FEBRUARY 2022

UPDATE FROM THE THOMPSON  CORRESPONDENT

The planning hearing scheduled for Tuesday of this week into the footpath/right of way in Pockthorpe Lane has been postponed due to unforeseen circumstances.



JUNE 2021

For those reading the online version of the Waylander and wondering who the mystery figure was at the pop up shop in Caston, you will no doubt recognise him here as Captain Sir Tom Moore. 

Grand Second Hand Book Sales

As everyone will be aware the Bookworm Book Sales had to be suspended at the beginning of the pandemic. In anticipation of some improvement in the situation we recently began accepting donations of books again. Unfortunately, due to continuing uncertainty, we have decided that, for the time being, we will not take any more donations. We remain grateful for all the donations we have had and hope to pick up where we left of when there is a clearer idea of the way forward.

There is some good news for Bookworms, though. We have begun taking a small selection of fiction books to the Sunday morning services at the Wayland group churches. Being conscious of the ongoing Covid restrictions the books, weather permitting, will be displayed outside. Please note that anybody and everybody are welcome to come and browse the books even if you do not wish to attend the service.

To see where the services are each week, see the first page of this magazine.

Many thanks, Keith and Caroline

Jo Connolly - Eulogy

Jo's family have kindly given us permission to run her eulogy here for those who were unable to attend her funeral.   It's a beautiful tribute.

Eulogy for Josephine June Connolly 23/1/44 to 23/1/21

As I was getting ready to leave the house this morning I found myself reaching not for my car keys but for my motorbike gear. Apart from putting a smirk on mum’s face I thought riding 40 miles to a funeral would freshen me up in preparation for the travails ahead. Then I remembered last saturday’s brake repair job had been prematurely abandoned due to my fingers going numb in the freezing wind.

As we speak, my ancient Yamaha has no brakes. And it’s not as if I could slam the old girl into reverse like you do when slowing down a motor boat. The bike has a forward only gearbox and no brakes.

Anyway I tell you this less in the spirit of a Ronnie Corbett story and more as an introduction.

Because my mother, Josephine June, whose passing we mourn today was a woman with a forwardonly gearbox. And No brakes! But not a machine-like woman. Not at all.

Jo was a warm, funny, affectionate and vibrant woman who loved life and people and nature. And God.

Jo was a woman of quiet yet formidable intellect who kept the complete historical works of Winston Churchill on her bookshelf. She was a keen historian. And so we should not be surprised at Churchill’s inclusion in the book collection. His words could have been mother’s;

Never give in

Never never never

In nothing Great or Small

Large or petty

Never give in

Except to convictions

Or honour and good sense ...

and Mum never did give in. And she never acted without good sense. And she was in every breath of her life a person of honour.

Jo soldiered on through a lot of adversity. Not just over the last four years – during which time her body pretty well refused to do what she asked of it, but in her childhood too, when she experienced the unbearable sadness of losing two teenage sisters.

And later too, when at only 25 years old having just given birth to child number 4 – a difficult birth that she nearly died from – Living in a new town , far away from her family Jo gathered her strength and resolved to be a wonder-mum.

And boy, did she succeed! She used to sing to her four children, tell stories knit sweaters, make theatrical costumes and give out lots of cuddles too. She did all this with limited support from her extended family, who lived a hundred miles away. She did this without a car, and with hardly any money.

Jo marched on, Churchill style. But there was no hint of military boneheadedness or hair-shirt discipline.

Although, having said that I do remember the occasional volley of hot sergeant majorly words issuing forth.

Mum’s special way of dealing with adversity was to bury her own troubles and to look after other people.

And down through the years there were a great number of people she went out of her way to look after

 I remember twice she took on the role of stand-in parent for local children who’s mothers and fathers were in trouble. I remember her working through the night on more than one occasion, making packed lunches for disadvantaged boys and girls attending the summer holidays programme she co-organised with Bob Alliot and other treasured friends of hers running “Out and About” A charitable venture that gave many kids from broken homes their first ever trip to the sea side.

