Jennifer

In Memoriam

Jennifer was born on 26th September 1941 – nine months to the day after her parents’ wedding. At a time when Britain was still isolated and outnumbered in the war, her birth was an occasion for great rejoicing. Yet it was also a time of great danger. Jennifer moved with her parents, Joan and Ivor, to Edwardes Square in London in the following year. With her sister, Miranda, who was born in 1943, she experienced the bombs falling on London – one of which fell close to the family house. Joan and the girls, however, did spend some of the time with Sophie – Jennifer’s grandmother – in the comparative safety of Adams Hill in Herefordshire. Here she formed close friendships with her Bulmer cousins – many of whom are here today. These early years during the war are perhaps the key to two of Jennifer’s greatest qualities – fortitude and loyalty – both of which she displayed throughout her life.

Jennifer spent her school years in London, where by all accounts she was very happy. On returning from school, she would regale her mother with all the details and anecdotes of the day’s events – in marked contrast to Miranda and me. Her circle of friends from school was enormous and Edwardes Square at that time was full of families with children of similar age to Jennifer, making evenings and weekends seem like one long party. Holidays were equally blissful, with family skiing parties in the winter and long sojourns on the Bodior estate in the summer. By modern standards, the inevitable teenage rebellion was a very mild affair with Bill Haley and the Comets and the first boyfriends posing the greatest threat to domestic harmony. These childhood years demonstrated two other qualities that Jennifer retained throughout her life – joyousness and humour.

As the gap year had not yet become a constitutional right for young people, Jennifer went straight to university from school – armed with her French and Italian dictionaries as well as her flute. Trinity College Dublin, for which Latin ’O’ level was still obligatory, turned out to be a brilliant choice. Not only were the terms only six weeks long, but the social scene by all accounts was also astonishingly rich. Here she made many new friends whom she kept throughout her life. The most special of these friends was, of course, Hugo with whom Jennifer fell in love while at university before they married in 1965. The wedding was held at St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe in London and the couple began their married life in a wonderful flat above the rectory.

The flat had been arranged by Ivor, using his ecclesiastical connections, and he had also given the young couple a case of fine claret. They had almost consumed every bottle when Hugo thought he should consult a book to see what they had been drinking. When he realised that the wines they had been quaffing were all first-growth clarets, Hugo was mortified; he and Jennifer set out on a lifetime’s penance to rectify the error. In this they were highly successful and most of us here today have benefited from their extraordinary generosity at one time or another.

The year after her marriage, Jennifer produced the first of her three children. In a brilliant display of filial responsibility, Andrew was born in the same month that I left home. All the surviving grandparents – Joan and Ivor as well as Hugo’s parents Mollie and Phil – were delighted and Joan celebrated by acquiring the Old School House in Farnborough. This village, with which the families had no previous connection, was to play a large part in their future lives. Mollie purchased the neighbouring property to the Old School House and Jennifer and Hugo acquired the adjacent house.

By this time, Jennifer and Hugo had moved to Notting Hill, setting the trend that would be followed many years later by Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. It was an inspired choice. Blenheim Crescent in the 1970s and 1980s was not unlike Edwardes Square in the 1950s and 1960s. Jennifer and Hugo’s three boys – Andrew, Inigo and Piers – were surrounded by theatre, music and the arts; weekends were spent at Farnborough and holidays were dominated by trips to France and Italy. Jennifer, knowingly or unknowingly, had succeeded in reproducing for her family the joyous atmosphere she had enjoyed herself as a child.

While looking after her family was always a large part of her life, Jennifer still found time for other activities. She had a strong sense of duty and threw herself into charitable work with great skill and dedication. She was a devoted churchwoman and served on numerous committees, following in her father’s footsteps and delighting him with her attention to detail and insistence on sticking to the main issues in any discussion. She was also responsible for producing a highly professional directory of the Bulmer family, which remains as a tribute to her organisational skills and determination to see a project through to completion.

Still in her late fifties, Jennifer had so many hopes and plans when she was tragically struck down by illness a year ago. She longed to see her boys married and made no secret of her desire to be a grandmother. She would have been thrilled to have witnessed Inigo’s marriage to Ann and Andrew’s to Catherine earlier this year, although she did at least have the pleasure of seeing Piers and Alex marry three years ago.

We will all have our special memories of Jennifer: the young girl with her enthusiasms; the starry-eyed adolescent with her passions; the loving wife with her adoring husband; the proud mother with her offspring; the committed professional with her sense of responsibility. For me, however, it will always be her sense of fun and her ability to communicate that to all around whatever the circumstances. The world needs more Jennifers, not less; she will be sorely missed.

Victor Bulmer-Thomas

16 June 2001