Lynda March (25 May 1957 - 5 Oct 2022)

In loving memory of Lynda May March who sadly passed away peacefully at home with her family by her side on 5th October 2022 after a brave fight against secondary breast cancer.

Beloved wife of Terry and a wonderful, caring and much-loved mum to Robin & Christopher.

Lynda was born in Croydon, South London and was one of six brothers and sisters born to Arthur & Betty Graney. She met Terry at their local church Youth Fellowship Group in New Addington, Croydon and they started going out together in 1974, eventually getting married in 1978. Lynda was a primary school teacher but gave up full-time teaching to bring up their children, returning as a part-time and supply teacher once the children were older in the early 1990s.

The family enjoyed camping holidays and gradually progressed from frame tents to trailer tents to folding campers, with Terry & Lynda finally upgrading to a caravan just 4 years ago when Lynda’s MS symptoms and Terry’s age demanded a bit more luxury and a quicker set-up on site!

Lynda’s favourite time of year was Christmas, as anyone who visited the family’s home during the season could testify, where the usual decorations and tree are dominated by Lynda’s ginormous collection of Santas big and small. The whole family also enjoyed a pre-Christmas break at Center Parcs in Flevoland, Netherlands every year in order to take part in activities to celebrate Sinterklaas (St Nicholas) and exchange gifts on Sinterklaasavond (St Nicholas Day Eve).

Lynda’s strong faith has sustained her throughout her adult life, being heavily involved in church life ever since she began teaching at Sunday School at the age of 14. Over the years she has demonstrated a real and living faith through her dedicated hard work in whatever church she happened to belong to at the time, whether that be in Chatham (Kent), Oxted (Surrey), Mönchengladbach (Germany), Burghfield (Reading), Milford on Sea (New Forest) or Verwood. The family has been quite nomadic!
Despite being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1998, Lynda began training for Licensed Lay Ministry in the Oxford Diocese and was licensed as an LLM in 2001.

Lynda has always been fully supported by Terry and very often they worked together as a couple in their various church ventures, most notably in Milford on Sea where they began helping at “Satellite”, a weekly all-age worship service set up as a Church Plant. After a couple of years, they were employed by the Church as the new Parish Family Workers & “Satellite” Leaders which involved them in planning and leading “Satellite”, taking assemblies at the CofE junior school, planning and leading marriage and baptism preparation courses and a Youth Group. Lynda also ran two Parent & Toddler Groups. During the 4½ years in this role, in which Lynda loved working with the families, she showed great tenacity whilst all the time dealing with the worsening effects that her MS had on her mobility and energy levels.

Lynda led a quieter life in Verwood since moving here in 2011 but still managed to get involved in helping to lead all-age worship services, again in partnership with Terry, which continued via Zoom once Covid hit.

Lynda’s caring love, friendship, ministry, cooking, baking and lovely smile will be greatly missed.

A Service of Thanksgiving will be held on Thursday 3rd November at 11am at Verwood Methodist Church followed by refreshments in the church hall. Please avoid wearing black and instead choose vibrant colours if possible to reflect and celebrate Lynda's life.

No flowers please, but donations in memory of Lynda can be made to Breast Cancer Now, Macmillan Caring Locally and Marie Curie using the links opposite or to the MS Society using the link below:

https://donate.mssociety.org.uk/page/89733/data/1