Page 16 - br-march-2020

March 2020 March 2020

OBITUARIES/EULOGIES

Doris Kathleen Jeeves
Eulogy from Dianne Keeling - cousin
Welcome everyone to this Celebration of the life of Doris Kathleen Jeeves.
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Dianne and I am Kath’s cousin
although to my sister Margaret and me, she was always Aunt Kath . Kath’s
mother Annie and my maternal grandmother Ethel were sisters and were very
close. Kath and my mother Beryl, who were the same age, spent most school
holidays together at Annie’s meaning they grew up more like sisters than cousins
and were very close and stayed best friends all their lives. We are an extended
family as Annie and Ethel were two of 10 Rapley children and cousins are here
today from various parts of the country to be a part of this celebration. Also here
are Kath’s other family from when she married Charlie - his daughter Helen,
Grand daughters Alison and Melanie and great grandchildren William, Isobel,
Courtney and Charlie.
Kath was born 6th November 1922 to Annie and Harry Clatworthy in
Leatherhead, younger sister to Jack who was two years older. When Kath was 4
years old, the family moved to Ashtead as her father bought a Butcher’s shop
there. This is where she went to school and started piano lessons at the age of 6
and passed her first piano exam at 7.

On leaving school Kath trained as a shorthand typist and during the war worked
for the Ministry of Aircraft. In her spare time she would play the piano at Ashtead
YMCA for the visiting Canadian soldiers and help with the refreshments. She told
me she enjoyed doing it and was very popular.
After the war, still in Ashtead, she opened a hairdressers with a corner of the shop
used for floristry. This is when she changed her name from Doris to Kathleen as she
called the shop Kathleen’s which sounds much better than Doris’s. When my
older sister Maggie was about ten to early teens, she used to go and stay with
Kath and help out washing clients’ hair and putting the flowers out in their vases
in the shop and of course car trips to the seaside for ice cream. She remembers
this time fondly and Kath has always been her favourite
Aunt and she was also her Godmother. When I reached
that age I didn’t follow in her footsteps : I always
thought Aunt Kath was a bit bossy and I wasn’t
interested in hair dressing or flower arranging! Our
relationship was to blossom years later after Dave and I
married and moved to the New Forest.
In 1948 Kath married Leslie Maynard but the marriage
was not a happy one and after being separated for

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