Eunice Beryl Amery (9 Jul 1927 - 21 Mar 2017)

In loving memory of Eunice Beryl Amery who sadly passed away on 21st March 2017.

Eunice Turner was born in Enfield, Middlesex, on 9th July 1927, to parents Ada and Bert, and from the age of four, grew up in Chingford. She studied English literature and dress designing at Waltham Forest Technical College during the Second World War, and worked at Walthamstow Central Library during the last two years of the war. In January 1945, she lost her older sister Joan, who was in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, to one of the last bombs to fall in the war.

Eunice met Jasper Amery in her early twenties, and they married on 24th March 1951, when Eunice was nearly 24. After two years living with Eunice's parents in Chingford, they bought their own home in Ashtead, Surrey, and three years later on 1st June 1956 they had their daughter, Lynne, followed by their son, Nicholas, on 20th November 1958. In 1966 following the death of her father, her mother moved into their family home, where she spent the remainder of her life, until 1985. One year later, Jasper passed away in November 1986, and shortly after, Eunice moved to Barford Saint Michael in Oxfordshire with Nicholas, and then in 2001 to Coventry, just round the corner from Lynne. In 2010 she moved in with Lynne, where she lived until the last six months of her life, when she moved into a nearby residential home.

Eunice worked in a variety of secretarial jobs, including a horse stud farm owned by the late Sir Freddie Laker of Laker Airways, a solicitors' firm, a computer systems company, and for a financial advisor, as well as a period of working from home making what were actually the first women's waist slips, for Dickins & Jones and Marshall & Snelgrove, while Jasper was working as a sales director for women's evening wear companies in London's West End.

Eunice had a passion for life. She loved animals and was a passionate and talented horse rider, and her family pets included cats, dogs, a duck, hamsters, mice and a tortoise. She loved singing and dancing, and continued going to ballroom and Latin American dance classes until she was in her mid-seventies. She had a strong creative streak. As well as making clothes and curtains, and regularly re-upholstering armchairs and sofas, she learned to produce beautiful watercolour paintings and paintings on silk. She loved walking, and particularly during her time in Oxfordshire she went on regular long walks, both locally and in the more challenging environments of Snowdonia, the Brecon Beacons and the Lake District. She was a home lover, but she also loved going on holiday to France with Jasper, Lynne and Nicholas, and she taught herself French and studiously read French magazines to expand her vocabulary.

Eunice's multiple talents included a wide range of self-taught practical skills, such as DIY (not just painting, wallpapering and putting screws in walls, but building wardrobes and other items of furniture), gardening (and building brick walls, steps and patios), and car maintenance (including engine repair).

Eunice's greatest passion of all was her family. Her priority was to make sure her family were safe, loved, cared for and happy, and she would speak proudly and frequently of how much she loved her husband and her children and how happy she was to have them in her life. As she wrote herself when leaving notes about the planning of her own funeral, "I would like it to be a celebration of my life which couldn't have been happier with a husband who, for me, was so perfect and two lovely children who became such wonderful adults. My darlings Lynne and Nicholas, I love you so much."

And Eunice was very much loved by her family and friends. We will miss her so much, and Nicholas and Lynne will be comforted by their happy memories of her and of her love for them.