Vivienne Wenman (21 Mar 1923 - 17 Oct 2020)

In loving memory of Vivienne Wenman who sadly passed away on 17th October 2020

The service is available to be viewed online for 12 weeks from the date of service.
Please go to: https://vimeo.com/479504527

From an interview 16th February 2011:
The Royal British Legion (RBL) is the nation's leading Armed Forces charity, campaigning for and promoting the welfare and interests of current and former members of the British Armed Forces. It is perhaps best known for the yearly Poppy Appeal and Remembrance services. Formed from the merger of four organisations — the Comrades of the Great War, the National Association of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers, the National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers and the Officers' Association — the British Legion was founded in 1921 and granted a Royal Charter on 29 May 1971 to mark its fiftieth anniversary.
The Chairlady of the local Royal British Legion Women's Section asked Vivienne Wenman — a member of both the RBL and the local Craft Club — to stitch the kneeler. The original intention for its design was to incorporate the RBL's crown logo but it was too difficult. Vivienne suggested poppies instead, and it was agreed that they would be an appropriate alternative. It took Vivienne two years to complete the kneeler.
A true cockney, Vivienne Wenman (nee Karpeles) was born in the city of London, at the Maternity Hospital on the corner of Old Street and City Road. She was the second of three sisters. Eighty-seven years later, the hospital is no longer there. Her mother and father were also born in London, but her father was a diamond cutter from a family of gem merchants — his father, uncles and three brothers were all in the same business — and lived a lot of his life abroad. His brothers, a cousin and an uncle were captured and sent to concentration camps. The uncle never came out, and it is thought he died of starvation. Vivienne did not get to know any of her father's family until after the war.
Because her father was so often away, Vivienne saw much more of her mother, who Vivienne describes as lovely, a very good mother in every way, who did everything she could to look after her children. Although married women could not work in those days, Vivienne's mother tried. The family was so poor (Vivienne's father didn't always send enough money home) that Vivienne's mother would sometimes work half the night to get a few pence to make ends meet, rolling paper hats for bonbons (crackers). She didn't make the bonbons, just the hats that went in them.
Vivienne's older sister, Marjorie, went to a Central School. First established following the 1918 Education Act, Central Schools were selective secondary education schools, between the more prestigious grammar schools and the ordinary secondary schools. Following the 1944 Education Act, the selection process was changed so that those who failed the 11+ but were considered clever enough to have been entered for it were able to go to central schools. Vivienne and her younger sister Yvonne went to a London County Council school. It was academically less challenging and in her mother's words was there just to "churn out people for factory work". Vivienne's mother was not happy sending her two younger daughters there, but she had no choice.
Vivienne finished school at the age of fourteen, but her last few years at school were blighted by absence. At the age of ten or eleven, she had fallen in the playground and broken her teeth. Afterwards, her face puffed up with infection, and going through the teeth was apparently the only way to remove it. Every Mondav, Wednesday and Friday for three years, she went to the dentist who put 'sticks' up her teeth — Vivienne remembers how she could feel them behind her nose — and they would stay there until the next time, when they would be replaced.
With all her time out of school, Vivienne never got on with maths. She remembers one lesson in particular when the teacher wrote on the blackboard a sum, with a dot (decimal point) in the middle of a string of numbers. Why has she put a full stop in the middle of a sum ? Vivienne thought to herself. Having spent so much time in the dentist's chair, this was the only maths lesson Vivienne had had in many years.
Vivienne left school and was working for a millinery when war broke out. The staff were told not to come in at the weekend in case war was declared. It was. Afterwards, she worked for a food wholesaler, collecting food and sending it to about half a dozen large London shops, none of which remains today. Vivienne remembers it as a great place to work.
Having married in 1939, Marjorie had moved to Sheffield. Her husband had been called up with the first lot of recruits. Vivienne's mother could not stand the noise of the bombs in London, which seemed to land closer each day. Vivienne, her mother and younger sister decided to move to Sheffield to stay with Marjorie, but Vivienne's father stayed in London. Not only did he not want to move, he had throat cancer, and he became increasingly unwell. Vivienne wishes he had moved with the family. One night, during a terrible raid, he sought refuge in the large public air-raid shelters at the Geffrye Museum, which held 200-300 people. Being very ill, he went to sleep, but he woke up distressed, saying, "No, no, you mustn't put me in a box." Others in the shelter tried to calm him: "You can't go out. It's too dangerous." But he left the shelter and went to the nearby Underground Station until the raid was over. Vivienne believes that her father's fear must have been very intense because he was terrified of bombs. He did not like it at the Underground either, but he stayed there until the raid was over. On his way home, he passed by the Geffrye Museum, where a direct hit had killed most or all of the people who'd been in the shelter with him. Had her father not moved, he too would have died there and his family would never have known what had happened to him.
Soon after, Marjorie's husband was killed in action, and she moved back to London to look after her father. When his health deteriorated further, the whole family returned to London. After he died, Yvonne and the girls' mother returned to Sheffield, but Marjorie and Vivienne stayed in London. The noise of the raids that had so bothered their mother did not seem to bother Marjorie or Vivienne. They slept soundly, even during particularly bad nights.
