Florence Griffin (1906-2003) Obituary

Florerence Griffin 1906-2003
Recollections by Roy Stringer


    Born in 1906 Miss Griffin out-lived her contemporaries and moved from Farnborough 22 years ago to a Church Army Home but it is important that some recognition is given to her long worship and work at St. Giles.  She was nineteen years older than me and regretfully these are but snapshot recollections from a dimming memory.

    Miss Griffin was born ninety-seven years ago in Wellbrook Lodge, the daughter of Joseph Griffin, a well-known landowner and grower.  Picture in your mind Farnborough without the By-pass and housing estates, a farming and market garden community with large orchards. Think of Starts Hill Road towards Locksbottom opposite Bassetts with a hedge and cows grazing in the fields behind the village school.  She was born into a different age shattered by two world wars and urbanization.  Echoes of that past age always hung about her.  Her later home was State Farm where she lived with her sister Minnie; they were two of eight children, seven girls and a boy.

    Always a countrywoman she wore lisle stockings and sensible flat lace up shoes rather mannish in style. She wondered how working girls, ‘typists’ to her, could keep warm in thin stockings and high heels.  One wintry day of snow she came to Church in Wellington Boots and apologised as she changed in the porch, embarrassed that she had to do such a thing.  Her nephew the Reverend Derek Chapman recalled, at her funeral, that when he passed his School Certificate exam she gave him a shotgun as a present.  Not so surprising a trait of character when you remember her background.

    Miss Griffin always wore a hat to church; in those days we put a board outside the church door on Sundays stating ‘Lady Hikers without hats Welcome’.  She and George Johnson, Gordon’s Father, were of an age, for more than sixty years they worshipped and worked in St. Giles attending many Harvest Suppers, Garden Parties, PCC meetings and more, yet she was always ‘Miss Griffin’ and he ‘Mr Johnson’; proper address for a single lady and a married gentleman.  How would she be in our day, would she kiss along with the rest of us? Somehow I doubt it.  She was pious in her devotions.  One day Mrs Brodie was standing in her stockinged feet on the Altar arranging flowers and Miss Griffin said to me “I do dislike to see people standing on the Altar”.

    During WW2 she joined the Red Cross and nursed in a Naval station at Skegness.  Mary Pointon once told me she had nursed with Miss Griffin.  I gained the impression that was on the South Coast but it was only a conversation in passing and I wish now I had questioned Mary more closely.  Her nephew told us she must have been a good nurse because she was awarded the Red Cross Medal.

    As a child she always thought of the white Altar Frontal as the Holy, Holy, Holy.  As a warden during David Webb’s ministry she drew my attention to the poor state of the old Victorian frontal, worn and mildewed.  The tower, where the Frontals were stored, was damp in the winter in those days before the boiler was put into the choir vestry.  So I suggested she took it into safekeeping and drove her home to State Farm with the frontal.  Later during John Druce’s time I heard of Glenda’s interest and skills; John collected it and Glenda and her friends magnificently restored it.  Now, whenever I see it in use, I shall think of it as a memorial to Miss Griffin’s care.

    During the winter of 1962/3 I got to know Miss Griffin quite well; was she really only 56 then?  We sat on a Study Group which met weekly, I cannot now remember who else was with us or what the burning issue of the day was but it must have been a Diocesan exercise because we visited Lamorbey Church and probably another and presumably entertained at St. Giles.  Our reports must be on record somewhere.  During this time she spoke to me of the difficulty she had in getting to grips with the Epistles, Galatians I remember in particular.  Probably a new translation would have helped her but I am sure she would have stuck resolutely to the King James Version.

    After Miss Griffin moved in 1981 to Tunbridge Wells and later to another home in Speldhurst she took a great interest in the Parish Magazine mailed to her.  Apart from family the congregation at her funeral was scant.  Had she died in her prime St. Giles would have been standing room only.  It was good to see Aidan and Mrs Chapman there; Marnie recalled how she collected goat’s milk from the Griffins for her cats - another small recollection of post war austerity and country living.

    A final thought of her generosity, her nephew told us that Miss Griffin paid for him and his brother to be educated privately at Bassett’s School, a great boon considering the limitations of the Village school at that time.

    So now Florence Griffin has returned to Farnborough and lies at peace in the Churchyard awaiting the Day of Judgement, surely with no fear of appearing before her Lord and Saviour.


Thanks to Roy Stringer for the obituary.