For more than half a century, my friend May Hall, who has died aged 98, was the life and soul of the village of Sunningwell, between Oxford and Abingdon. It all began with the village hall, where she and her husband, Ron, took over as caretakers in 1963.
Soon she was on the parish council, chairing it for some years. She also served as a magistrate in Abingdon from 1968 to 1981, and as a governor of Sunningwell primary school, which had been built opposite her house. She threw herself into church activities – contributing her own brand of Christian socialism until differences caused her to join the Baptists, where she had a hand in everything, still the chapel cleaner in her 90s.
In 1975, with the help only of a Gestetner copying machine, May launched and delivered a still flourishing local magazine. When the village post office closed in 1980, she ran a sub post office from her front room. She also campaigned for public transport through the village for those who, like her, owned no car. In the 1990s she led a campaign against plans to develop housing on Sunningwell Glebe, where the villagers claimed commoners’ rights. The bitter and protracted test case ended up in the House of Lords, where judgment was given in favour of the village.
Despite such achievements, May was lively, entertaining and could be subversive when she detected staidness or pomposity. She could dress to kill, and recited Joyce Grenfell monologues from memory. She had no store of small talk, and no love of parties; but she would sell tickets (except for raffles, since she disapproved of gambling) and make the tea. She was given to irreverent asides, delivered in a stage whisper, either deadpan, or accompanied by a disarming schoolgirl titter. Her little house was piled high with thousands of books; she would heave a selection to fundraising events to sell at knock-down prices.
Daughter of Ida (nee Kelsall), a cook and housekeeper for the London Telephone Service, and Edward Stockwell, a chief petty officer in the Royal Navy, in Rochester, she grew up in Gillingham and Sydenham, south London, attending Mary Datchelor girls’ school, Camberwell, until treatment for TB in the 1930s. After her last visit to Guy’s hospital as an outpatient in 1935, she began nursing in Alton, Hampshire, but her earlier TB thwarted this career. She became a general assistant at the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes in Wendover, Buckinghamshire, and met Ronald Hall, whom she married in 1939.
On moving to Wiltshire, she became a supervisor at the gas works in Swindon, and in 1957 she joined the Civil Defence Corps as a welfare instructor. When she and Ron moved to Sunningwell, she became welfare and security officer in the Civil Defence Corps, then senior welfare officer.
Selfless and unassuming in all she did, she ran a branch of the Mothers’ Union for years, though she had no children of her own. Having retired as a school governor in the early 90s, she served for nearly 20 years more as clerk to the board.
Ron died in 1987. May was appointed MBE in 2008 for services to the community. Days before her death she attended the AGM of the village hall for which she had continued to manage the bookings till her mid-90s.