After going to university in her early forties to put the brain she had parked on hold while bringing up her family, back in to stretch mode, she followed a professional path in social work. Not so much for the flexi time hours – as was suggested at the time – but because she was driven to always be helping “waifs and strays” as she called them, people whose circumstances were ganging up against them. Mum felt compelled to help.

But of course, being mum she couldn’t just leave it at that. Being a 9 to 5 social worker wasn’t enough. Mum couldn’t stop herself - she has no brakes and moves only in a forwards direction. She left social work and was invited by the social policy faculty at University of East Anglia to look into factors that drove certain ex prisoners to re-offend after their sentences had been spent. Much of her work was published in leading journals and to this day this body of research is still cited regularly by other academics.

For some of you here today that didn’t know mum twenty years ago when she was a high flying career woman – many of you were just babies then – I want to move on and to tell a little of Jo the friend, Jo the mum and Jo the Grandma

One story that sticks clearly in my mind relates to the period just after Pippa’s birth. There was mum, me, Suzy, Jonnie and Pippa all crowded in to the kitchen in the little bungalow we then lived at in Thetford. It was late summer, so Pip wouldn’t have been more than 2 or 3 months old and mum would still have been recovering from child birth. Mum was jovial, smiley and bouncing off the walls.

That kitchen was full of kids and full of the smell of cakes. Vanilla scented little cup cakes with butterfly wings on top. I stirred the mix, 4 year old Suzy comforted baby Pip, and Jonnie slept, waking only when it was time to lick the cake spoon clean – a special treat in our 1960’s world before health and safety rules or junk food or iphones.

But as well as being full of kids and cakes that room with its old style electric cooker table with folding leaves and gaudy wallpaper was also full of mum. Absolutely filled to the brim with her enormous, love giving personality. Even now I can still remember that radio playing, mum leading me and Suzy in a round of choral singing. Yellow submarine, Puff the magic dragon, Lucy in the sky with diamonds, Mr Tambourine Man, We sang together and we all believed Puff really was a magic dragon.

Mum believed in magic.

She would tell me and my siblings (and later, her grand children too) to look carefully at the twinkling stars on Christmas Eve, that one of those stars wasn’t a normal star. It was in fact light generated by Father Christmas breaking the sound barrier in his magic sleigh. I think she meant speed of light barrier, but I’m no physicist.

The older we all got the more of a stretch it became to keep believing in magic. But Josephine never stopped believing.

When she was older, disaster - in the form of a horrible car crash!

Jo’s body took a heck of a pounding and all but a few of us thought Jo would die of her injuries. But not Jo (neither Suzy for that matter – well done Suze) Jo did what she always had done. She put a smile on her face, made friends with the nurses and other patients in hospital around her and kept believing – against the odds that life for her would be alright again. She never gave in. Giving in would have required slowing down, and that would have needed a firm application of the foot on the brakes. But she didn’t have brakes. Jo’s special gift to the world was her totally indomitable, Churchillian spirit

Never Give In! Forward-only gearbox! No Brakes!

And because of her magic will she recovered sufficiently from her injuries to return home. To the enchanted little cottage that she loved . To spend time with her dearest friends in Thompson, the village she came to in later life, and yet in many ways the most natural home for her. She came home. And she nurtured her magic garden back to its full splendour.

Jo had green fingers and she could grow anything; Tomatoes, runner beans, rhubarb, gooseberries and the most succulent, sweet strawberries – that were better than the ones sold by Sainsbury’s or Marks and Spencer.

Back in the magic cottage life got back in to a rhythm and mum was happy again. To replay the exact words she used when I asked two summers ago whether she was enjoying the weather she said “ Everything’s great, I’m as happy as I’ve ever been.” Jo was a spiritual woman and her beliefs gave her super human strength. Magical strength.

