In her 20’s Janet lived and worked in London. She acquired secretarial qualifications and ultimately a teaching qualification from Roehampton. But she also acquired some lifelong friends. She met Julia Buxton because she and Julia had been going out with the same boyfriend, apparently at the same time! The boyfriend fell by the wayside and Janet and Julia because lifelong friends. Daphne Lindley shared a flat with Julia and so Janet became part of a group of mates who would meet up in the Crown and Greyhound (affectionately known as The Dog) in Dulwich.

Janet and Julia later shared a two room attic flat in Wimbledon and not long after getting her teaching qualification, Janet suddenly decided to take up a 6 week placement with Noble Denton as a secretary/PA in Dubai. By this time Daphne was in Abu Dhabi (are you following all this?) and so Daphne and Janet saw a lot of each other. Jan took to expat life like a duck to water. She got involved with the Hash, she played netball, she learned to waterski, went on desert camping trips and she was a true party animal. At dinner parties she was notorious for just going to sleep at the dinner table, a skill she retained all her life! She worked hard and she played hard. There were a couple of serious relationships but I think it surprised all of her friends that she never seemed to find the right man. She stayed in Dubai for about 10 years.

In the mid 80’s she found herself in Bristol, working initially at Digital (where she first
met Steve) and then subsequently for an organisation which was trying to get unemployed young people into work or education. She was really good at it – firm but fair, and I am sure there are a number of people in Bristol whose lives were changed for the better by her. She was also during this period trying to support her increasingly frail mother. She was a truly caring daughter.

In 2001 Janet suggested we all celebrate our 50th birthdays by going for a walking weekend and thus was initiated what became known as The Dartmouth Group. The group consisted of Julia, Daphne and two other friends, Viv and Mella and occasionally Wendy, and became an annual event. The first few of these took place with the generous blessing of Jan’s sister Marion, staying in Marion’s lovely house in Dartmouth (hence the name). In later years weekends took place in all sorts of lovely bits of Britain (and Ireland on one occasion). Jan was a great walker and was a hard task master with few concessions being made to our increasing age and fragile knees! Every year someone would be having a crisis and would come away feeling better for having talked it out. As time went on they became more talking (and drinking and eating) weekends than walking but I know how important they were to Jan and to us.

Then she met Steve and there she found the happiness she deserved. I think everyone knew that her wedding day was truly the happiest day of her life. And there followed the happiest period of her life. They both loved travelling and even when her health began to decline they were able to go off in the campervan. Steve enabled Jan to live her life to the full right to the very end and it is entirely appropriate that she should have departed this life immediately after a month in Spain and a family party.