Pamela Sturgeon (2 Feb 1936 - 6 Mar 2025)

In loving memory of Pamela Sturgeon who sadly passed away on 6th March 2025

Pamela Sturgeon – some of our memories of her personality and life history

Born 02.02.36

A very much loved and only child of Kathleen and Jack.

Lived in Ransome Road in Ipswich for the whole of her childhood until she married Eddie.

She loved her parents who taught her how to be kind, thoughtful, generous and forgiving. She was brought up as a Christian (Church of England) and attended St Augustine near her home in Ipswich regularly. She shared a love of music with her Dad and played the piano. Growing up, in the school holidays, she used to help her Dad with his business as an organ and piano tuner. She would play notes on the organ so that her Dad could fix issues with the pipes and tune them.

The 2nd World War started when she was 3 years of age and because Ipswich was near Felixstowe, a busy port and Ipswich an industrial town, it was a target for bombers. She would often have to spend a night in the air raid shelter in their garden. One night their garage was hit. She spent a lot of time with her extended family at a pub (mothers sister (Joy’s mum) and was very close to her cousins (Kathleen’s sisters children) and remained close to Tom, Joy and Ann her whole life.

Pamela enjoyed dancing and her Mum made all her dance costumes and dresses. She very much enjoyed being on a stage and was a member of an amateur dramatics theatre group. She enjoyed playing tennis with her parents at their club and later she joined a badminton club in Harpenden.

After school, Pamela completed a course in secretarial skills and elocution lessons. She then worked for an insurance company in Ipswich.

In the summer of 1954 Pamela met Eddie at the age of 18 at a Pontin’s Holiday camp dance in Lowestoft. She was there for the week with her parents and Eddie was there on a weeks holiday with some friends. Eddie spotted Pamela standing by the dance floor and asked her to dance and from then on they were inseparable, except that they could only see each other at weekends when Eddie could drive his Austin 7 to Ipswich from Enfield to see her.

They married on 31 August 1957 at St Augustine Church in Ipswich and started their married life on a caravan site in Winkfield as Eddie, who had started his national service, and doing secret work, was given permission to live outside of the RAF camp. One of Mum’s happy memories was having a wash in a tiny tin bath which she thought was funny and enjoyable.

Pam was a reliable, hardworking, efficient worker who enjoyed working for a solicitor in Windsor during that time and later when the children went back to school she continued to work for solicitors. She regretted turning down an offer to study to become an Legal Executive, but did most of this work anyway, including conveyancing.

In 1959, after a lot of saving, Pam and Eddie bought a bungalow in Potters Bar. Tracey was born in 1964 and they then moved to Harpenden. Amanda was born in 1967.

Pamela was very kind, caring, generous, an excellent listener, adviser, and supporter. She had many friends in Harpenden and was a loving wife, Mum, Grandma and friend who always put others before herself. She was very interested in people and had a talent of getting to know the life history of complete strangers. She made friends with a variety of very interesting people because she would show an interest in everyone she met. Her empathy for other people and their lives was a huge talent and much appreciated by all.

She liked to drive exciting, smart cars and her MG midget, mini and cabriolet were very much loved.

Her personality was exciting, bright, cheerful, caring and positive. She could literally light up the room with her presence.

Her marriage was a very happy one. Pamela and Eddie were besotted with each other and worked as a team but had very definite ‘jobs’ around the house. They shared a love of going away in their touring caravans for 50 years. They often took the caravan to France, despite Pamela being not a good traveller by boat (which was the only way to get to France back then). She would take a sea sickness tablet but then be so sleepy that she could not keep her eyes open to map read. It was quite common to go around Paris quite a few times before Mum woke up to help Eddie find the right turn off the Paris ring road.

In 1988 Pamela and Eddie made a decision to move to Suffolk. Mum had always wanted to go back to the County that she was born and she had a strong relationship with her Mum. They were drawn to Combs near Stowmarket which was within 30 mins - 1 hour drive of both their parents. Mum had many happy memories of running the bowling club at Battisford Community Hall.

Pamela had 5 grandchildren. When the first came along, in 1992, Pamela was keen to spend as much time as possible with them. She and Eddie used to travel and stay at Tracey’s home for roughly one week in a month in Finchampstead, Wokingham. Pamela insisted on learning how to care for all the children’s needs so that Tracey and Iain could have a break away or go on business trips. She, along with Eddie, joined Tracey, Iain, William, Matthew and Ellie on many holidays with the children and she was also a very keen ‘supporter’ of all their interests. Particularly she always insisted that she should come and watch them perform in all their choir performances and local, national and world dance competitions. She also insisted on travelling to Australia or Seattle to visit Amanda and her family, Jarrah and Bee, especially again if there was an event to support them in their hobbies or achievements. She was always very proud, encouraging and supportive of everything they achieved. They were all very fond of their Grandma and she of them.

Mum was always grateful for everything and would make sure she thanked everyone sincerely. She used to say – I am so lucky and so grateful.

Mum had an amazing memory for Birthdays and knew everyone’s birthday dates, their telephone numbers and even car number plates. She did not need to write these down but made meticulous records in her diary. Would never miss a birthday! She drove Eddie mad with her obsession with birthday cards and not forgetting anyone’s birthday.

She was excellent at spelling and was literally a walking dictionary! Dad relied on Mum so much for this!

At work – as children in the school holidays Amanda and Tracey were allowed by her employer to go with her to work, sitting colouring and reading while she did her job. She was reliable, an impressive, perfect, fast typist (had to be with legal documents), confident with her work and with her communication to peers. A perfect and valued secretary, organiser and valued adviser to grateful bosses.

Pamela liked everything to be clean. Particularly, she was obsessed with brass cleaning. Mum had a lot of brass, some of it was handed down from relatives and she liked to keep it shiny. We remember recently her asking if she thought the carers that came in to wash and dress her would clean her brass instead!

Pamela, Mum and Grandma, we were so lucky and grateful to have you in our lives to teach us, among other things, how to be kind, thoughtful, generous and forgiving.