Marjorie Smith, known to all as Babs, was born in 1916 at The Dell, Dunny Lane, Chipperfield, one of six children, sister to Eileen, Doris and Nellie, also Robert and Steven. All attended the local village school. On leaving Babs worked for many years at the Ovaltine factory in Kings Langley making ammunition for the war effort and riding a bicycle to and from every day for a wage of what was then five shillings a week.
Two of her sisters, Doris and Nellie, married Americans and made their homes in America. Eileen married Fred Durrant and made her home in Bovingdon. Robert married and lived in Rickmansworth whilst Steven never married and lived with his mother in Dunny Lane until 1967 when he moved to Bovingdon.
After her mother’s death Babs married and moved to Tower Hill. Raising three children, John, Hazel and Julie she worked hard all her life. From fruit picking to potato picking to stone picking for Jim Pritchard the local farmer, just to make ends meet. She also worked as a cleaner for many Chipperfield families, still riding her bicycle to and from her work.
What she loved most of all was her garden. Digging from top to bottom then setting every inch with vegetables of every kind. Then she got her greenhouse which gave even more pleasure growing tomatoes and cucumbers, even growing her own flower seeds for bedding out the garden at the front of the house. Always growing far too much of everything, ending up giving away the surplus to all and sundry which pleased her. As she said “Waste not, want not”, that’s the way she was brought up.
If she never answered the ‘phone you knew where she would be, down the garden either weeding, watering or something else, but always in the garden.
Troubled with arthritis in later years in 2000 she had both hips replaced giving her a new lease of life for some time, enjoying more gardening and going to her local club for a game of bingo.
Babs had five grandchildren and was able to meet her first great grandchild, being only two weeks old when Babs sadly passed away, wiping out another Chipperfield family as the last of the Carpenters.
The family would like to thank mostly the excellent care given to our Mum by the Ian Rennie Hospice at Home and Marie Curie nurses. Also all who attended her funeral and donated to the above funds.
She will never be forgotten by her family.