My wife Hilda Sturge (Ecroyd), (S:1947-54,) Hilda passed away on 4th April this year aged 86.  The small number of girls in her year became very close and kept up a circular letter until recent years.  The most active old scholar among them is Bridget Marriot, and I am still in touch, frm time to time with Margaret Chinn. 

In spite of ill-health she thrived academically, and in her very quiet but sometimes mischievous way, socially in her time at Sidcot and was very happy there.  She went on to Bristol University where she took a 12.1in German and French, and then Maria Grey College in London to train as an early years teacher.  During that year, through her involvement with London Young Friends including their weekend work camps, she had her first taste of international folk dancing which was to be her passion  and she also met her future husband (me).  After two years in two infant schools she was married in December 1960.  I was still an undergraduate at  Cambridge and she had her first experience of teaching in nursery school which she greatly enjoyed and continued when we moved to Bristol the following year where we made our home for the rest of her life.

Our first child Kathryn was born in 1963 and the following year we moved to Kenya for four years, our second child Alun was born in 1965. In Kenya, I taught at Friends School Kamusinga.  Phil Jevons, a former teacher at Sidcot was the Maths teacher during our time and Hilda and Bernice Jevons became close. Our third child Nicholas and their second child were born within two weeks of one another.

At Kamusinga Hilda taught in and then managed the little nursery  the staff had set up for their children and those of vte schools neighbours, but on return to Bristol in 1968 she preferred not to return to teaching.  She preferred to devote herself to bringing up the three children and before long starting and leading Bristol International Folk Dance group.  She also used the meticulous sewing skills acquired at Sidcot to do alterations and repairs for a wide clientele  in the neighbourhood.  She was active in Redland Friends Meeting as an overseer and for many years one of the mainstays of the creche.  She never ministered vocally in Meeting but her quiet presence was much appreciated by Friends.

Her mother was German and she  maintained contact with German relations and friends throughout her life.  She was also an intrepid traveller until later years when age and the planning needed as an insulin-dependent diabetic took the shine of long distance and time away from home.

A fall on holiday last year held to a decline but she was well enough to enjoy our 61st wedding anniversary in December and pleasant short break in Clevedon in January before finally taking to her bed.  She died peacefully at home and is buried in the ancient Quaker burial ground at Lower Hazel in South Gloucestershire, sharing a plot with the ashes of her sister-in-law Janet Sturge who was at Sidcot for a time during war.

The photo is Hilda with her elder son, Alan.

Best wishes

Roger Sturge

(School Committee, Chairman of Education Committee)