My mother, Shirley Williams, who has died aged 86, worked as a nurse to improve the lives of patients and then, in retirement, as a volunteer for a range of charities, including Victim Support.
Born in Southend-on-Sea, Shirley was the daughter of Hugh Daniels, a tax inspector, and Jessie (nee Austen), a nursing aide during the first world war and later an administrator. In 1939, when the second world war broke out, Shirley was evacuated to Oxford. Unlike some evacuees, she loved her temporary home in Charlbury Road, Oxford, with the Misses Huxley, or “Aunts”, whom we as a family continued to visit during the 1960s.
After leaving St Faith’s school in Oxford, aged 17, Shirley trained as a nurse, initially at the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital, Stanmore, Harrow, in the 1950s and then at the Royal Masonic hospital in west London. She met Brian Williams while training at the Royal Masonic and used to make us laugh with her tales of climbing up drainpipes to get into the nurses’ home after curfew. They married in 1957 and, as nurses then had to be single to practise, Shirley stopped work. The couple lived initially in Watford, Hertfordshire, and then Amersham, in Buckinghamshire. Shirley went on to have a son, Kevin, who died at birth, and four daughters.
In 1972 Shirley was able to return to nursing, initially as a health visitor when we were still young, supported by a succession of au pairs. She then worked as an endoscopy nurse at Wexham Park hospital, Berkshire, and finally, from 1990, as a manager of British Nursing Association offices in Watford and Bosham, West Sussex, until retiring in 1998.
However it was in her retirement, in Shenley, near Watford, where she showed her commitment to service in the community, volunteering for Victim Support and for 13 years serving on the Patient Group at the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital. For 15 years she worked at the Hertfordshire local archives once a week. When she could no longer drive to Hertford, aged 85, she volunteered for the National Archives online.
A keen sportswoman, Shirley continued into her 80s to swim and play tennis.
Brian died in 2005. Shirley is survived by her daughters, Karen, Suzanne, Sian and me, and nine grandchildren.
