My sister Josephine Ransby Turner, who has died aged 71 of pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease, was well known in her community in Islington, north London, for her kind heart.
Josephine, the fourth of five children of Alida (nee Wilton) and Peter Ransby, a mining engineer, was born in Luipaardsvlei, near Krugersdorp, South Africa, with physical and intellectual problems from birth. Our parents had emigrated from the UK to South Africa after the second world war and we lived a peripatetic life following our father’s career from South Africa to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Tanzania, the Gambia and Sierra Leone.
In her early years Josephine was very thin, with huge eyes in an emaciated face. I remember her as a two-year-old, crying as our mother laced brown boots tightly above her ankles so her limbs would support her in order for her to walk.
But she had a strong spirit. Despite the fact the she could be clumsy and awkward, and was slow to read and write, she had a sharp mind.
From the early 1960s my parents had a home in the UK and we children went to school in Bedford. Our mother remained largely in Britain and my father was able to return from Sierra Leone fairly frequently. Josephine went to various schools, then lived at home in Bedford until the mid-70s, when my parents bought her a flat in Islington so that she could create a life of her own.
She worked in several occupations, including nursing, retail, market research and security. She had her own way of viewing the world. When chastised by the council for the number of cats she owned, she calmly told them that these were her children “and you don’t tell people they have too many children”. And when told not to feed pigeons, to whom she gave individual names, she said “other people feed children, I feed birds”.
Elvis Presley was one of her great loves. On the day the singer died I found her sitting motionless on her bedroom floor. “I can’t go to work,” she said. “I’ll tell them there’s been a death in the family.”
Josephine was widely known in her neighbourhood and the family knew that if anything befell her people would notice and try to help her. For many years Norman Turner was a good friend. They were briefly married and even after the marriage ended she remained fond of him.
At her funeral Blue Suede Shoes by Presley was played. She is survived by her sisters, Virginia and me, her brother, Stephen, and 13 nieces and nephews. Another brother, Noel, predeceased her.
