NANCY ISABEL COOKE (1910-2000) – IN MEMORIAM

Nancy Isabel Cooke was born on Christmas day 1910. She was therefore in her 90^th year, when she died two weeks ago after a courageous struggle against a series of illnesses that had afflicted her since 1993.

Nancy is the twin sister of my mother, Joan, and was born – as many of you will know – under highly unusual circumstances. The doctor had delivered Joan at Adams Hill (the family home) and was leaving in his pony and trap when Fred Bulmer, Nancy’s father, raced down the drive to announce that another child was on its way. It seems scarcely credible, in an age of scans and ultrasounds, but that was the reality of medicine at the beginning of the last century when childbirth carried formidable risks. Families were large, as much for insurance against death and disease as anything else, and Nancy was one of seven children born to Fred and Sophie Bulmer, many of whose descendants are here today.

Nancy may have been a little late in coming, but she soon made up for that. Her intellectual prowess soon manifested itself and her thirst for knowledge could not be sated by the governesses that came to Adams Hill. A short period at the excellent Hereford High School was followed by the less distinguished St. Monica’s, where Nancy and Joan were sent in 1926. This school, dismissed later in life by Nancy as "pretentious, snobbish and vulgar", had one redeeming feature: it introduced the twins to their lifelong friend, Nancy Blackie, from Scotland and the families have remained close ever since.

St. Monica’s was not the sort of place that prepared young women for higher education, let alone the dreaming spires of Oxbridge, so Nancy at the tender age of seventeen set off for an eighteen-month stay with relatives in Germany and France, where she acquired not only command of two foreign languages, but also a permanent interest in European culture. However, one cultural experience was not to her taste. While in France she was taken to see a professional boxing match between the English hero Young Stribling and his French rival Le Charpentier. Subsequently, she never wavered in her opposition to the sport.

With her intellectual curiosity roused by her months in a continental Europe on the eve of the Great Depression, Nancy sat the entrance exam for Newnham College, Cambridge, and passed with flying colours. At a time when few young women went to university, Cambridge was an obvious choice: her father, whom she adored and to whom she frequently turned for guidance, had been there and her brothers Bertram, Harold and Becket were all linked to the university as well. However, Nancy was the first female in her family to have been to university, and she demonstrated her willingness and ability to be a pioneer in so doing. This was something that remained with her all her life.

Her performance at Cambridge was highly impressive. After taking a first in modern languages in Part 1, she turned to economics for Part 2 of the Tripos. Her teachers included John Maynard Keynes, A.C. Pigou and Joan Robinson. For those of you unfamiliar with the "dismal science" of economics, this is equivalent to saying you learnt your tennis from Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and Martina Hingis. It must have been an extraordinary experience and one that Nancy carried with her for the rest of her life. She once told me she had written an essay for the formidable Joan Robinson entitled "The laws of economics are as immutable as the laws of physics. Discuss."

By the time she had finished at Cambridge University, the depression was in full swing and the political clouds were darkening over central Europe. Inspired by the friendships she had formed in Cambridge with fellow students such as Roger Quirk and Margaret Leighton, she set off for the Soviet Union in mid-1932 with her brother Bertram and many others for an eight-week tour of the "first workers’state". Like Sidney and Beatrice Webb before her, Nancy was impressed by what she saw, although later on she was quick to recognize the biased nature of what they had been shown. Moscow and Leningrad (now once again St. Petersburg) must have been an extraordinary sight and Nancy was one of the first foreigners to be allowed to visit the Soviet Union even on a guided tour. It was another manifestation of her willingness to be bold.

Nancy was also passionate and it was this passion that led her to fall in love with Sammy Cooke, her junior by one year, while at Cambridge. Despite the unpromising economic circumstances – a Britain in depression and no stable income – they married in late 1932 with the support of Fred and Sophie Bulmer. Sammy was a brilliant man – one of the finest minds of his generation – but he was not a good husband and Nancy suffered deeply. A job in the civil service in the 1930s was some compensation, but married women in those days were not allowed a civil service career and her post was classified as non-established. This blatant piece of chauvinism, only reversed in the 1940s, stopped Nancy from having the high-flying career for which she was undoubtedly equipped in all other respects, but she was helped by the wide circle of friends she had formed in Cambridge and later in London and with whom she stayed in contact for many, many years.

The war years brought joy and sorrow in equal measure. Julian, her first child, was born in 1940 and this was followed two years later by the birth of Roger. The birth of the two boys could not, however, save the marriage, which had ended before the Normandy landings. During the war she also lost her beloved father Fred, but she spent much of the time when not in London with her mother Sophie at Adams Hill. Her mother and her two boys, together with her brothers and sister, were a source of great comfort during that difficult time.

