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In memory of Angela
Posted by Webmaster (Webmaster) on 16 Nov 2009
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Remembering Angela …

From Pat Arn, BATS representative on the FEATS steering committee

“At peace …

It is terribly difficult to say goodbye to such a dear friend; there is so much I still want to share with her, so many things I still need to tell her. But I am also grateful that the pain and suffering is over, for the past six months were far from easy. Angela battled courageously and kept a brave face throughout. Typically, the week before she passed away she still sold me tombola tickets for the Mission to Seafarers Christmas bazaar.

Many of you will have little knowledge of her life before she came to Antwerp and therefore I thought it fitting that the eulogy read out by her son Simon be also included in this newsletter. Schniff and Giles survived because of Angela’s caring efforts.

When Angela left The Netherlands in 1986 she first settled in Mol. After about twelve months she moved nearer to Antwerp and became involved with Saint Boniface Church, BATS and ABCA (Antwerp British Community Association); and later she also worked passionately for the Missions to Seafarers and ADFAS (Antwerp Decorative and Fine Arts Society). She was always on the go: busy organising events, attending meetings, writing newsletters – often it was difficult to keep up with her; she had her finger is so many pies. And this was just in her free time.

After chairing the organising committee for FEATS 1998 (Antwerp), she suggested that the FEATS steering committee ought to have a permanent secretary: a person who kept the archives, recorded the minutes, but also ensured that the awards were replaced in time and that the steering committee steered. We did not have to think long who should get the job!

Through her efforts the FEATS rules were reviewed and rewritten more comprehensible; “t”s were crossed and “i”s dotted. From the moment she became FEATS permanent secretary in 1999 she worked closely with each subsequent FEATS organising committee. No question remained unanswered, no problem unsolved: she was always helping, assisting and supporting. Praise was received in her typically modest manner.

Because of her commitment she could be – dare I say it – bossy at times. She certainly kept me on the straight and narrow. But mainly I remember the good times we had. Mostly we travelled together to meetings or FEATS, sometimes we shared a room, many a time we would talk into the small hours or have champagne breakfasts (ah, Hamburg!).

And now FEATS will never be the same for me: I will miss her companionship, her wit, her candidness, her kindness, her friendship. Angela, you were taken from us far too early. Fiona and Simon and your two grandchildren miss you so much. I too miss you dearly and so do all your friends. May you rest in peace.

Time for me to go now
I won’t say goodbye
Look for me in the rainbows
Way up in the sky
In the morning sunrise
When all the world is new
Just look for me and love me
As you know I love you.”

Eulogy read by Simon Tong, her son, at Angela’s funeral 

My mother Angela was born in 1943. She was the third of the four Dodds sisters, a pretty child and a tomboy, early showing her strength of character by being very naughty. She paddled in tar one hot summer day; she would be seen marching down the village after the British Legion band or following funeral processions into the church. She was fascinated by the church. Aged about 3 or 4, when her father said she couldn’t go with him to a Sunday service (probably because he was ringing the bell, playing the organ, reading the lesson and taking the collection), she disobeyed and went in, with no clothes on. The vicar’s wife wrapped her up and sat her in a pew. On another occasion when my grandmother was told that yet another of her children was climbing on the roof of their three-storey house, the answer was “Don’t worry, it’s only Angela”. Mum survived all this.

She could read by the time she was 4 and thereafter hardly ever had her head out of a book. She loved learning and always got good results. She wanted to go to Cambridge University and passed the exams but the means testing at that time prevented her getting a grant and the means were not available from home. So she went to secretarial college.

She worked in London first for the magazine Country Life and then for solicitors, until a Kenyan cousin came to England and said that his country could do with pretty, clever, young secretaries. So off she went. There she met my father, Julian, who was working for the Wildlife Service. They got married in Derbyshire when she was 23. Their honeymoon was a voyage across the Atlantic with a shipload of animals for a zoo in Canada. The newspapers referred to “the honeymooners’ Noah’s Ark”. The zoo was in Edmonton, Alberta; but neither of them could bear the climate so they went back to Kenya where Dad managed the Animal Orphanage of the Nairobi National Park.

I was born there – my grandmother was a bit surprised at Mum reading while she breastfed me. She had another baby to look after then, a cheetah abandoned by its mother. Schniff was later adopted by a smart country club after Dad moved away.
 
My father then became Manager of the Beekse Bergen Safari Park in the Netherlands. Mum in effect shared the park management and her management skills were honed. My sister Fiona appeared there. Mum looked after many baby animals in the house, including another cheetah, Giles, who was part of the household for a couple of years, a constant delight to the family. He later became the Dutch Air Force mascot.

After our parents’ marriage broke up, Mum moved to Belgium. Certainly David was the chief reason for her happiness here. Those of you who live in Antwerp and have known Mum over the years will know that her organisational gifts were put to good use during her unstinting work, with her firm opinions, for several associations and societies: the Antwerp British Community Association and the Mission to Seafarers; the local and European Decorative Arts Societies of which she was chairman and vice-chairman; the British American Theatrical Society (chairman), and the local and international Festivals of European Anglophone Theatre Societies (chairman and Permanent secretary).

Last changed: 17 Dec 2009 at 17:43

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