived in 1950 and 1953.
Nan was part of a large family, the 10th child with 12 nephews and nieces many of whom had children that she helped to look after from time to time. They all called her Aunty Nan. Some came to stay to access jobs or education. She made clothes for special occasions, mended and altered clothes with real skill. She encouraged and supported her sons in many activities.
Nan and Frank and family joined the local Methodist Church in Colchester in 1958 and went on to help run many of the activities there. At her 100th birthday, despite having left Colchester for Church Stretton some 20 years earlier, she received a card from the Colchester Church signed by over 20 people who remembered her fondly.
Geoffrey emigrated to Australia in the early 1980’s as a result of the collapse of the steel industry in the UK.
Frank became a diabetic in 1955 and it was to a large extent a result of her care that he lived for over 50 years with this condition.
She was expert at many crafts including needle point, knitting, cake decoration, wall papering and painting. She made and altered clothes for relatives and made dresses for shops. She made the dresses for the Carnival Queen in Colchester as well.
Nan and Frank moved in 2003 to Church Stretton where Michael and Hilary were living and settled down happily in a bungalow in Churchill Road. She made many friends here at this Methodist Church.
Frank died in 2008. This was a release to Nan, in some ways, whose life had been very dominated by caring for him in his later years. She expressed a wish to see the Alps and Edelweiss in bloom and subsequently enjoyed a week on holiday in Kitzbuhel where the cable car emerges near an Alpine garden.
She was delighted to receive a card from the King and Queen following her 100th birthday.
Nan was a support to many in her family and friends, and she could always be relied upon. She will be remembered with great fondness and love. She died on 27th March 2023
