Address Given at The Funeral of Diana Griffith, Vice-president of the TRA by Keith Taggart, July 2007

Diana's father, David Owen, the eighth child of a coal miner, was a brilliant scholar and collected several first class degrees at various levels, culminating in a Doctorate in Theology at New College. Her mother, Gwen, was born in China to the wife of a tea merchant and returned to England aged 12 to be educated. She met Diana?s Father, by this time rector of Stoke Abbott in Dorset. In 1920, he had moved on to the Parish of Great Horwood in Buckinghamshire and Diana was born, her mother having been sent to Finchley for the birth. Diana adored her father and writes of his teaching her Latin at an early age but sadly he died in 1928, when she was only eight years old. This was the first blow. As there were no clergy widows? pensions in those days, her mother had to earn a living - not thought respectable at the time - and she became one of the first hospital almoners working at the Princess Louise Children?s Hospital, where Diana used to be with her mother on occasion. Diana was found a place at a school in Gerrards Cross, where she was very unhappy. During this unhappy period she grew very close to her mother, whose early death was to be the second blow.

Later, as an orphan daughter of the clergy, she was awarded a scholarship to Howell School in the Vale of Clwyd, where she was much happier. She entered all her activities with determination and hard work and it may be that the school suggested that she train to be a doctor. Perhaps her days sitting by her almoner mother influenced her too. She maintained a connection with the school throughout the majority of her life.

By the time Diana left school she had grown into an elegant and attractive young woman with a mind and vivacity of her own and enlivened any society she was in with her wit and sparkle. This made her many friends and her greatest friend Joan, Wendy Regaard?s sister, described her as sympathetic, endearing and often exasperating, but she loved her none the less. So she set off to train as a doctor at the Royal Free Hospital. War had broken out and the training school was evacuated to Aberdeen. Training completed, she took a post as a junior doctor at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, where she was very happy. Now came the third blow. She caught TB and was sent to a sanatorium. The treatment in those days was exposure to the fresh air, whatever the elements were doing - sunny, cloudy, raining or snowing. They operated and removed one of her lungs and packed the resulting space.When the treatment was completed she was unable to work in contact with patients, because of her TB record and she joined a mass X-ray organisation based at Colindale. Her task was to read X-ray scans for any signs of TB, continuing to do this during some of her married years, travelling out to a unit near St. Albans.

Her father had been a very academic gentleman and this academic strain found expression in Diana?s life through her interest in botany. For her, a weed was not a weed but a wild flower and she gained considerable expertise in the subject. In consequence she was used by several authorities to assess the botanical life in fields near and far. She also showed great skill in the painting of wild flowers and, strangely enough, a collection of those paintings has found its way to the Barnet Museum, housed in one of the houses in which she had lived with her mother. She also took an interest in matters legal and attended classes in law at a college in the Holloway Road and sat at the feet of a lecturer, one Gwilym Griffith, barrister-at-law. However, it was not long before she was no longer at his feet but arm-in-arm with him. They had fallen in love and in 1966 got married. Their first home was inMill Hill but after a while they moved to Totteridge and lived happily together until Gwilym?s death in 1990, her fourth blow.

They were a good combination. Diana could get quite heated from time to time but Gwilym?s magnificent voice would quieten her immediately. He got looked after and she had the benefit of his advice and support. I don?t think cookery was one of her favourite subjects but she buckled to and looked after her husband and their friends very well.

Diana was also very interested in places. She loved France as a result of a friendship with a French girl in her childhood and made periodic visits to Provence where the girl?s family lived. She had a strong affection for herWelsh school and for Great Horwood, where the happy part of her childhood was spent and only a few weeks ago she visited her father?s grave there. A year or two ago she had a splendid communion cup made and presented it to the church at St Melangell in memory of Gwilym.

A FLORAL TRIBUTE - A number of photographs taken by Dr. Diana Gri!th from her albums of countryside "owers in Totteridge. A survey of the "ora within the neighbourhood of Totteridge was made by her between 1980 and 1985 during which 378 species of plants were found.

She also developed a great interest in the history of Totteridge and wrote a well-researched and well-written book on the subject, which has been popular among the residents. In this book is a photograph of a tithe map of the village dated 1842 which she copied and you may find the original in the Parish Hall on the wall beyond the service hatch.

When Gwilym contracted cancer, Diana nursed him at home and with her medical knowledge was able discuss his case with the Macmillan Nurses who attended him. Her strong faith enabled her to show her usual resolution and determination in face of misfortune and she continued to make her contribution to life in Totteridge, as Vice President of the Residents? Association and a regular member of theWomen?s Institute and supporting many charities. As she grew older she suffered from increasing deafness, losing all hearing in one ear and having a declining response in the other. Diana, a daughter of the Rectory, had great faith and a loyalty to the Church but as she grew older her increasing deafness meant that she heard little of the services she attended, but she still came and was almost always found to be at the Sunday morning service here at St.Andrew?s. Indeed she was in Church only eight days before she died, when she took communion at the altar rail.

But over the last five years her general health had began to decline. The TB that she had as a young woman had taken its toll and she was finding breathing more and more difficult and so this cut down her mobility, which was a great trial to her, especially when she had to give up driving her car. Then her short term memory began to fail her until it became apparent that she was incapable of living on her own. She was very fortunate to find Stencia to care for her. At first Diana resented the presence of Stencia, because she felt her authority was being invaded, but Stencia very patiently won her over and they became great friends. She became increasingly weak and on last Monday week slipped quietly away in her bed early in the morning. We all have our problems and Diana certainly had her share but she had strength of character to accept the blows of fate and the burdens of her physical impairments with courage and determination, a determination that was present till the end of her life, when at last she succumbed and slipped out of this life. May she rest in peace.