Obituary

The vicar of Wootton Bassett, Father Bernard Garratt, who officiated at the funeral of Vera Mai Callow, 95, at Kingsdown Crematorium, on Friday, gave thanks for her long, interesting life.

Vera was one of the Fricker family's eight girls and also had one brother.

She was born at Fareham, Hampshire, and was cared for by her grandmother on the farm, where she developed a life-long love of nature and the countryside.

One of Vera's most vivid childhood memories was of being taken to Southampton at the age of seven to watch the departure of the SS Titanic on the voyage which was to end so tragically.

As a young woman, she was employed as companion to a lady and gentleman in London, where she was joined for some years by her sister Dora.

Vera and her late husband Don Callow, whose parents ran the Red Lion at Wootton Bassett, first met at a Christmas ball.

In order to keep her job, Vera did not tell her employers of her marriage until two years after the wedding.

Then she and Don settled at Friern Barnet, in north London.

Although Vera had no children of her own, she was a popular aunt to 12 nieces, who she loved to entertain.

She used her vivid imagination to create stories and verses, one of which was read by Father Bernard as a funeral tribute. Vera had called it Serenity:

"The flowers talk, yet do not need an answer; The grasses sigh, and yet they are not sad.

"The leaves are rustling, one against the other, to tell of all the lovely days we've had. And that is why the earth contains such solace, harmonious to hear and cool to touch;

"For nature has so many lovely voices and yet she never seems to talk too much."

Vera and Don enjoyed a happy retirement at Wroughton.

For the last seven years of her life, after being widowed, she lived contentedly at The White Lodge in Braydon, where she enjoyed seeing family members, especially her niece Joyce who did so much for her.