At the end of each day she liked nothing better than to sit down at the table with her nurses or her friends or her family members and to tuck in to some good food. She will be pleased to know that I have resuced the six slices of sirloin steak she left in the freezer before going to hopsital. - At table, mum would enjoy chatting about the politics of the day (not a Corbyn fan) or some project or other she had in mind to pursue. Her never swerving belief in the healing power of sharing a good meal around a well populated table was a defining part of Jo. She never forgot the biblical metaphor of breaking bread together.

 Jo’s gorgeous meals were sprinkled with invisible magic dust. In her kitchen she served love. And in her garden she grew dreams. Right up until her last days she kept up her routines and her zest for living. To refer again to mum’s faith, she believed that a big part of her mission was to “plough the metaphorical fields and to scatter good seed on the land.

And just as Jo had a special affinity with nature, so was it also with her ability to win hearts and minds of every one that came in to her orbit. Mum loved people, all of them. Rich, poor, educated, illiterate, skillful or clumsy, she had no favourites she adored everyone (although I do have to say there were a few politicians she’d have gladly lined up in her imaginary cross hairs)

Throughout her life Jo grew beautiful relationships with hundreds of admiring friends, many of whom go all the way back to Mum’s early days in Thetford, which began in 1965. She leaves behind nine grand children – each of whom was uniquely loved and cherished by her. Jo adored also her in-laws Anthony, Nick and Mireille, her treasured niece Nicola and much loved grand niece and nephew Anya and Christopher. And for the people she didn’t get to see any more she would think fond thoughts and wish all the best for them.

In later years Jo grew much comfort from the unerring support of her friends in Thompson – who on behalf of my family I would like to thank very much. And though they are not here today I’d like to express also my gratefulness to the lovely nurses who lived with mum over recent years. And in case with my thankyous I’ve skipped anyone I shouldn’t have I would just like to leave you all in no doubt that Jo would have wanted me to say thanks, cheers, kisses to absolutely evryone who has helped to put sparkle into her amazing life story.

Jo was motherly, magical, mischievous and marvellous

There is of course more to tell. Much, much more. But alas there isn’t time now. Time marches along. Like my motorbike at the moment. And like mum too - It never stops.

And in that context mum’s passing is like time, a gift of nature.

The Lord giveth and then the Lord taketh away.

It’s OK! It’s all OK!

 And in the morning? Well the morning will be a new day. And then we can start all over again. Refreshed and raring to go.

 Forwards of course!

Jo has been an indescribably fantastic liver of life and giver of love. And from her new home in heaven she will continue to spread love and to inspire us all.

So what I’d like to do now is to tap in to the power of this beautiful church that Jo worshipped in and seek permission if I may, to transmit the following short message to the angels waiting upstairs for Josephine’s arrival;

• Earth to Angels?…... Earth to Angels?

 • White projectile…….. coming your way

 • High speed

• No brakes

 • Cuddly…..doesn’t bite

 • Do not take cover

 • Fly alongside

 • Make friends

• Bake together

• Break bread together

And as Jo stands. Pristine. Draped in white chiffon and silk, wearing gold bangles on both wrists, a diamond studded necklace resting on her exquisitely repaired chest bone, the reins of six flying horses nestling in her once again elegant fingers. Hurtling towards the after life I imagine her cooking up something delicious in her flying kitchen, singing magic songs in her now ethereal angel voice to tunes piped in through the celestial radio;

In a town where I was born there lived a man

Puff the magic dragon lives by the sea

Lucy in the sky with diamonds and then my favourite…...

Hey Mr Tambourine man, play a song for me ………..in the jingle jangle morning I’ll come following you!!

So, next time we look upwards and marvel at the night sky we might wish to pause for a moment or two, open up our imaginations and strain our eyes to to see whether that’s Jo up there next to Father Christmas, jingle jangling along in her magic carriage.

Twinkling.

Like a precious

jewel