IT IS A YEAR since Mary Tucker, nee Wigram, passed away. Mary was born in London and brought up in a musical family. When she was 9, they moved to Smeeth in Kent, because of her mother’s ill health. Her father became choirmaster there, and Mary attended Ashford School for Girls. She went on to study at Reading University, reading Mathematics and Statistics. She met future husband, Tony, in her first year and they married in 1977. They lived in London, where Mary worked as Secretary to the Chief Pharmacist at Brompton Hospital. The family relocated to Caversham in 1982. They had three children, and Mary soon became involved in local activities. At the Highmoor Road Methodist Church Playgroup, she was secretary and a helper, making many lifelong friends.
She started attending St Peter’s church in 1983 and helped with Sunday Club, later setting up a Mothers’ Union sewing group. In 2001, Mary became Parish Secretary and served for some years supporting the church council and helping with the management of Church House.
Mary was a regular at St Peter’s church, singing in the choir until retiring due to ill health. She also sang with the South Chiltern Coral Society from 1990, serving three years as Secretary. She organised the plant stall at the Parish Summer Fete in Caversham Court, and later supported the St Peter’s Church Christmas Market. She was involved with a host of other activities, including Church rambles, a craft group, tennis, badminton, a house group and gardening, as well as holding parties for friends.
For ten years when the children were at primary school, Mary organised an annual camping weekend for several families, known as ‘The Caversham Campers’. She graduated to the comfort of a campervan, enjoying trips to Italy and the Outer Hebrides.
After years of research, Mary produced two volumes of her family history, with another two nearly completed. Many holidays included detours to a Public Records Office or cemetery. She had family attachments to Armathwaite, Cumberland and Croyde, North Devon, visiting both most years. There is a bench in her memory just above the National Trust carpark at Croyde, looking over the Bay, if you are passing.
Mary noted, “My faith has sustained me through the many cancer treatments I have had in recent years.” She is greatly missed by family and her many friends in the community.
