Patricia Joy Brindle (20 Oct 1932 - 14 Sep 2018)

In loving memory of Patricia Joy Brindle who sadly passed away on 14th September 2018

Pat was born in Norwich, Norfolk in 1932, one of 3 girls. She always said she was a very much-loved accident. Her sisters, Joan and Audrey were 14 and 12 years older respectively when she arrived, so she was the baby of the family and very spoilt.

She went to school at the Notre Dame Convent (even though she wasn’t a Catholic) and as she often told us, was taught by Nuns. She loved her school life and had many friends there. Her best friend Janice moved to Canada when she married and over the years they lost contact. Pat often spoke of happy times with Janice and how she wished they were still in contact. It was by some small miracle that in more recent years they reconnected and even got to meet up again in the UK at a school reunion. She has a lovely photo of that reunion in her bedroom and was delighted to subsequently be in regular email contact with Janice.

Pat trained to be a dental nurse and allegedly cycled to the practice in Beccles every day, a return journey of about 42 miles. She absolutely adored her job with Mr Strange the dentist. She was always telling the story of how she threw away a gold tooth - by mistake of course. It had been specially made for a wealthy patient and she had thrown the packaging away complete with tooth. Mr Strange told her to search everywhere and to empty every bin until she found it, otherwise he would take the cost of it from her wages each month. Luckily, she did manage to find it.

She met Bryan when he was lodging with her next-door neighbour in Thorpe St Andrew, Norfolk. Although he lived in Woodford, Essex, he was working for British Rail as a trainee surveyor in Norwich. They married on 12th September 1956 at St Peter Mancroft Church and moved to their new home in Barkingside, Essex (although she always missed Norwich terribly and never lost her Norfolk accent).

Pat worked briefly in an office in London, until in July 1957 Vanessa was born. In June 1961 Julia arrived, followed by a much wanted son Nigel in March 1963. She stayed at home to look after the 3 children and became an Avon Lady and then when they were older, ran a nursery school in the local synagogue for many years. Often a little voice could be heard calling her from the other side of a supermarket, "There’s Teacher Pat, Hello Teacher Pat."

She briefly worked for an insurance company after that, but didn’t enjoy office work, so she went to work as a dental receptionist for Mr Bird in Ilford and then some years later became a receptionist for Dr Flattery in Gants Hill for many happy years.

Bryan seemed to spend a lot of his time when we were young, stopping Pat from doing herself an injury. She always suffered from claustrophobia, which she said stemmed from the war. She wouldn’t go into lifts or through tunnels, especially the Dartford Tunnel. Julia particularly remembers, as young children, whilst on a miniature steam train ride, they approached a signpost “Tunnel Ahead”. It was, of course, only a corrugated piece of bent over iron, but Mum panicked and tried to jump off! Nigel remembers how his Mum insisted on trying out his new motorbike, but she got the controls confused and the bike went in one direction and she went in another. Not a pretty sight!

Sadly after 27 years of marriage, Bryan died of lung cancer and not long after losing him, Pat and Nigel moved to a nice bungalow in Canvey to be close to Vanessa and Gary.

Later Nigel married Jacqui and they had 2 boys. It was lovely to have her nearby and for her grandchildren Graeme and Gemma, Ryan and Adam to grow up with her living just around the corner.

She went to work as a Receptionist at the Essex Way Doctors’ Surgery for years, until her ‘first retirement’ when she was 60. This didn’t last long, as after a short while the Drs asked her to go back, so she continued to work there until she was 66 years old.

During this time she met Jim and in November 2003 they married. They had many interests in common and enjoyed painting classes, antique fairs and the theatre; she especially loved the musicals. Every year they went to the Thursford Christmas Spectacular show where she would sing along just that little bit too loudly and Nigel would have to tactfully tell her not to, before the people sitting around her did! They also enjoyed lots of lovely cruises and, of course, their favourite ... ballroom dancing. They had many dancing holidays and were often complimented on their dancing skills. Eventually, Pat’s arthritis got too bad to dance, something she was very sad about.

However, they still went to Norwich regularly and stayed at the Oaklands Hotel so she could see her lovely sister Audrey, whom she adored. She really looked forward to those visits and we are all so glad that Rosie and John were able to bring Audrey to see Pat in hospital only a couple of weeks ago. Pat was so pleased to see them.

We all had our routines with her:

Julia would phone almost every day at 4pm and spent many Sundays with her and Jim.

Wednesdays were spent at Vanessa’s. She would arrive about 11.00, stay for lunch and spend hours of fun and laughter with Seth and Ezra. Sometimes she was naughtier than the boys!

She had many nice evenings and lovely meals with Nigel and Donna. She especially enjoyed these when she no longer felt like going very far.

Birthdays, Anniversaries, etc were nearly always spent together as a family.

Luckily, Pat had been healthy for most of her life and apart from being in hospital for 2 hip replacements, she reminded Vanessa only the other day that "other than having you" she never had to go into hospital.

Towards the end of May she started to feel very dizzy and became housebound as a result. She flatly refused to see the Dr, but more unusual symptoms emerged and despite Jim’s very best efforts to look after her, we had to, as she told the Drs at Southend, "kidnap" her and take her to hospital. Following various tests, we found out that she had a rare illness called Myasthenia Gravis. She was in hospital for almost 4 weeks and sadly on top of her very debilitating illness, caught pneumonia.

Pat was a wonderful and adored Mother, Mother-in-law and Wife and a very proud Grandmother to Graeme, Gemma, Ryan and Adam; she always took such an interest in everything they all did. More recently she became a Great Grandmother to Seth and baby Ezra and she was never happier than when she was surrounded by the family.

We are all going to miss her terribly.