tributes
Remembering Rosaleen Mansfield
Pictured is Rosaleen Mansfield
At Rosaleen’s funeral, several addresses paying tribute to her were given by members of her family and friends. Some short excerpts from much longer addresses are reproduced here and help to explain what made her so remarkable.
Tributes from two of Rosaleen’s children
My mother was brought up in Shirley in Croydon where she was born in 1933. Although she spent all her life in south London her roots were varied. On her mother’s side her forebears were from London’s Forest Hill area but had origins tracing back to Scotland and Northern Irish protestant settler families.
My grandfather was born in Ireland. I never met him but understand that he was restrained from breaking into a chorus of ‘Paddy McGinty’s Goat’ at Mum’s wedding! I am sure some of the warmth and joie de vivre came through to her. She was always proud of her Irish heritage and often talked about it.
Religion was a very important thing in my mother’s life. All of us children were brought up in the church and Mum, like Dad, was always keen to get us into choirs, to serve and fully participate.
Mum was the second of four children. Like most people of my generation, I hear a great deal about the impact of the Second World War on the childhood of my parents. One tragic event which had a particular impact on Mum was the bombing of her cousin’s house which led to him being orphaned.
Mum was a very active member of the Girl Guides in her youth and as well as community spirit, a love of the outdoors carried on through her life. She was educated at Old Palace Girls’ School in Croydon. She played in the school hockey team, and excelled in French, Latin and above all English: she always expressed herself well on paper. She always tore the cryptic crossword out of The Times or The Independent and filled in a clue between jobs.
Mum had a very developed social conscience. One way this manifested itself early on was an interest in politics, and in the post-war period she was a great socialist. She went on to the London School of Economics in the early 1950s to study the then new-fangled subject of sociology.
Mum was very involved in the growing natural childbirth movement (later becoming national Chair and National Secretary of the National Childbirth Trust). Later Mum went to work teaching social science and child development at a local catholic secondary school.
It must have been an exceedingly cruel blow to her when in her forties she became extremely ill from rheumatoid arthritis. From then on, despite developments in treatment, she was never a stranger to pain and her mobility was severely impaired. For someone who throughout her life had hardly been known to sit still this was really tough. Ironically, her illness was as much the beginning of some of Mum’s achievements rather than the end. She became increasingly interested in a variety of disability-related issues through Parentability and then DPPI. She was on the board of the Alliance for Integrated Education and read for Talking Newspapers for people with visual impairments.
I have already touched on Mum’s interest in other people and I think it is a theme to come back to. For someone with so much going on in her life – some of it representing severe adversity, as well as the activities she was involved in, and her support for my father Charles – she was always interested in other members of her family and those around her. I remember the day before she died; she was in hospital and unable to talk, and my son Ewan was telling her about visiting the Science Museum. She was smiling and nodding with real interest and pleasure. I think she gave a great deal of herself to people throughout her life.
Jonathan Mansfield
Mum was an inspiration to us all. Always kind, always loving, always striving to help others, out of her strong belief that the world could be a better place. In our family she always strove to keep us together as much as she could – no mean feat in itself! She was very proud to have so many grandchildren too, and always prioritised and cared for them. I felt pleased that she could offer to them something of the great Mum she was to us all. She would always engage with children when others had forgotten about their needs, or found it hard to cope.
She had many roles in her working life that I could never do justice to here; lots of voluntary work in pioneering projects of social justice – supporting disabled parents, campaigning for issues in childbirth, integration of disabled children into mainstream education and setting up play facilities for them.
She always saw it as important to see the good side in people rather than their faults; to encourage the good she saw in all. And she lived her truth, quietly, carefully, lovingly making a big impact in the world for the good – for the progress of the less fortunate.
Long before the recent publicity about climate change she embraced its importance and was converting what was known about human impact on the world into personal action – like reducing car use – and she helped those around her to see the value and necessity of this. She was a strong advocate of conservation, home produce, organic gardening, and the importance of living more harmoniously with nature, teaching us all how to follow these ways for the health and well-being of humanity and of the planet, and for common sense itself; something she has passed on to many.
Patrick Mansfield
Our tribute from DPPI
Without Rosaleen, DPPI could not have existed. The energy and thought which she applied to the charity were truly extraordinary. Despite her own disability she was indefatigable. She not only chaired the trustees’ meetings and worked on policy, she managed the office, organised the fundraising and maintained links with other charitable organisations.
Of course she did not work alone but the rest of the team was inspired by her spirit. She was at the heart of all our deliberations. She consulted widely. It was leadership of a high order and I have known some tough-minded businessmen who so admired her and were so impressed by her dedication that they felt obliged to support her. I am sure too that some of our generous donors gave us their help repeatedly because Rosaleen’s dedication was so impressive. Her commitment to DPPI was absolute and it is telling that as soon as she recovered some of her strength after her operation she was joining in on trustees’ debates on policy. I would also like to pay tribute to her husband Charles who encouraged and supported her in all she did.
Rosaleen drew to herself a loyalty which I suspect she did not realise existed. That loyalty is demonstrated by the messages we have received and by the number of trustees and staff, past and present who came to her funeral. I can best sum up that loyalty and respect by repeating the message attached to the flowers from DPPI: “In fond memory of Rosaleen, our friend and colleague, who worked tirelessly for the needs of disabled parents. Her spirit and dedication will live on in our work; her kindness and compassion are irreplaceable. She will be sadly missed by all of us at DPPI”.
Sir Ivor Cohen, family friend and DPPI trustee