Memorial to Pauline Potter.

EULOGY - Which was read out at her Funeral: We are here this afternoon to celebrate the life of Pauline Elizabeth Potter - a life lived to the full; a life (like the person who lived it) that was seldom lacking in drama. Pauline was born on the Tenth of February 1925 in Canterbury, Kent but by the age of four weeks she was taken to Hove in Sussex where she was given into the care of a member of the family, Ruby Kennedy. There she was brought up by Miss Kennedy and her family whose origins are in Ayrshire in Scotland. In 1935 Pauline was enrolled as a brownie and in 1937 she was confirmed on Palm Sunday, a day that from then on was very significant to her. After the outbreak of the Second World War she put up her age in order to join the army and was trained as a teleprinter operator. While in the army she sang with a big band. For most of her early life she had a very beautiful singing voice. Pauline was also a very good dancer and gained a gold medal in ballroom dancing. It was on the ballroom team that she met her first husband, whom she married in 1948 and with whom she had her daughter Susan. All this time Ruby Kennedy lived with her and played an important role in Susan's early life until in 1955 everything changed when Ruby died. Her marriage broke up and there followed several dark years. Through her work at the Brighton Evening Argus she had met George Potter. They married in 1960 and two years later had a son Simon. It was with George that Pauline began a new chapter of her life, enjoying forty eight happy years together. In Brighton Pauline joined the New Venture Theatre Club and trained as an actress under its founder Graham Phillips. She became an accomplished actress and later a producer and director. Through friends at the New Venture she first had an opportunity to work in the emerging field of phototypesetting. She enjoyed the challenge of mastering the latest compugraphic machines. This became her profession for many years both in Sussex and after she and George moved to Suffolk over twenty five years ago. As a union member she became mother of the chapel. After retirement from typesetting she worked on as a medical secretary in Bury St Edmunds where her last employer was the hospital in which she died. Pauline and George both loved to travel. She overcame a fear of flying and always loved to see new places. In 1998 began a special adventure when in her seventies she enrolled as a student at a Bible College in Oklahoma. She and George spent three memorable years living in the United States. Her teachers ten years later remember her as a 'wonderful and energetic lady... an inspiration... fiery.' On her return to England in 2001 she began to face a number of serious problems with her health. Many gathered here today are witnesses of the tenacious way in which she confronted every obstacle. In recent years she fulfilled a long held desire to learn how to paint and was a keen member of her art class, winning an award last year as an Adult Learner. She was, in her art as in her life, adventurous and always willing to try something new. A most extraordinary event in her latter years came as the fruit of her daughter Susan's twenty five years of research. Susan found Pauline's siblings from whom Pauline had been separated and she got to know a sister and two brothers. This made such a difference to her and she was very proud of her siblings and their children. Her family knew her as a strong willed woman who spoke her mind. She was feisty and feared no one. Small in stature but large in personality she loved life regardless of the hindrances to its enjoyment that faced her. Pauline had a very strong faith and it helped her keep a positive outlook in her own physical difficulties as well as those that George encountered at the end of his life. She did not fear her death as she believed that in it she would be united with her Lord and reunited with her George. It's not by our design that we are here today celebrating her life on the same day that we celebrated that of George one year ago. Pauline died on the Second of September 2009, resting quietly before she passed into this deep sleep. She leaves a daughter, a son, and their spouses, three grandchildren and their partners, and six great grandchildren. She was a sister, a wife, a mother, grandmother and great grandmother as well as a friend. We will miss her greatly.