Olive Jean Blundell (25 Jan 1927 - 12 Jun 2024)

In loving memory of Olive Jean Blundell who sadly passed away on 12th June 2024 aged 97 years

Family have requested for no flowers.

Donations maybe made online via this website to the Macular Society.

Olive was born in Bangor, North Wales on 25 January, 1927, where she grew up with her parents and two older sisters, Hilda and Mildred.
Olive Became pregnant when she was just 17 and was persuaded to put her baby up for adoption. Her son, Redvers Fuller was born on 10 July, 1945.
Two years later, Olive moved to London where she met her future husband Stanley. They were married on 25 March, 1951 and their daughter, Christine, was born in January, 1953.
Olive worked first as an assistant buyer at Gamages department store in Holborn and later as a secretary at Elliot Brothers in Rochester where she worked until she retired. When Stanley retired they moved to Anglesey, North Wales where they enjoyed many hobbies including dancing, bowls and sailing.
When their grandchildren were born, Olive would invent bedtime stories for them about a little brown Guinea pig called Billy Binks and although these were never published, one of them was printed so that they could be enjoyed by future generations.
Olive and Stanley both loved to travel and spent four summer seasons running a holiday park in the South of France where they travelled the region and tried to learn the language to advise guests on how to make the most of their holidays, they also travelled to South Africa where they went on safari in Kruger Park and had a close up encounter with the giraffes in Kenya, they also toured the west coast of America. Olive loved an adventure.
After her husband died, Olive contracted Macular Degeneration and was losing her sight so she decided to set up a support group for others with the same condition. She would organize lots of activities for the group such as macrame as well as arranging for them all to have massage and beauty treatments. Olive also organized trips out including a short break to London where they visited the Houses of Parliament, they were treated to a tour of the house and tea on the terrace with their local MP.
Then, guide dog Ruby, the black lab, came bounding into Olive's life bringing with her boundless energy and introducing Olive to a whole new way of life and beautiful friendships.
Olive then went on to join a local writing group where she would enjoy writing short stories and poems, some of which were published in the Anglesey Montage and the Daily Mail. She won several awards at the annual Eisteddfod for her writing and sang in the local barbers shop choir as well as working as a volunteer for Macular and Guide Dogs.
For her 90th birthday, Olive wanted to go to Gibraltar to see the Barbary Apes and although she didn't expect to be able to catch a glimpse of them, they seemed to be attracted to her, one jumped on her back, in preference to landing on the hard ground when jumping from a great height while another tried to eat her jumper and gave her quite a nip.
In 2018 Olive was reunited with her son and went on to have a lovely relationship with him, enjoying holidays and days out together and discovering that they shared the same sense of humour and fun.
During Covid times, Olive wanted to do something to help the NHS and decided to write a poem a day and later added an anagram for followers to solve, raising over £850 for the NHS. This gave her a great sense of wellbeing as well as keeping her in contact with family and friends which she really enjoyed.
The word most often used in messages of condolence was 'Inspirational' and Olive was certainly that.
Wherever she went, she took with her a great sense of fun and would always be looking forward to her next adventure.