In Loving memory of Sylvia Mitchell 1927 -2022
Those that knew Sylvia described her as an amazing, wonderful lady. Always grateful and polite, she greeted everyone with a smile. She was smart and elegant and she took pride in her appearance. Everybody loved her. She was proud, dignified and respected by all.
Born in Tunstall, Stoke on Trent in 1927, Sylvia was the youngest of three sisters, her siblings being Gladys and Elsie. Their father Tom was a hardworking man who was employed in construction and he raised his three girls as a single parent. Tom was able to save enough money to buy their own house which was unusual for the 1940’s, and the three girls shared one bedroom. They were a close family with relatives living nearby whom they saw regularly. Tom played the piano accordion at which he excelled and both Sylvia and Elsie played the piano. Sylvia developed a love of music and she particularly enjoyed singing.
Sylvia was educated at Brownhills School for Girls where she was happy and made many friends. As a youngster she had the freedom to explore and play in the surrounding countryside. After school Sylvia and her friends would walk to Westport lake where in cold winters they enjoyed ice skating. Here they would listen to stories told by the “boaties” who operated the horse drawn narrow boats on the canal which carried local wares including pottery for export all over the world. At weekends they would often walk further to Bradwell wood where they would play games, climb trees and admire the flowers and animals that lived there.
Tunstall was a prosperous town in the 1940’s and 1950’s. As Sylvia remembered “It was a wonderland place to live. We had everything and sometimes I wish I had never left there. Tunstall was on a hill and the air was fresh, that's why my Dad bought a house there. There was a tram system and buses with cheap tickets on market days. The town hall was magnificent. We had a museum, a cinema called Barbers Picture Palace showing the latest Hollywood blockbusters and a beautiful park with a boating lake. I saw King George when he visited in 1941 and the streets were lined with thousands of people. We had two train stations including a direct line to Manchester. I would take the train to see my sister Gladys when she was training to be a nurse in Stockport and she would meet me at the station and then we would ride her tandem into the hills. It was a wonderful time to be alive.”
When she left school, Sylvia trained to be a dressmaker and she was able to use her talent to make fine clothes for herself and her sisters including their wedding dresses. She loved her work and took pleasure in helping her sisters to look their best. However the second world war intervened and she was recruited for “war work” at the local Rolls Royce factory. Sylvia worked long 14 hour shifts day and night seven days a week in the factory, where she operated a capstan lathe to make parts for Spitfire engines. She had to stand for the duration of each shift and all the workers wore wooden clogs which Sylvia said were more comfortable than their shoes at that time. It was here at Rolls Royce that she met her future husband Bill, who was a trained lathe turner. They were working together in the factory when it was announced over the “squark box”that the war had ended. Sylvia remembered how everyone working on the shop floor was overjoyed. They all stopped work and celebrations erupted. However, their high spirits were soon calmed by the manager Mr Leadbetter who quickly ordered everyone back to work!
Sylvia and Bill were married after the war and they moved to live in Alsager which in those days was a village surrounded by open countryside and where they had two sons, Robert and John. Their neighbours were mainly other young couples, all of whom had children around the same age as Robert and John. The children all played together and there was a community spirit.
Sylvia resumed dressmaking part time and also helped out at the local primary school whilst bringing up her two children. She had a Singer sewing machine at home which was made of cast iron and she earned extra income from making linen products for hospitals. She also made clothes for individuals, for her children and also for some of John’s toys including his favourite toy monkey.
Bill chose to leave factory work and made a new career on the railway where he trained to be a steam engine locomotive driver which involved long hours of physically demanding work and very irregular shift patterns. Bill’s childhood had been dominated by frequent upheaval and relocation because he came from a military family. He had moved home many times as a youngster and endured weeks travelling by ship to countries such as Hong Kong and India. As an adult, Bill had understandably lost his appetite for travelling and preferred to spend his vacations at home rather than go away on holiday.
Sylvia however had a sense of adventure and she wanted her sons to see and experience new places. She regularly took them and their young cousins or their friends away for day trips on the train to visit the castle and zoo at Dudley, Chester, the Welsh seaside resorts of Rhyll and Llandudno and also to Liverpool where they would visit museums, galleries, the airport and enjoy ferry trips across the river Mersey to Birkenhead and New Brighton.
