The service of Thanksgiving for the life of Mary Isaacs took place on Thursday 6th June 2024 at St George’s Church. Here is the Eulogy that was read by her son Tim at the service.
Margaret Mary Isaacs known to all as Mary.
She was a lovely lady, kind, loving and gentle, with a sense of humour, is the way Mary is described by family and friends.
Born in 1941 in an air raid shelter during the war and soldiers were billeted in the home she lived in.
Her early years were not easy. Mary had an older sister Anne and then Jennifer and John came along.
Not only did her Mum have four children to look after but her older sister Anne was always very frail and poorly and died at a very early age.
Her dad had fought in the war and after the war had several jobs at the same time to support the family. Her love of vegetables was obtained at a very early age as they were grown by her dad in the garden.
When she went to school, she had to walk from Waterlooville to Cowplain, not only morning and evening but she went home at lunchtime as well sometimes just for a jam sandwich. Sometimes she was able to borrow her friend’s bike to go home on, that was a real luxury for her. Mary was very happy when free school meals were brought in and she qualified for them, although there was quite a stigma attached to them in the early days.
Mary loved to go to her friend Betty’s home in the holidays and have the freedom to play without having to be mindful of a sick person in the home. Mary was so eager to get to Betty’s that Betty was quite often still asleep when she arrived and Mary would wake her up, then they would go off to the woods with their jam sandwich picnic.
Mary also spent a lot of time in her Gran’s home and was therefore very close to her grandma. Gran took her to whist drives with her and encouraged her to go round and look at the other players’ hand – her career could have taken a quite different path.
As it was, she did very well at school and obtained a job in the Co-operative Insurance office, later obtaining a position in Lloyds Bank, she always loved her time working there and made many friends who she kept in touch with and some are here today.
Then it happened on a coach trip she met the love of her life, she touched his leg and as they say the rest is history.
When they first met, David only had a push bike, so he had to cycle from Portsmouth to Waterlooville to see her. Eventually he got a Lambretta and both he and Mary passed their test on it. The Lambretta was later updated to a motorbike, but Mary was only pillion on that but quickly learned to drive as soon as they got their A40 car.
Mary spent a lot of time at David’s Mum and Dads and was really loved by them both as she loved them too.
Mary and David married in 1962 moving into a flat in Shadwell Road, Portsmouth and then managed to get a mortgage to buy their home in Westfield Road. It was there that the best thing ever happened for them, Timothy John Isaacs was born! Tim was loved and cared for and dare I say spoilt by his parents. Mary even went to football matches (not something that you can imagine Mary doing) as she really didn’t like football and could not see the sense of eleven men kicking a ball of wind around. But she went to take Tim when he was quite small and if he got fed up halfway through, she would play cars with him on the terraces. Mary and David both loved animals and Pompey the dog, then Milton and Janey the cats were always very much part of their family. Even when Mary and David could no longer have animals to look after themselves many dogs of friends and family were welcomed into their home and even stayed when their friends were on holiday.
Mary, David and Tim had numerous camping holidays in many different places all over Britain. They gradually upgraded to more exotic holidays on coach, plane and boat and have travelled to all parts of the world.
They moved to their current home in 1975 and have lived happily there ever since.
Mary was always keen to tell people how lucky they were to have such good neighbours – although the neighbours were lucky to have them too, as David is an electrician and a very good odd job man, so, if Mary heard that someone needed a job doing her immediate words were ‘oh David will do that for you’
Tim’s partner Sue was welcomed into the family and Mary said she then had the daughter she always wanted.
In fact, it was very difficult in recent months when David was a full time carer for Mary to convince her that David didn’t actually have any spare time to be doing odd jobs for friends and family!
David always seemed to be the first one in the kitchen and started cooking the meals – Mary was quite happy to hand the cooking over to David and he became the chef in the family, and she did the cleaning and was responsible for all admin and financial duties.
Mary was not squeamish at all and probably should have been a nurse, she was quite happy to watch all the hospital programmes and operations on the television and always on hand for taking people to the hospital and administering first aid, when required. Even happy to give injections to family members when required.
Mary loved being a member and attending this church and was happy to drive backwards and forwards to attend. In recent years when she could no longer drive, she asked David if he would take her rather than change to a nearer church which he was happy to do and attend the services with her.
