On Christmas Day we lost my great-aunt, Joan Urquhart, who was born in Dublin in 1916 when it was still under British rule, and had an adventurous life. We had a big family gathering today to say goodbye to her in Bangor, Co Down, where she had lived for the last four decades. Coincidentally, today would have been the 104th birthday of her younger brother, who we lost in 2006.
The local newspaper ran a feature on her 107th birthday last June, reporting her reliance on the Guardian crossword to keep her mind active.
Her father, my great-grandfather, was one of the civil servants who transferred to the new Northern Ireland government when it was created in 1922. He also had a sideline in the performing arts, and Joan followed him into the new-fangled world of radio plays. Here is the Radio Times notice of her first appearance, in a show which was broadcast (probably live) on 26 January 1934, when she would have been 17. (I have checked with the BBC archives and sadly none of her performances survive.)
After school she trained as a domestic science / home economics teacher; married a Scottish soldier, Hamilton Urquhart; served with British forces in Italy in the Second World War; followed Hamilton to Germany and Cyprus (where her four children had to be brought to school under armed guard, during the EOKA uprising); and came back to Northern Ireland, where for much of my childhood her house was in the same block as ours with adjoining back gardens, so we saw a lot of her. Her sister, my grandmother, died twenty years before I was born, so she (and her mother, who lived to the age of 98) filled that gap to an extent.
The first photograph including both her and me was taken at my christening in 1967; she’s on the right in the blue hat. I’m sorry to say that the only people in the picture still living are me, my mother (behind me, no hat) and my second youngest aunt, in the pink dress (also no hat).
At this point she was an activist in the tourism sector; here she is trying to sell “Friendly Northern Ireland” to the Dutch in 1974. (A tough sell at the time, I suspect.)

She eventually moved to Bangor, where she ran a bed and breakfast until she was in her mid 80s. She and I did our German O-Levels on the same day, when I was 16 and she was 67; we both got A’s. (“Luckily,” as someone else said.) Two years later she did a French A-Level and got an A again. Twenty years later she did a German A-level, in her late 80s. Young F got to know her too; here he is on her 90th birthday, when he was not quite seven.

She was sharp, optimistic and humorous, and regaled us with anecdotes at her hundredth birthday party:
I had a strange incident there.
We used to go up to London to see the sights occasionally.
And I was waiting for somebody at the Piccadilly Hotel.
And she was late. I think she was Irish!
I got a bit fed up and started walking up and down the footpath.
And suddenly this young woman tapped me on the shoulder,
and she hissed in my ear, “Sister! Get off my beat!”
That was my first introduction to the seamy side.
Joan had four children, but no grandchildren; sadly her oldest daughter, on the left in the picture taken on her 100th birthday in 2016, predeceased her, but the others were able to spend time with her at the end.

F and I saw her last August, and she was in good form. But it was clear that her spirit was gently taking leave of her body, and I knew we would probably not see her again.

A lot of us gathered today to say goodbye to her, and a lot more were there in spirit. She touched many people’s lives for the better, and I am glad that I knew her. My thoughts are especially with her three children today and going forward.