Sylvia would also take her sons on holiday by herself. She would arrange accomodation by writing letters to the guest houses she had seen in a travel brochure, send a deposit in the post and then set off with her boys, luggage and train tickets into the unknown. For a woman to do this alone with two young boys back in the 1960’s required organisation, determination, courage and bravery.
The first holiday she arranged was to Margate, the seaside town in Kent made famous a few years earlier by the Mods and Rockers. The journey began by taking the train from Crewe to London Euston which was straightforward, but then she had to cross London on the underground carrying the suitcases with her two young boys. Undeterred and surrounded by “hippies” wearing flowers in their hair and psychedelic clothes Sylvia and her sons stared at the tube map, but they could not find a station called Margate. The Londoners were very kind and when Sylvia asked them for directions they would recommend a particular train and Sylvia would peer out of the window at each stop waiting for Margate station to appear, but it didn’t. Then she and her boys would disembark with their luggage and ask directions again, only for the same thing to happen. Where was Margate?
And then suddenly it all became clear when the train arrived at a station with a similar sounding name called “Moorgate”. At this point Sylvia made an executive decision to cut her losses and she hailed a taxi to a south London mainline station from where they continued their journey to Margate.
The holiday was a great success. The boys loved spending two weeks at the seaside and they even got to experience their first aeroplane flight on a brief sightseeing tour around the coast. Sylvia had clearly enjoyed the challenge because after Margate, she took her boys on holiday every year to places all over the UK including Tenby, Bournemouth and several visits to the Isle of Man which involved crossing the Irish sea on a boat from Liverpool. Here they would enjoy walks together around the coastline and Robert and John would spend time every day fishing in the sea.
Sylvia was a devoted mother and always put her sons first. She was everything a mother should be and so much more. She was a gifted parent and she always encouraged, guided and supported her children and the children of others when she worked part time at the local primary school. Her sons were allowed the freedom to be themselves and develop their own path when they were growing up and she never discouraged them or pushed them into doing something that she thought might have been more suitable for them. Robert, her eldest son trained to became an engineer on the railway. John was more academic and he especially loved chemistry. By the age of 13 yrs John had an impressive chemistry set at home and was already studying degree level books that he had borrowed from the library. Sylvia was supportive of John’s hobbies and would take him to Liverpool to buy advanced chemistry equipment from an outlet called Oakes Eddon. She would also take him to buy photography equipment and help him to carry the heavy glass bottles of liquid developer home on the train from a specialist photographic store called Jessop’s which was in Leicester. Sylvia helped John to set up a darkroom in his bedroom by making heavy blackout curtains for the window and door so he could develop and print his photographs.
Sylvia was passionate about wholefoods and healthy living and her family were eating muesli and yoghurt by the late 1960’s, some 20 years before these foodstuffs became popular in the UK. She would eat honey every day and also used it as a dressing for wounds long before its antiseptic properties became widely known. She treated most ailments herself with traditional remedies she had learned from her father which included comfrey (“knitbone”) for minor injuries, arrowroot pudding which she made for her children whenever they were unwell and off their food and slippery elm to help her digestion. She attributed her longevity to making wise food choices and also to her love of nature and walking outdoors in the fresh air, which she did almost every day until she was 94 years old, even in winter. She loved the seasonal cycle of natures colours from spring blossom through summer flowers to the autumn leaves and the purity of white snow. She enjoyed listening to the sound of falling rain and the sweet aroma in the air after a heavy downpour which she would affectionately call a “dumberdash”.
Her youngest son John trained to be a doctor and eventually qualified as a medical consultant from Cambridge. During his long training she would visit him at various places including London, Liverpool, Cambridge, Inverness and Chichester, where she was in her element walking part of the South Downs Way and along the footpaths beside the river Arun.
Sylvia’s husband Bill fulfilled his ambition to become a steam engine driver on the railway, a role in which he became highly regarded and on occasion he was selected to drive the royal train. However the long hours and irregular shift patterns took a toll on the marriage and they divorced after being together for over 30 years. Neither had another relationship.
