Miss Margaret Hayes-Williams R.I.P.
 

At Peg's funeral the following address was given by Roger Wikeley.

It is a cliché to say what a privilege it is to preach on such and such an occasion. And I think I can truthfully say it is a cliché I have never used in nearly 40 years of ministry. But I can say it today and mean it. I am grateful to Patrick for so readily allowing me to take part in this service, and it is a privilege to do so. To those of us who were taught by her Peg had the rare ability to be both our teacher and our friend, and in being this she lost none of the authority that rightly belongs to the teacher in the classroom. She was, to very many of us, a very special person.
I have no doubt but that in my time at St. Michaels she was the best teacher we had. She had an enthusiasm for her subject that was infectious and was the reason why so many wanted to do geography A level. When I asked her if I should do it, she said “no”. She was disarmingly honest! Her classes were conducted firmly but she had enough confidence and authority to allow laughter to have its place. I, for example, remember a lesson in which we were told that Nottingham was a centre of lace making. She told us the sorts of things the lace was used for – including ladies underwear. “Show us some” shouted Mukhlis, and Peg laughed as much as the rest of us. But the lesson was soon underway again. How she was able to make us strive for that elusive A+! Always stretching us but never demoralising us. The mark of a great teacher.
There was a streak of real strength in Peg’s character. The very fact that she journeyed so far from home to make her life in England shows something of that. In an email to Old Michaelian’s Peter Shepherd says he remembers her as a “gruff and tough character”, especially on sports day when things didn’t go to plan. But he also recalled her telling off the HM who apparently interrupted a Geography GCE examination to tick off a boy for eating a polo mint. “How do you expect them to pass if you keep interrupting?” she grumbled.
To many of us she remained a treasured friend long after we had left St. Michael’s. I don’t know how many old pupils she visited, but certainly lots of them visited her, and that says a lot. I know she visited Peter and Rosemary Yarker because we sometimes joined them, and she spent Christmas or Easter or summer holidays with us in Liverpool. Sometimes visiting twice in the year. She was a favourite with the children as well as with Geraldine and me.
Peg was the easiest of guests. The hustle of the Rectory would go on around her; she was entirely undemanding. She would sit with her sewing or her book; she would tuck in to the food set in front of her, she did jigsaws galore, and of course she enjoyed the trips out. Her visits stopped some time ago as she told me her “travelling days were over”, but last year, following her operation, I just mentioned the possibility of another visit, and she leapt at it. Geraldine drove her over, Peter and Rosemary joined us and she- and we – had a splendid week together.
But we were not her only friends; far from it. Here in Norfolk, where she had made her home after arriving from Australia in the 50s, she had many friends who not only liked her but who respected her. In Heacham, where she crossed the road to help in the Church Hall at a variety of functions – including the W.I. market of which she was a founder member. She represented the W.I. at area meetings. Peg also helped at the Day Centre where I remember her telling me she found herself serving lunches to some who were years younger than herself.
In Dersingham and beyond that she visited for the craft fairs to which she took her embroideries, her pictures, her cards, her wall hangings. (Incidentally, one of the reasons she so much enjoyed Liverpool was because Geraldine introduced her to a place where she could get her materials, and especially her zips so much cheaper!).
In Hunstanton where she belonged to the Soroptomists or Business and Professional Women’s Club. And, of course, here at Heacham Church and more recently at the Methodist Church. She had a finger in many pies and she had made many friends.
As befits a geographer Peg loved to travel. She made journeys all over the British Isles in her car and when that became more difficult she went by coach. In my school days I remember her telling us how she had journeyed from Shrewsbury to Heacham by local bus only – for the fun of it.
We never really knew a lot about Peg’s family, but we did know she was close to the family despite the distance. We heard about her brothers and their help and support, not least on her occasional visits back to Australia, and about nephews and nieces. She would have been thrilled that her nephew Peter and his wife Barbara are with us today, though I can’t help but feel she would have told you not to bother! (I hope that perhaps from this service, and from those whom you will meet afterwards that you will begin to see how much she was loved and respected by so many of us. Maggie, her niece telephoned me and emailed me the following:
To the aunt who left Australia when I was a small child and after whom I was named. I am thankful that I had the opportunity to really get to know you when I stayed with you in the summer of 1993. That week was the most special time of my trip overseas, sitting in your cottage garden, watching and photographing butterflies with you, reading at dusk with a glass of sherry each, just the occasional word, sharing your simple life for that short time. I feel that I carry within me a part of you - your love of history, crafts and travel, and of course like you, having been a teacher. You were a model for me in demonstrating the possibilities for a woman - to have the courage to travel to another country, work, study as a mature age student and to form relationships based not on family ties but on your gentle qualities. I will be thinking of you Aunty Peg when I graduate later this year, knowing that you would be proud of my achieving a law degree in middle-age. I will remember as you waved me off on the King’s Lynn bus, when I said that I would miss the butterflies and the garden, and you said that the butterflies and the garden would miss me too.

I’m glad she did not linger at the end. It would have embarrassed her. She didn’t want to be a burden to anybody and didn’t ask for as much help as she really needed. I had telephoned to see how her latest appointment at the clinic had gone, and wondered why there was no reply. She was already in hospital, but not alone. Friends called, among whom were Gillian who helped her and Diana, another of Peg’s friends. Gillian and her husband have been a wonderful support to Peg as she became more infirm. They have done a huge amount for her and I’m told it’s their help that has allowed her to retain some independence by staying in her own home. Diana who sat with Peg in her last hours says Peg was lucid until the end – telling her where her papers were to be found; telling her to tell Gillian not to put off her holiday. She knew she was dying and she told Diana she was ready to go. There was always about Peg a quiet, unostentatious faith, which was nevertheless deep and real.
Faith was not something Peg talked openly about, certainly not in our school days. But faith was real to her. She and I spoke on her visits to Liverpool. It was not an unthinking faith; she tried to think things through and, certainly in her earlier days, worship was important to her. If she was staying with us at Easter she would be in church everyday during Holy Week, and not because she felt she had to be!
I chose the reading from Ephesians 4 7-16 not just because it mentioned teachers, although I think there is no doubt that for Peg teaching was a vocation, but because it talks about using a variety of gifts to build up the body of Christ. And I think that was one of the strengths of St. Michael’s as a school, within which Peg played a role more important than maybe even she realised. As I say, faith was something deep within her make-up and which for me was most in evidence during her stays with us in Holy Week – this very week. Day by day she worshipped as we followed Jesus on the way of the cross. Peg’s remarks after each service were few but faithful in the real meaning of that word. She shared with us in the brokenness of the cross, as well as in the joy of the resurrection and my prayer is that now she has herself broken through death she may find her own resurrection into the fullness of the faith that guided her life and carried her through death.
May she rest in peace.

Roger Wikeley

Those attending from the OMA were Simon and Jenny Pott, Roger & Geraldine Wikeley, Peter and Rosemary Yarker, (also representing Martin & Barbara Graville) Mukhlis Oweis Mike and Ruth Chilvers, Geoff Kimberley, Jack Owens, Geraldine Moorhouse and John King. We sang Psalm 23 to Crimond and the hymn “He who would valiant be”. Peg was 86 and donations in her memory for Cancer Research and the Deaf could be sent to John Lincoln, Funeral Director, 40 Greevegate, Hunstanton PE36 6AB.

John King