My mother Jane Yerbury Sweeney, who was born on 7th. January 1920 and died on 1st. June 2018 at Newbegin House in Beverley, was an extraordinary woman. Brought up in Kensington and Sussex, she was educated at home, mostly by herself. She read widely, but obtained no formal qualifications.
Her mother had been expelled from boarding school while her parents were living abroad, and her father, although he eventually qualified and became an eminent doctor with a successful practice in Kensington, had hated school, so the couple decided to keep Jane and her younger siblings at home.
Jane was often left to care for her younger sisters. When she grew up, she started to train as a nurse, but was evacuated from London on the outbreak of the Second World War and initially worked as a farm labourer in Warwickshire, milking cows and ploughing with a shire horse until she had her first tractor. She read books on agriculture and was taught by a friendly neighbouring farmer.
By the end of the war, Jane was the manager of a large farm. In that capacity, she called in a local vet to see a sick cow. The vet sent a young Irish locum vet called Paddy to the farm. Paddy palpated the cow and diagnosed a foreign body embedded in the cow’s fourth stomach. Without an immediate operation, the cow would die.
My mother rigged up paraffin lamps and the two of them operated on the cow all through the night. Sure enough, a rusty nail was found in the fourth stomach. The young vet and his impromptu assistant fell in love and were married, first settling in a rented Georgian house on the outskirts of Dublin where I was born. A couple of years later, the family moved to the village of Church Lawford in Warwickshire and, with the help of an inheritance and a mortgage, bought a smallholding.
Initially life was hard, and vets were not allowed to advertise in those days. While Paddy gradually built up a general practice from scratch based on word of mouth recommendations and repeat business, Jane developed a market garden and started selling flowers and vegetables from a barn next to the surgery. In those days, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons was a very snobbish organisation which did not like professional practice to be tainted by trade. They sent an inspector who considered Jane’s ambition to open a village shop.
He commented: “I do sympathise, Mrs. Sweeney. One of my best friend’s wife opened a retail establishment, but of course, she sold gowns”. Evidently, it was OK to sell fashionable clothing to the rich, but much less acceptable to sell potatoes and carrots to everyone. Fortunately, Jane was allowed to open her shop, provided the front windows were made of frosted glass and there was no signage outside to enable the veterinary clients to see that trade was being carried on.
Two more sons were born (Warwick and Simon) and all three boys attended the village school. Both the shop and the veterinary practice prospered, providing sources of local employment for shop assistants, veterinary nurses and kennel staff. Paddy developed a love for bone surgery in the greyhound, and gradually gave up large animal practice to concentrate on this speciality. My parents had cows, ponies and donkeys, as well as all the canine patients in the animal hospital. Jane became the village postmistress in addition to managing the shop, which became a general store.
However, with the emergence of supermarkets in the 1960s, Jane realized that the hey day of the village shop was over. She developed a small caravan site for long term residents to help with the housing shortage and also raised money to buy two houses which she renovated and let out. As with the conversion of the barn into a shop, she did a lot of the physical work herself. In her late 40s, Jane was offered a job as an infant helper in the local primary school. However, due to cuts in expenditure, the job offer was revoked.
Undaunted, she decided to become a teacher, despite having no qualifications. She studied by correspondence through the Rapid Results College and obtained 6 “O” level GCEs in eight months. Canley Teacher Training College in Coventry waived their usual “A” level requirement and Jane became a full time student for the first time in her life. Three years later, she gained her Teaching Certificate with the equal highest mark since the College had opened.
Once qualified, Jane sold the goodwill of the shop and concentrated on teaching, taking to her new career with the unwavering determination which was part of her DNA. Within a couple of years, she obtained a graded post, and soon after that became a deputy head. Jane also developed a new plan for improving the teaching of reading, which was adopted by the local education authority for use in all their primary schools.
At that stage in her career, Jane applied for secondment to do a one year B.Ed degree course at Warwick University, but was turned down because she was too old. Undaunted, she resigned her post and duly completed the degree at her own expense. She then returned to teaching and completed her career with three successive headships at small primary schools, including the one in Church Lawford where she had almost become an infant helper many years earlier.