When Vivienne was called up to the Army, she was pleased about it. She had asked earlier to go in the land army but was too young at that time. Thinking her surname sounded foreign, the doctors at her medical tried to trick her: "How do you like the food here?" Vivienne was amused by the questions; she'd never been out of the country before. Her mother was never sure where the surname came from. Later, Yvonne did some research and it seems it hails from the Germany-Czech Republic region.
At a base on the Anglo-Welsh border, near Chester, the Army taught Vivienne to drive lorries. She was then posted to Belfast, before being sent back to England — to Epping and later to Bath from where she was sent overseas. Vivienne landed at Oostende, Belgium, and then travelled to Brussels, arriving just a week after the Germans had gone. She remembers that every room in the Nazi headquarters was bugged. She was shown the cellars where the Germans had held their prisoners. Dates on the walls of the cellars showed that the prisoners had still been there just eight days earlier.
Vivienne has many stories from the time she spent in Brussels. One day, when she was about to cross a road, she saw a British lorry full of German prisoners slow down for the lights at an intersection. As it slowed, she noticed that the local residents had also seen that the lorry was full of the enemy, and a cry went out: "Les Boshes, les Boshes!" Suddenly there were dozens of people coming from the side streets, appearing from nowhere. Vivienne froze, thinking that the prisoners would be lynched there and then. But the lights changed, the lorry drove away, and the local people dispersed. Vivienne, however, stood at the intersection, frozen for some time. Although she realized afterwards that the armed guards in the back of the lorry would have prevented any disturbance getting out of hand, it frightened her, nonetheless.
After two months, Vivienne drove to Germany — to Osnabrück, Herford (about three miles from Bad Salzuflen) and then on to Badenhausen. Vivienne drove either a troop carrier or a 3-ton goods lorry. In Germany, a 'no fraternising' policy prevented any communication with the local Germans, even the children. Vivienne recalls that one officer committed suicide because he had been caught fraternising. After about a month, the policy changed to permit talking to Germans under the age of nine, and a few months later, the ban was lifted altogether. Vivienne stayed in Germany for eighteen months before she was demobilised.
Back in London, Vivienne drove for the Ministry of Works, a job that occasionally gave her access to 10 Downing Street and even Buckingham Palace. Vivienne enjoyed her job very much.
In 1948 Vivienne married Tom Wenman. Tom worked for a builders' merchants in Leatherhead but the couple had met earlier at one of the Army bases. In fact, Vivienne had had to clean Tom's lorry. The Commanding Officer at the base did not like having women on his base and forced them to do all the dirty jobs, including cleaning the men's lorries.
Tom's grandmother lived in Little Bookham Street, Bookham, and after the couple were married, Vivienne moved in too. Vivienne looked after Tom's grandmother and when she died, she and Tom stayed on in the house. While the marriage was neither unhappy nor happy, Vivienne feels that getting married was a silly thing to do. Nevertheless, she and Tom were married for forty-three years, until Tom died in 1991.
Although they didn't have children of their own, they adopted two children, a boy and a girl, both of whom are now grown up with children of their own. Vivienne's daughter, Linda, lives in Perth, Australia and has seven-year-old twins. Linda had worked for the Australian High Commission in London before going backpacking all around Australia. While there, she told her mother that she'd met a man called Warren, from Newcastle. Vivienne remembers being slightly disappointed: Oh, what a blessed nuisance. Newcastle is right at the other end of the country. But Warren was in fact from Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. Linda has lived in Australia ever since.
Vivienne's son, Peter, lives in Manchester and has three children from his first marriage. At one point, he was having marital problems, and Vivienne decided to sell her house help him make a new home in Cheltenham. She bought a house there, but before she moved, Peter resolved his problems. Vivienne's next-door-neighbour said, "You don't want to go, do you?"
"No, not particularly. I want to stay in Bookham. I'm old and I know everybody here.'
"Well, why not stay? You can have my little cottage, if you like." So Peter moved into the house in Cheltenham, and Vivienne moved from one side of her neighbour to the other.
At least twenty-five years ago, a friend introduced Vivienne to the RBL, and she has been a member ever since, serving as Chairlady for four years. The group does many things: they used to play bingo on the first Monday of the month but that stopped when numbers got too low; on the second Monday of the month, the group holds its committee meetings; and on the third Monday, the group usually has speakers to talk about a variety of subjects.
For the past twenty-seven years or so, Vivienne has also been a member of the Craft Club at the Barn Hall. The Craft Club meets on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month. The club was so popular that a second club, the Crafters, was formed a few years ago. While Vivienne did a lot of craft in her heyday, these days she prefers to 'go around nattering'.
Vivienne has recovered well from a stroke she had in April, 2008. The stroke affected her walking and speech, and although her friends say she sounds the same, Vivienne continues to find it difficult to talk fluently. In March 2010, she moved to Southey Court, which provides supported housing for older people. She had visited another site in Leatherhead beforehand, but again she realised that she would prefer to stay in Bookham, enjoying her Legion meetings, the Craft Club and nattering with her friends.