Three good friends of Hypatia.

Apart from other tragedies of 2015 attracting global sorrow and tragedy, we are sad to report the deaths of three long-time friends of the Hypatia Trust – each a stalwart support amongst the many that both understand and work to carry out our educational and humanitarian objectives.

In her sensitive and loving obituary for Marion Whybrow (1931-2015), the novelist and poet Helen Dunmore presents a complete record of Marion’s work which will not be repeated here. Anyone reading the resume cannot fail to understand why we have valued her gifts – both her talents and her contributions to the Trust’s archives.  These take the form of many cuttings, manuscripts, photographs and of course, her published books, fiction and non-fiction. Apart from this, she was a loyal friend and participant in our book launches, art exhibitions and celebratory events over the many years at the Jamieson Library and Trevelyan House.  We will miss her gentle kindness greatly.

In mid-November came the death of author Eva Tucker (1929-2015), described in her Times obituary as a novelist and hostess of literary salons, is more fully biographically reviewed also in the Guardian. What a beautiful and charming woman! 

When the Trust moved its Elizabeth Treffry Collection on Women in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, from its original home at the Jamieson Library, Newmill, to Trevelyan House in Chapel Street, Penzance in 2002, we decided to celebrate with a literary salon.  Melissa Hardie was corresponding with Eva about the Trust’s collection of the work of Dorothy Richardson, who lived in Cornwall for many years while writing her 13-volume stream-of-consciousness novel, Pilgrimage. Eva offered to ‘launch’ our literary weekend with a talk as part of the festivities.  Her edited and expanded talk became the first publication from the new premises: · Tucker, Eva. Pilgrimage: The Enchanted Guest of Spring and Summer: Dorothy Richardson 1873-1954: a Reassessment of Her Life and Work. Penzance: Hypatia Press, 2003.

Attending Eva’s opener in 2002, were both Marion Whybrow, and our third close friend and supporter, Hilary Richings neé Scrope Shrapnell (1936-2015). Local to Newmill and the Jamieson Library, Hilary, acting as journalist to The Cornishman for our community, kept up with every event and activity that was mustered.  She was always our ACE (Aid Conservation through Education, for the building of Uganda’s schools charity) bookseller, eagerly counting up the proceeds from our annual Newmill Open Gardens Day. Very active with the Women’s Institute, she always saw that the local prize-winning local history projects as written up in bound volumes, made an extra copy for the Hypatia Trust. She pored for hours and days over the indexing of the history of the Newlyn Art Gallery when that was our 1995 Centennial book.  Wherever there was literary work to do, proof reading, and writing, she and husband Jack were there. She sat at the hub of the village of Newmill, and we all have loving memories of her.