Quite apart from her teaching career, Jane was also active in politics, taking over from me as a member of Rugby Borough Council when I moved to Bedfordshire and became a County Councillor. The Council was about to sell its substantial art collection through lack of space. Jane managed to persuade Warwick University to place the collection on temporary exhibition at the University and then campaigned successfully for a new library and art centre in Rugby, where the art collection is now permanently housed. Jane also persuaded the Council to install heat pumps in its new sports centre to save energy and money. Jane was also an active campaigner for improved housing and a supporter of the charity “Shelter”.
Meanwhile, Paddy continued to develop new surgical techniques for mending greyhound injuries, and became internationally respected for his pioneering work. He travelled widely, giving lectures and campaigning successfully for improved safety on dog tracks to reduce injuries. With Jane’s support, he organized numerous large sporting events either at home or at Rugby Football Ground, with terrier racing, donkey racing, tugs of war, dog shows and sulky racing. Many friends from the world of sport including Denis Law, Alex Stepney and Noel Cantwell from Manchester United, Ted Williams the champion show jumper and Johnny Williams, a former British Heavyweight Champion supported these events. Paddy also organised weekend teaching seminars for young vets to help them treat unusual bone injuries, as well as writing extensively for sports papers and veterinary journals.
Eventually, Jane persuaded Paddy to retire in his 70s, somewhat against his will. The couple moved to Oswaldkirk in North Yorkshire to be nearer some of the family members. They spent fourteen happy years exploring the countryside, growing woodland and keeping rare sheep, a donkey and their beloved pet Bull Terriers. Jane redeveloped an empty cart house, turning it into a beautiful holiday let suitable for paying guests, including disabled visitors.
In December 2006, they sold up and moved to Beverley to live with me and my family at Newbegin House. Both Paddy and Jane immersed themselves in all that Beverley had to offer, and after a period of adjustment to being “townies” for the first time in their adult lives, became very happy. They both enjoyed walking on the Westwood with their Jack Russell terriers and talking to other dog owners.
Jane joined the Beverley Film Society and also supported the Beverley Theatre Society and later, the East Riding Theatre. Paddy loved driving his grandchildren to the coast for outings and also cycled and walked around Beverley wearing a distinctive green outfit and carrying a yellow Paddy’s whisky bag lest anyone forget that he came from Ireland. Almost every day, the couple attended the Treasure House and ate in the café while their Jack Russell Charley sat on a blanket in the foyer downstairs. They and Charley were all given life membership of the Friends of Beverley Art Gallery as a tribute to their devoted support.
In January 2017, the couple celebrated Jane’s 97th. birthday and Paddy made a fine speech at a lunch attended by numerous family members. Three days later, he suffered a fall and died in Hull Royal Hospital shortly afterwards. The marriage had lasted nearly 68 years and Jane was bereft. She was also suffering from cancer. Despite her loneliness and pain, she continued to go everywhere in an electric buggy, and made the best of the life she had left. Jane bought a house in Ruswarp near Whitby and enjoyed living there whenever she was well enough.
Jane also actively campaigned as a Remainer during the referendum on leaving the E.U. and happily crossed swords on tv with me. Not surprisingly as one of the original Maastricht rebels while I was an M.P. in the 1990s, I was a staunch Brexiteer. My mother tolerated my errant behaviour, but did not pull any punches in debate. Jane also found solace from becoming a regular attender at the Quaker Meeting House. Although an atheist, Jane enjoyed the quiet contemplative atmosphere provided by the Quakers and they always made her welcome. Jane’s grandfather had come from Yorkshire and there were Quakers in the family at that time, which makes it less surprising that Jane found solace with the Quakers.
Six weeks ago, Jane underwent major cancer surgery at Castle Hill. Thanks to the skill of the dedicated operating team led by Miss Booth, and the superb post operative care provided by all the nurses and other staff in Ward 11, Jane’s cancer was removed and the wound healed well. However, at the age of 98, the sheer effort involved was too great. Jane wished to spend her final days at Newbegin House with her family and her little dog Pickles, where she was cared for by four wonderful carers, two district nurses, a Macmillan nurse, a dietician and Doctor Julia Clifton. The whole family wishes to thank everyone concerned for looking after Jane so well.
Jane is survived by sons Walter (a solicitor, and proprietor of Newbegin House 5 star gold B&B), Warwick (a London photographer) and Simon (senior lecturer at York University) daughters in law Nuala, Lyn and Fiona, seven grand daughters and one grandson.
The funeral will take the form of a natural burial at Terrington in North Yorkshire on a date to be arranged, followed by a celebration of Jane and Paddy’s lives at Newbegin House.
