I first met Danae 73 years ago when I joined her and her brother Chris at Sidcot School in the Mendip Hills in Somerset. We became firm friends with similar sporty interests and she invited me to come and stay with her in Godshill. I often invited her back to stay with me, but she always refused, saying she was shy as I had two older brothers whom she didn't know, I think it was because she really wanted to spend her holidays back in the Forest, and I couldn't blame her for that.  

The house up on Godshill Ridge had no electricity and no running water, unless you spent time each day pumping the water up from a well lower down the hill. Lighting was Tilly Lamps, cooking was on a Primus stove, with a biscuit oven, and heating was the open wood fire. Chris and Danae were brought up by their incredibly resourceful mother, Margaret, their father having died when Danae was only a year old. The toughness of this early home life, which was filled with love, ponies and freedom, stood Danae in good stead for her later tough life in Australia. 

When our form left School, we started a Form Letter, just for the girls, having discovered that a group of girls years earlier had started one in 1880, and Danae's grandmother Lucy Westlake (nee Rutter) had been one of those girls. Their Form Letter lasted 31 years. Ours started in 1953-4 and is still going after 69 years, and from it I have been able to look back at some of the salient points in Danae's adventurous life, and to use her own writings to describe what she thought and felt at the time.  

On leaving Sidcot, Danae went to Art School in Sailsbury for a year, but realised that she really wanted to be working outside, so started working on a mixed farm in Somerset. Being strong, tough and practical, she soon learned the ropes in running a herd of 60 dairy cattle, while also caring for many pigs. She sometimes had to be up at 4.30 in the morning in the dark and the pouring rain. In these moments she often wondered why she didn't choose a more sensible job in an office. Her favourite task was muck spreading! She wrote:

"I would line up Rodney the cart horse at the top of the field, place myself over the axle, give the command to go, and we would fly down the field as I flung dung to the left and right, trying to remain upright. Luckily Rodney was good with voice commands and would come to a rapid stop when I shouted 'Whoa!'. We would then re-align for another Boadicea charge down the field."

After a couple of years in Somerset Danae was glad to return to the New Forest and obtained work on a Farm in nearby Brayshaw, commuting there on her motorbike. She also enjoyed a more social life, and accompanied Chris to old Tyme Dances. 

While back in Godshill, Danae was offered a job on a cattle station in Australia. Having read a number of magazines given to her by an Australian friend, she had visions of rodeo's and similar excitements, but her work was to be in the kitchens, which was not quite what she had hoped for. However, having recently become engaged to the son of her future employer, she accepted his father's offer, it meant he would sponsor her as a £10 Pom. Life in Australia was extreemly tough and she writes eloquently in her recently published book; 'Braving the Outback,' of the hardships and the depravations of the searing heat and the constant battle with flies. However she managed to move out of the kitchens and was aloud to help the men in mustering and branding cattle, which was very unusual for a girl in those days, but right up her street. 

She and John married, and their first daughter, Lyndsay, was born, Danae having continued riding and all her other jobs right until the birth. Within three months of Lyndsay's birth John's father decided to sell the cattle station and they all returned to the UK. Their lives were dictated by her father-in-law and they moved between his properties in the Forest or the Isle of Wight. Tessa and Tamsin were born during this rather peripatetic time, before once again the family embarked for Australia. However the marriage was not to last and although Lyndsay remained in Australia, where her particular needs were well catered for, Danae and her two younger daughters were eventually able to find a settled home in the New Forest. 

Danae, her brother Chris and his wife Kate set up a very successful partnership in Godshill Pottery and Danae took up again many of her original interests. She organised hunter trials up on their field and raced her pony at Brockenhurst races and the Boxing Day races, where her knowledge of the Forest enabled her to be successful on many ocassions. She played hockey both for Totton ladies and Fordingbridge Mixed. She was a formidable Right Half and not many of the men on the opposing teams got past her.  

As families we often rode out together, with the children getting to know where we were likely to gallop. We also had trek out picnics. There was one memorable occassion when, with a large group of family and friends, we decided to have a rounders match in a clearing in the Forest. Danae didn't let on that we had been bowler and backstop in the School team many years before. The others didn't stand a chance! 

Danae and her friend Kate also took up Field Archery, having become Archery widows as their partners Peter and Chris were often away shooting at weekends. Danae turned out to be so good that she became County Champion, 2nd in the UK and 3rd in Europe. She and Kate were invited to join the British training squad, but developed gold shyness or target sickness as a result of the coaching and their enthusiasm waned and cycling came to the fore. 

Also in the Form Letter which circled between all the girls, taking about two years to get round she wrote: 

"I've even been hooked into the local Drama Group 'Godshill Players,' they were desperate and I was a last resort, anyway I managed not to make too much of a fool of myself."

In 1975, Peter having come into her life in the mid 70's, joined her in helping to keep old age at bay, they both took up weight training and cycling. Cycling subsequently became a very important part of Danae's life and she and Peter enjoyed many memorable holidays at home and abroad, sometimes as a couple, sometimes with Chris or with Cycle Training Club as she says:

"Stopping at pre-arranged watering holes for tea, buns and chat." 

During a trip in 1997 aged 61 Danae achieved her ambition of crossing the Alps on her bike. She writes: 

"Ascending to on a small road, which snaked to the Summit, we could see the sun glinting on the windscreens of cars way up, hanging on the side of the mountain and wondered how they could possibly be there, eventually we too got there and then the Summit. We could see ridge after ridge of snow capped mountains disapearing into the heat haze."

Projects both at their own home and helping members of the family have kept this adventurous couple busy as has having had three daughters. Danae now has three grandsons (Ryan, Dan & Mick,) and three great-grand children, Isla, Sam and Lucy. She has enjoyed being able to spend more time with the youngest members of the family than she was able to spend with her own daughters, owing to the hectic life she was leading when they were young.  

My last conversation with Danae was the day before she died. I talked about the good times we'd had and the time when we were almost 13 or 14 and she'd put me on Joey, her Welsh pony. We were at Godshill wood and Danae suddenly said 'Ohum,' and Joey took off at a gallop, leaving me, not for the first time, on the deck! It had amused her at the time, and it amused her then as we remembered. Rest well old friend. We miss you.