Rosie Brooker.

Rosie was a remarkable lady and for me the very epitome of “still waters run deep”. She lived alone in a tiny ramshackle two-up two-down cottage on the outskirts of Newbury, had no children that I’m aware of and was never married, but she lived a life and left a legacy of love that continues to affect me many years after she died.

I’d like to introduce you to her and tell something of the beautifully quite yet mischievous nature of this ninety four year old lady that I got to know a little more about in 2004.

My relationship with Rosie started as a result of my wife Nicola’s family connection. They had been looking after he for years and Nicola’s parents were particularly close and supportive to Rosie, helping her out with the house cleaning and maintaining a modest vegetable garden. As far as Nicola and I were concerned she became something of a surrogate great Aunt to us and our young daughters, Ellie and Maddie. It was during these family visits that I got to know Rosie more and realised we shared a distant but common link.

Like so many women and young girls of her class and generation, Rosie was afforded very limited opportunities and choices. After leaving school she was put into service at “the big house” and just loathed every minute of it. From her brief description neither the situation nor the family for whom she worked had much promise of either fun, love or kindness. Again like so many young women in the late 1930’s there was to be a saviour of sorts which came from the most unexpected and unlikely of places. When the Second World War broke out she immediately ran away from service back to her Mum, who insisted that she “do something with her life”, which she most certainly did. In time Rosie joined the WRAC’s (Women’s Royal Army Corps) and found the freedom, adventure, companionship and romance she had so longed for.

Rosie spent the majority of her wartime in Hyderabad barracks at Colchester Garrison, where forty five years later I would spend two years of my army life serving with The Third Battalion the Royal Green Jackets. What a connection it proved to be and so, like old soldiers we connected immediately and I was trusted with and delighted to hear her story, or at least a small part of it.

While she never married or to my knowledge had any children, Rosie did have two sisters and a couple of nieces whom together with my wife and daughters and her parents formed her wider family. Rosie also spoke very fondly of the women she had served with in WWII, who formed a close family like bond that lasted almost to her dying day. During the war women and girls like Rosie had perhaps for the first time in their lives been looked on as something more than the perceived weaker sex society liked to portray them as. To a large extent these women kept the country going when most of the men were away fighting. They took on roles almost never before deemed appropriate for women. Outside wartime and I think in this they found a kind of freedom and unique bond with each other, perhaps unusual at the time?

I had the great privilege to spend just a brief time on my own with Rosie, discussing many and varied topics but unsurprisingly enough the conversation always came back to the subject of our army service, albeit hers in a much more telling time in Colchester Garrison during WWII. She spoke gently and passionately about the people she worked with and for and even alluded to a secret romance with a certain Major, for whom she drove occasionally.

The horrors and sadness of the war didn’t pass her by despite being based in England. One one occasion her barracks are caught up in a German bombing raid and Rosie spoke so thoughtfully and perhaps with some melancholy about this time and her friends, some of whom never survived the experience or the war.

Rosie wasn’t a rich person and the simplicity and scarcity of her possessions were witness to that. I know it’s a bit hokey to say but her richness was not confined in the possessions she owned but in her spirit and the love she gave and engendered in others. She smoked like a chimney, lived with cancer but always had a pot of tea and a smile on the go for whomever came to the door. It would be wrong of me to say I knew her to any great extent, in fact our friendship, if you can call it that was somewhat limited in time and scope. Despite this however she had a significant affect on me and played an important role in our family life, she is to this day remembered with great affection and love by us all.

In one of the last discussions I had with Rosie she mentioned that she was just plain tired of life and would not be afraid when death came calling for her. It was strangely refreshing to hear someone speak so honestly about the one thing that will come to us all. I had the feeling that she was just waiting for her time to come to an end, not with any self pity, regret or remorse, just ready to gracefully leave the stage.

On the occasions I think of her or look at the framed print of her in uniform taken during WWII, I smile and know I’m grateful to have known her and for my wife and darling daughters to have know her, even for such a brief time.

Wishing you fair light and full frames

Giles