Recently the sight of the pale blue soft topped Morris Minor around South Pool has been missing as its owner, Rosalind Page, is awaiting the green light after an indisposition.  Looking at her diary on my recent visit I was struck by how full her social life is even though she is not driving at present.

I have always had a soft spot for Rosalind since we got to know each other when she was Magazine Correspondent for South Pool, and not just because we share the same Christian name, but because of her warmth and understanding.

She was born in Exeter where her family had run their printing business since the 18^th Century.  She went to the Maynard School for Girls which was founded in 1658 by Bishop Maynard to teach the catechism and plain sewing to the daughters of the people of Exeter.  Rosalind excelled there, becoming Head Girl and gaining a place at Somerville College Oxford to read French.  She went up after a year at the Sorbonne and enjoyed it enormously, meeting Indira Nehru (later Ghandi) who was in the year above.

Rosalind was back in Exeter in 1942 when a bomb hit and destroyed the family home and printing works, leaving them with no home, no business and no income.  A year later, Rosalind’s mother died, that same evening Rosalind's brother Michael disappeared missing in action .  Rosalind says that bomb brought to an end the happy carefree life she had lived .

During the war Rosalind served in the WRNS and married her husband John who was in the Navy.  His civilian profession was being a patent attorney in Chancery Lane.  They lived  in Laleham on Thames for 36 years and Rosalind did some French teaching.  They had three children, Jonathan, Julie and Mary.  For their holidays they would come down to the South Hams and in 1954 they bought Gibb’s Cottage where Rosalind lives still.  Today it is a charming thatched cottage, warm and welcoming.  But when they bought it it had been empty for five years with a hole in the roof, full of dead birds, with no drains and water from a spring on the hill.  It was the second cottage in the village to be bought for holiday use and the family loved ‘messing about in boats’ on the Creek.

Twenty years ago John and Rosalind retired to South Pool as their permanent home and the Reverend Paul Hancock persuaded Rosalind to become Church Warden (there were no volunteers!).  During this time Rosalind, with the support of the St Andrew’s Trust for Monuments in the South West, arranged for the cleaning, restoring and conserving of the Monuments, screen and Charity boards at almost no cost to the Parish. A great achievement!   Kneelers were made and embroidered using wool from Dartington Tweed Mill and foam off cuts from Plympton.  Elizabeth Cole and Wilf Stone made eight each!

Rosalind started the Building Section of the Devonshire Association which arranges visits to local houses and records barns.  She has done an enormous amount for the South Hams Society, is the author of a delightful local history, ‘South Pool Long Ago’ and she is a keen member of Kedfas.  Her two grandchildren, Timothy and Polly, have enjoyed holidays with her in South Pool.   Timothy is now travelling in Australia for a year.

The community spirit of South Pool was movingly demonstrated when Rosalind’s husband John died almost a year ago.  The Church was filled to overflowing with family and village friends who  continue to enjoy Rosalind’s company.  Looking out of her conservatory the view is idyllic – an orchard of old gnarled apple trees and across the valley the Church to which Rosalind has contributed so much.

Rosalind Spears

First appeared in the March 2003 issue of The Link, magazine for the Benefice churches of Charleton and Buckland-tout-Saints, Chivelstone, East Portlemouth and South Pool.