It was her siblings who both persuaded and helped her to purchase a house at Strand-on-the-Green in 1945 in a part of London she had learned to love and where she had made friends with the distinguished botanist John Gilmour and his talented wife Molly. Here she devoted herself to raising her two boys and soon built up a network of marvellous friendships including the Allens and the Hendersons. Freed from an unhappy marriage, she threw herself into her wide range of interests including the arts and crafts movement, the Fabian Society and the promotion of the rights of university women. In this, she was once again a pioneer in much of what she did and no more so than in the areas of education and health. The boys were sent to the Froebel Educational Institute and, when at home, were expected to consume such delicacies as organically composted brown bread, unrefined brown sugar and home-cultured yoghourt. Ahead of her time on food issues, she considered that large multinationals were deliberately keeping the facts on healthy living from the public. She was no doubt delighted at the torrid reception given to Monsanto and others some fifty years later.

However, Nancy was no radical and never described herself as a feminist. She had a strong belief in tradition and defended the institution of the monarchy throughout her life. More controversially, she also argued in favour of the British Empire and the Commonwealth and was never afraid to defend the values of paternalism. Indeed, she believed strongly in the kind of corporate paternalism that her father and uncle had espoused in the family cider business and which still has an echo in the corporate philosophy of H P Bulmer & Co Ltd today. Perhaps she inherited these values from her father, a Liberal and mayor of Hereford, but it is more likely that they were the result of careful thought. And like many people who have thought deeply about issues, she was very respectful of the views of others so that conversations with Nancy were always a pleasure and could be enjoyed by young and old alike.

The first decade after the war brought much happiness for Nancy. The boys were growing up surrounded by friends and relatives, while Harold’s and Joan’s families lived close by. School holidays meant skiing trips, visits to Scotland and several months in Brittany (although this meant the boys once missing a whole school term). In 1953 the family was enlarged by the arrival of Fritz, a short-haired dachshund who will be remembered – not always with affection – by all those who came into contact with him. Some of my earliest memories are of the boys in their bedroom calling Fritz "the cream of the aristocracy" and telling him to "die for the Queen" (this I never understood).

Nancy had learnt to love the Lake District as a result of visits to her parents-in-law and also to the Quirks’ family house on Lake Coniston. Finally, in 1956 an opportunity appeared to acquire property and Brow Foot in the heavenly Duddon Valley was purchased for the princely sum of £2,500. It must have seemed a risky venture for a London family to buy a house in Cumbria before a single mile of motorway had been built in Britain, but it was a brilliant decision. Most of us here today have the happiest memories of Brow Foot and I am sure that Julian and Susan – the present owners – will want to preserve the same traditions.

It was at this time – in 1956 – that Nancy went back to work and taught English as a second language at SouthWest London College. Its mix of students from mainly Commonwealth countries appealed to her and she threw herself into teaching with the same enthusiasm she had shown in so many aspects of her life. New friendships were formed among the staff and many of the students were also visitors to the house on Strand-on-the-Green. Nancy revelled in the company of different generations and was never happier than when engaged in conversation on the burning issues of the day. She also found time to translate economic articles from French and German into English, using the skills she had mastered as a young woman at the end of the 1920s. This was no doubt one reason why she was able to keep up with such apparent ease with the latest ideas in economics.

With the boys off to boarding school and later to university at Oxford, Nancy might have suffered from the empty nest syndrome. If so, she never showed it. Her wide circle of friends, her love of travel, her house in the Lake District and her visits to Adams Hill in Hereford and Bodior on Holy Island, not to mention her demanding schedule as a teacher, kept her fully occupied. Yet there was no denying her unmitigated pleasure when Roger’s marriage to Mary in 1970 was followed later in the decade by the births of Joseph, Matilda and Penelope. Her three grandchildren, and her daughter-in-law, were a source of great pride to her and it was fitting that they were all there at her side on the night she died.

Nancy was heroic in her last years, often suffering great pain but refusing to show it or talk about it. Yet she was still able to tackle new projects and was responsible for commissioning a biography of her father, Fred Bulmer, which will be based on archives held at King’s College, Cambridge. During her periods of sickness, she was helped by a succession of wonderful young women who lived with and cared for her – none more so than Margaret Munetsi who is here today. Credit too should go to her immediate family for the support they provided especially her devoted sons, Roger and Julian, who in their different ways have been unstinting in their attention throughout her period of illness.

We all carry happy memories of Nancy garnered over her full and active life: the conversations over dinner at Strand-on-the-Green, the walks in the Lake District, the meetings of the extended family. However, I will never forget the peaceful look on her face the night she died surrounded by all her children and grandchildren. This was a woman who had lived life to the full, had brought happiness to others and in turn had shared in their happiness. She was at peace with herself and at peace with the world. I am sure that all of us here hope and pray for a similar ending.

 

Victor Bulmer-Thomas; 15th February 2000