Sylvia had an enquiring mind and she was highly intelligent and studious. In the modern age she could have done anything. She was brave, determined and never gave up easily. Even at 94 yrs of age she learned to use an Amazon “Alexa”. You could put Sylvia in any situation, with anyone and she could hold her own.
At the age of 72 years Sylvia visited her son John for a holiday in Essex where he was living and working at a local hospital. She caught the train alone from Crewe and John met her on the platform at London Euston. Even in her 70’s she could run rings around some people half her age. One night John remembered coming home from working at the hospital and telling his mum he had to go to London for an evening teaching session at the eminent Royal College of Physician’s which was beside Regents Park. He asked his mum if she wanted to go with him and he was surprised to hear her say “Yes”. So they caught the train to Kings Cross and walked to the college where they joined the other senior doctors waiting inside. John’s colleagues came over and made a fuss of Sylvia and she enjoyed talking to them. Tea was served by men in white jackets wearing white gloves. Then everyone took their seats in the lecture theatre and listened to a series of high level postgraduate talks about an illness called “vasculitis”, delivered by world famous experts. It was turned midnight when they got home and Sylvia knew more about vasculitis, its diagnosis and state of the art therapy options than all the GP’s in the country put together.
Sylvia was kind, polite, considerate towards others and she had a wonderful sense of humour. She could always find something to laugh about and one of her favourite sayings was “laughter is the best medicine”. And she was right, because it is.
Sylvia was fiercely independent and she lived alone until a few days before her 94th birthday when she fell and fractured her pelvis. Before that she was still going shopping alone by taxi and visiting restaurants for lunch with her son, after which they would drive either to Trentham Gardens or Westport lake for a walk. Sylvia was happiest when she was outdoors admiring nature and at Westport lake she enjoyed watching the ducks and swans swimming around which she found relaxing. She had a favourite swan which would eat from her hand whom she called “Gaffer”.
After falling and fracturing her pelvis Sylvia was admitted to hospital and this coincided with a major Coronavirus wave just before vaccines had become available. Whilst she was a patient in hospital she caught Covid 19 and nearly died. The hospital was in lockdown and visiting was not permitted. Sylvia realised that she had lost her independence and asked to be allowed to die, but she was kept alive and discharged home after a month in hospital with a care package.
After spending six months at home where she was attended by carers four times a day, Sylvia was admitted to Stadium Court care home in Burslem where she received excellent 24 hour care. Her health improved to the extent that she was able to take part in a visit to Hanley museum to see the Spitfire whose engine she made parts for during the war.
Sylvia moved to Suffolk to be near her son John where she was very happy, contented and at peace. Unfortunately, two months later Sylvia developed a urinary tract infection and the medical treatment she received was ineffective. Because of previous experience she refused to go to hospital which sealed her fate. The GP visited her the day before she died and asked how she was feeling, to which, despite feeling dreadful she answered, “I’m alright doctor”. Even towards the very end her main concern was for others and she apologised to the nurses for being ill. During her final hours she would stare thoughtfully out of the window of her room and watch the birds flying around and the movement of the trees in the garden. She passed away at 15.08 hrs on 24th September 2022 with her son John at her bedside.
After her death, Sylvia was returned to Alsager and her funeral service was held at the bandstand in Tunstall Park, just a few minutes walk from where she grew up. As a girl, Sylvia and her friends would visit the bandstand on Sundays wearing their best clothes to listen to the band and singers. As a mother, Sylvia would take her boys to the park to play and they would admire the large rock on display which at the time was thought to be a meteorite. They would go rowing on the boating lake and Sylvia would row and look so happy.
Throughout the service the sun shone on Sylvia’s coffin. She would have loved the sight of the golden autumn leaves being gently scattered on the ground by the breeze and the ducks swimming on a small area of water behind the bandstand. The boating lake where she had so many happy memories was visible nearby through the trees.
At the moment the service concluded and the music of Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” came to an end, a strong gust of wind appeared and blew thousands of leaves from the trees which fell over the bandstand like rain. A coincidence ?
After the committal, the flowers from Sylvia’s coffin were placed outside on the lawn. The family took photographs of the flowers and all the pictures have a natural sunray visible through the centre. Another coincidence ?? Certainly an astonishing tribute to the wonderful life of Sylvia.
