TRIBUTES have been paid to a Pershore woman whose funeral was held at the town’s historic Abbey.
Jeanne Pettifer was born and raised in the town, and during the service which was held last Thursday (July 30) she was described as a ‘loyal and knowledgeable citizen of Pershore’ by her loving son James.
In a life that spanned 98 years, friends and family heard how Jeanne landed her first job in a dress shop in the 1930s.
The 1930s was also to be the decade in which she’d meet and fall in love with John Pettifer. They later married following John’s return from the Dunkirk evacuation at the beginning of the Second World War.
She joined the RAF during the conflict at their top secret base in Defford, transporting equipment from the Radar Research Centre at Malvern to the US Airforce base in East Anglia.
Mourners also heard about Jeanne’s contribution to life in Pershore as a member of the Women’s Institute and by playing a key role in her husband’s business.
Son James paid a glowing tribute to his mother: “It is a cliché, of course, to say we will not see her like again, but in Jeanne’s case I am sure that will be true.
“Her passing leaves a hole in our lives that will never be filled but also so many memories of a long and well lived and often adventurous that will always be with us,” he said.
