Every life has a beginning, a middle and an end. For Janet the beginning was on 14th March 1951. She came into the world with a ready-made sister and brother and was
automatically the baby of the three of us. She always lost at the cushion fights we had. For many Christmases, we all sat or stood around dad, who played Christmas carols on the piano and we all sang carols loudly like Good King Wenceslas or Silent Night. She loved singing from a very early age.

At the dinner table, with Mum and Dad and a very sensible Marion, there were also two irrepressible gigglers. One mention of “Dan, Dan, the lavatory man” and we were off, until Mum marched me off to eat alone in the kitchen.

Janet loved travelling, adventures and trainspotting, up until she started to go to “Malvern High School for Girls”, when she started to love travelling, adventures and boys instead. Names like Rob Brewer (with the scooter and mod parka) and Mike Jones later on, (who got her into sailing and diving), are just a few of the boyfriends who came and went.

Janet trained at Bishop Stortford to be a teacher, but never took it up. At about this time she announced to mum, that she intended to go hitch-hiking around Europe with friends. Mum told her not to talk to any strange men – but that probably won’t have stopped her. I think the post card mum got from somewhere in Italy proved to mum that Janet was a compulsive traveller and that there was no stopping her if she had
decided to go somewhere.

In the middle of Janet’s life she worked for a North Sea off-shore oil company and then for Noble and Denton from the 1970’s onward. This led to her working in Dubai for many years.

She travelled to see me in Malaysia in 1977, and went all over Malaysia (and Thailand I think) returning to me in Malacca to join me for a trip to Bali in Indonesia. She made me take the test for the Indonesian motorbike licence, so that we could get about with her riding pillion. In particular she wanted to visit Lake Batur. Now, imagine a triangle on an oblong lake; well we rode to the first point on that triangle to negotiate a fair price to be transported on their canoe to the other two points. After reluctantly agreeing to an exorbitant price, we got into the canoe whereupon they presented us with a paddle each. I was not happy about paddling my own canoe and neither was Janet. We reached the second point where dead bodies were left on the surface to rot covered by a loose tent-like structure of sticks, and it stank. Janet must have read about this somewhere. Anyway, next stop was the other side of the lake to see the sulphur water pools and walk up the side of an active volcano to the rim. Janet got
halfway up and turned back saying she was tired, but it may have had more to do
with a very attractive lad by the name of Napier back at the canoes. (Now there’s a name you don’t forget) So travel adventure and boys, again !

After Dubai, she moved to Leeds with Steve Mace and then into her house in
Bristol and finally made the best decision of her life, to move in with Steve.