Eleanor Stanier 1942 – 2024
As her obituary in the Telegraph said, Eleanor was an indefatigable and effective Liberal Democrat councillor in Richmond-upon-Thames from 1997 to 2010 and she served as mayor in 2001-2.
She read history at Oxford where she met Tom. They married in 1965 and had three sons, Alex, Toby and Robert. During this time Eleanor worked as a teacher at the Godolphin and Latymer School for Girls. Around 1970 she became concerned about the widening of Mortlake High Street, so she joined the Mortlake With East Sheen Society. She became chair of MESS in 1990 and showed herself an effective fundraiser by holding many social events to support the Mortlake Almshouses, Barnes Hospital, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust. She worked hard to preserve the post office and defended the sub-postmaster when he was accused of stealing £83,000 from the East Sheen branch (he received a suspended sentence). Later she led efforts to save the bomb shelter in St. Leonard’s Court.
Her funeral was held at Christchurch and her son Robert gave this sermon:
“When one comes to a sermon about someone who’s died, there’s always the issue of their own faith and belief. Mum managed, I think, to hold two somewhat contradictory opinions at the same time. On the one hand, on balance, she did believe in a creator of the universe and in a God as most people would understand him. So in that sense, quite conventional. She was, however, also of the view that, just now, God was putting in rather a poor performance as the all-powerful overseer of the world, but if he were to take on board three or four pieces of advice she would give him, there would be a general improvement all round.
Never in the history of human existence can anyone have held so firm a series of opinions on so wide a range of subjects as my Mum. It didn’t matter that she had no experience of the subject. How a rabbi should give a sermon at a Bar-Mitzvah, how a ship’s captain should run the catering on a cross-channel ferry, how the cook at The Plough, the local pub, should have seasoned the shepherd’s pie; all have been on the receiving end of Mum’s advice, for there was nothing about which Mum felt constrained from giving her view. So I am sure that God is on the receiving end at the moment, and it is with slight fear and trembling, on God’s behalf as much as for Mum, we will commend her to an encounter with her Creator.
And we do so with a mix of feelings. There’s a yawning sense of loss, which I think I’m only scraping the surface of, in my own life right now. I think there’s also a sense of gratitude. And actually something more.
Just after Christmas, there was a low mood in my home. First, after a visit to Coval Road, it was clear that Mum’s health had really declined; we were losing the sense that she might rally and realising that this was essentially the end. Unrelatedly, our boiler went on the blink so we couldn’t get any room above 15 degrees. And finally, one by one we were succumbing to the winter flu bug that was passing around. All of which led to a kind of listlessness.
One lunchtime we were at the table in the kitchen, and my youngest son, Zachary, just said,
“I don’t know quite what it is, but I feel kind of defeated.” He was acute in sensing that there was something of that feeling in the house at the time. And part of death can feel like a defeat. But, of course, when you see the church as it is today, what we really see is a life of triumph. There’s a line in the marriage service when the priest prays for a new couple:
“May the hospitality of their home bring refreshment and joy to all around them; may their love overflow to neighbours in need and embrace those in distress.” Few homes in my experience have ever done this as well as Mum and Dad’s home. It was one of Mum’s great gifts. She had the confidence that the invitation would be worth people coming to and genuine delight in people’s arrival. She was a deeply loyal friend and here we are with so many people. What a testament to a life which gave so much.
In her hospitality, she was insistent that she didn’t need to offer haute cuisine, but something relatively simple could be enough, in the right company, to feel like a feast. And so often the occasion would flight into a joyous evening. Yes, it was an everyday joy, but the fact that it was just a dinner at a terraced house in a suburb doesn’t mean it was not a profound experience of friendship and of deep meaning.
From our different perspectives, we will draw different conclusions about what is happening next in the service, but I think everything can gather something from St Paul’s telling phrase, “more than conquerors”. We can each be more than conquerors on our path through life: and Mum was certainly that.
Thank you, Mum, and may God be with you on the next part of the journey.”