Obituary - Lu Wanklyn 1946 - 2019

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Lu Wanklyn (Handcock) 1946 - 2019. Photo taken at Nick Duke's wedding in 1975
Lu and I were exact contemporaries, and I saw a lot of her in our teenage years at the many dances and parties that took place. We must have partnered each other in Scottish reels almost more times that anyone and she was unfailingly fun and a joy to be with. In our day - at least in our part of Hampshire - there was no 'pairing off' and we all went around as friends (or as Annie Ommanney put it, 'rushed around in a heap', often in the back of one of our farm vans filled with bales of straw. Indeed one of my abiding memories was being stuck in a snowdrift in one such van with Lu, coming back from a dance, and having to wait until daylight to be rescued! No mobile phones and no Scott-like heroics from me either.

Later, Lu disappeared to Sardinia to cook for Princess Alexandra and I saw her less regularly, but in 1967 I do well remember her being driven out to Florence in Tim Boycott's MGB in answer to my summons following an accident to my Mini Cooper while on a 'Grand Tour'. While my car was being repaired I was fortunate enough to be lent a flat by my mother's goddaughter, Madeleine Rampling, and Lu and Tim, Johnnie Cooke and a friend of his, drove out to keep me company. Furthermore, that would be the first time that any of us had met the future Mrs Charlie Skipwith, as Charlie also drove out with Lucie from Bordeaux - and camped in a forest near Pisa, both being appalled when the locals, ignoring the fact that it was Sunday, walked through the trees shooting any small birds they could find and pinning Charlie and Lucie down in their tent. They soon joined us in the flat and we all had several happy days going around Florence together.

Madeleine had taken the flat while she helped clean up the museums after the great flood of 1966, but wasn't there at the same time as us, having come home for a rest. However, she later became a good friend of Lu's and Freddy's as her life also took her to the Bahamas, and later still she settled not far from them in France, where she remains - and incidentally, sadly isn't able to attend Lu's Thanksgiving Service on 2nd October as she's on oxygen.

In those later years, I didn't see as much of Lu and Freddy, but their presence was marked by us storing one of Freddy's cars - a beautiful green Mercedes 300 coupe - in one of the barns. I later told him how sad I was not to have driven it - and Freddy characteristically said that of course, I should have!

More recently, of course, there were the long years of Freddy's illness, and Lu's devoted care. I didn't travel much by then and sadly never visited them in France, but they did sometimes make it back to Hampshire, where Tim kindly arranged for lunches to be held at the George in East Meon where we could meet. And of course we met at Freddy's Memorial Service at Chelsea Old Church in 2017.
Lu and I kept in touch after that but she was soon dealing with her own illness, and by the end when she was in hospital, although I talked to her on the phone, she wasn't receiving anyone but her closest family and friends.

That she should be taken from us at such an early age is a great sadness, and after the last years of her life were devoted to looking after Freddy, the more so. Fortunately, they had marvellous years together and generated so many beautiful memories for so many people that one hopes that even when Lu fell ill, she took comfort from a life beautifully lived in making others happy.

For more photos, click here 

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