Beatrice Fava RIP

1925 – 2021

A Ugandan Idyll 1961-1970

Beatrice Fava’s life of almost 96 years spanned many continents, and yet Africa – and specifically Uganda – held a particularly special place in her long and varied story. Having spent nine very happy years of that life living outside Kampala from 1961-1970, she came to love the land, its peoples, and culture. Foremost in these affections however, was possibly her regard for Uganda’s children which compelled her to volunteer her time at Kampala’s School for Deaf Children during the years of our residence there. As a dedicated and affectionate mother, her natural draw towards these children was hardly surprising.

Her own hugely blessed life was marked by numerous landmarks and achievements as a nurse, wife, mother, grandmother of five, and great grandmother of six.

It began in 1925 – the era of silent movies and bi-planes, in Westbourne, Dorset, the middle daughter of three sisters, born to parents who ran the Westbourne Arms Hotel. A happy childhood of seaside outings gave way when she was 14 to the outbreak of World War 11, and the reality of the beaches cordoned off with barbed wire for fear of invasion, and the bizarre nocturnal ritual during air-raids of extinguishing with large flower pots the small fizzing incendiary bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe intended to start major fires. In 1943, anxious to do her bit, Beatrice enlisted as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse for the Royal Navy, and sailed in a large troop convoy to the Far East destined for Bombay and ultimately Ceylon (as it then was), dodging U-boats as they went. She nursed casualties passed back from operational theatres across the Far East in hospitals in Candy and Trincomalee, until the end of 1945, and was finally repatriated and arrived home on her 21st birthday in February 1946.

For the rest of the decade she pursued further training to become a qualified state registered nurse at Guys Hospital in London. Her wartime experience, however, had whetted her appetite for travel and challenge and so she departed in 1951 for Mombasa, Kenya – not an easy journey in those days for a single young woman. She nursed in a local clinic, and soon after met her future husband, George – also forging an adventurous career in the East African Wines and Spirit trade. Their marriage followed in June 1952 at Mombasa’s Cathedral of the Holy Ghost.

A happy young married life of work combined with sailing and fishing soon expanded with the arrival of first a daughter, Julia, and then a son, Peter – both born in Mombasa. George’s company, however, soon assigned the family to Dares-salaam in Tanzania for several years before a further move to Uganda in 1961, just seven months before Michael was born at Nsambya Mission Hospital outside Kampala.

The 1960s were a busy decade of running a home, children, a very active social life, the deaf school voluntary work, and trips home on leave to visit family in England and Gibraltar.

Idi Amin and a looming military coup in 1970 brought the much-loved East African chapter to an end, and heralded new experiences of life in Farnborough, Hampshire, and Edinburgh, Scotland, for the 15 years of married life remaining to our parents. Highlights of that time were when Beatrice accompanied George on two long business trips around South America which offered new insights into parts of the world undreamt of, and experiences of new cultures and peoples.

Her daughter’s marriage and emigration to Montreal, Canada, in 1979, brought 6 welcome years of transatlantic commuting as new grandparents before George’s sudden, premature death in 1985.

35 years of widowhood offered a very different, but no less active, life for Beatrice. Unflagging support to her children and grandchildren kept her very busy and frequently travelling - Montreal often, Gibraltar and southern Spain, Russia, Austria, France and Italy. Her son Michael’s service in the British Army as a chaplain encouraged her to visit him twice in Germany, and twice in Cyprus. Her later life was marked by family occasions, involvement with her parish church, support to her local Catholic Primary School, and a Widowed Wives Christian Fellowship. Only increasing physical infirmity following a fall, and the need to take up residence in Devereux House Care Home, Farnborough, curtailed her busy life – but never blunted her sharp and active interest in the changing world around her. Her memories of, and affection for, East Africa became almost sharper and more vivid in her declining years. Family life there in the 1950s and 60s stood out as a period of great happiness, enjoyment, and fulfilment.

Hers was a full life from start to finish, and the years in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda lay at its heart, and would forever command her affectionate recollection. Those who have done so, know that when you have once lived on the African continent, Africa never leaves you but remains a small part of you.

It would please Beatrice immensely to know that after all the profound enrichment that Africa gave to her life and spirit, a small financial legacy made in her memory by friends and family to the Kanyike Project will give something back to Africa and its people in return.

She was a woman of faith - kind, loving, funny, feisty, a worrier, a great lady and a family matriarch. She made the world - and a small part of Africa - a better place for her presence in it. Let us pray that the Kanyike Project, and the local community it helps to support, will be blessed with future growth and prosperity.

A tribute by Fr Michael Fava CBE