Mary Abel/Gillingham 1954 – 2023
Mary was the third of four children. Her father was a navy chaplain in the war and then became a vicar. Her mother was a driver in the WRENs and was later a French teacher. Mary was born at home in Chaplain’s lodge in Windsor Great Park because her father was then chaplain to the Queen. When Mary was six the family settled in Horsham where her father was the vicar.
At thirteen Mary went to boarding school at St. Swithins in Winchester. Perched on a cold and windy hill she threw herself into school life excelling at tennis, swimming and lacrosse. Summer holidays were spent in Suffolk, first in Thorpeness and later Aldeburgh. Tennis tournaments and then sailing laid the foundations for an enduring love of the Suffolk coast and throughout her life Mary was at her most content absorbing the salty tang of sea air, swimming in the North Sea, sailing on the river Alde and watching the swifts on their annual pilgrimage.
Before going to Durham university to study psychology Mary spent a few months travelling in Europe and some weeks working in a kibbutz in Israel. It was eye-opening to be exposed to a different concept of society where community played such a prominent role. By the time she had left Durham Mary had made her career choice. She trained in a family therapy unit in Bristol before completing an MSc in social work at Oxford. Her first job was in Hammersmith and Fulham, reacting and responding to difficult and sensitive situations involving child protection, mental health and adults at risk.
It was at Hammersmith and Fulham that Mary met Mike, who worked in another team, and in 1987 they married. Mary’s main focus in life was her family. She was a loving and devoted mother. Her joy in life was her children – Alex, Grace and Joe. Mary and Mike had another child, Emily, who was born 1990 and sadly died just five weeks later of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. She confronted the tragedy head on, not shrinking from the grief nor letting it overwhelm her.
When she returned to work her career now had to accommodate family life. Mary had a strong sense of gender equality and argued for working conditions that allowed for family and job to be properly balanced so she was proud that she was able to pioneer full job-sharing for a significant part of the children’s early years. Working now for Kensington and Chelsea, Mary managed teams specialising in child protection and family support. In 2001 she left front-line social work and joined the Association of Directors of Social Services. This high-profile job focussed on developing policy and standards in social work, influencing government decisions and ensuring the effective running of the Association.
Both Mary and Mike believed in equality within marriage and between them they shared duties and responsibilities. When, in 2016, they had both retired they were able to explore an appetite for travel and criss-crossed all of Europe.
The time in retirement also allowed Mary to participate more fully in the church. Her faith had always been central to her life and she possessed a deep conviction that her life was wrapped up in God. She worshipped at St. Mary’s for almost thirty years. She had an air of wisdom and calm about her and was always ready to talk to anyone and everyone. She was an inspired leader of Godly Play for the primary-school age children, guiding them thoughtfully and interestingly through the sessions which were popular and much enjoyed. She took her responsibility as Parish Safeguarding Officer seriously, leading the three churches and keeping the PCC informed about what safeguarding means as it has broadened over the years to include adults at risk and a range of different scenarios. In retirement she volunteered at Holiday at Home and gave profound thought and prayer to all the problems that arose during her four-year term as parish warden which included the difficult Covid times.
Mary had many talents but her desire and ability to make connections with people was central to her. She had a special gift in clearing the emotional space to allow a relationship to flourish and for her genuine interest in people to come through. She held no grudges and made no judgements; she was able to remove negative influences and to positively delight in others. That so many people came to see her during the final months of her life paid tribute to this.
Mary had four constants in her life: her family, her faith, her career and her love of Aldeburgh. Enveloping all of these was laughter. No conversation was complete without a decent dose of hilarity. Her ability to remove the negative was evident as she considered her own death. When she talked about her terminal diagnosis she said,
“There is no bitterness – others die younger. No anger at ‘Why me?’. No regrets, no decisions could have made it different, just a purity of sadness”. She held no truck with euphemisms and was ruthless in confronting truths. “Don’t say I fought a brave battle with cancer; I did not. Something went wrong with my body.” . In her last weeks, Mike, Alex, Grace and Joe supplemented the hospice care with a tenderness that was not only comforting for her but also perhaps healing for them. She died as she lived – open, honest, loving, considerate, taking joy in all things and laughing.