It’s ten years since my mother, Barbara Williamson passed away. As I reflect on her life, I’m filled with gratitude, for her as a person and of course for her role in making me who I am.
Barbara was a remarkable woman. I recall the tributes to her at her memorial service. Two stick in my mind – that she was so kind to others, and that she was formidable, a great organizer and a powerful intellect.
To honour her life, I’m sharing a couple of the obituaries about her (I’m listed as the author though they were really team efforts with other family members). The first, here, was in the Guardian. It notes that Barbara was an advocate for social and church causes, and was an accomplished professional, working as a careers advisor for Oxford University, as a senior magistrate and as a school governor.
The second can be accessed via this button:
This one appeared in the Watlington Times in December 2015. Barbara and my father Tony lived in Watlington, a village in Oxfordshire for over 25 years, and they are buried there together. This obituary highlights how Barbara was a committed companion to Tony in his role as a worker priest, how she sought to promote the role of women, and her significant contributions to village life in Watlington.
I’m struck by one phrase that appears in both appreciations. Barbara took a ‘leap of faith’ when she and Tony decided to build their lives as a married couple with young children in an industrial suburb of Oxford, near the car factory where Tony worked, living among other car workers and their families.
A decade on, this phrase still rings true. Barbara came from a prosperous, conservative family and had studied at Oxford, so in the Britain of the early 1960s such a decision was unconventional to say the least. But she made this choice, with Tony, and I admire her for embracing the hope that it represented – the hope that doing something different could be a small spark for change in the communities they were part of. They didn’t know if it would work, but their commitment to each other, and to their guiding principles as Christians, carried them forward.
They took a leap of faith, in other words.
As I look back with gratitude on my mother’s life, having such hope and commitment seems as important today as it was when Barbara took her leap.
Barbara Williamson, born 27 February 1934, died 4 December 2015.