The great numbers of people who attended Phillis’s funeral at St Leonard’s Church on 6 October 2006 were testimony to the immense amount of support she gave to village and to church organizations. The photo above was taken around 2000.
Phillis should have been ringing in her 71st birthday celebrations - having begun to ring the church bells at the age of 12; she rang for church services, weddings and many special occasions. Phillis had lived in Eynsham since the 1940s when the Hale family moved from Cassington to the small-holding called All Views on the corner of Old Witney Road and the A40. From Bartholomew School where Phillis passed the 11-plus exam, she went on to Henry Box School, Witney, where she matriculated in 1951. There followed employment at the Oxford branch of Barclays Bank until 1960, when Phillis married Andy Pimm. Phillis was busy for the next 16 years or so, looking after a growing family, until finally in 1978 when they were old enough or had “flown the nest”, Phillis went back to the bank part-time and remained there until her “forced” retirement (she didn’t want to stop) at the age of 60, just 11 years ago.
Despite her very busy home life with three children, Kevin, Alison and Robert, Phillis began to help with teas for the elderly, the Witney Road Playing Field Committee, the Schools’ Holiday Swimming Clubs and the Bartholomew School Tennis Club. She was Treasurer of the History Group, Chairman of the Garden Club (arranging flowers at the annual Flower Festival and bullying local gardeners to open up their gardens for the Eynsham Open Gardens every other year); and also a keen walker and an active member of the Woodstock Ramblers. At St Leonard’s she also assisted the church treasurer in the envelope stewardship scheme, collecting, recording and banking the money from each Sunday; and was a regular reader at the evening services. Phillis was an original member of the then Young Wives’ Fellowship when it was founded by the late Mrs Westwood. And in her spare time, she would deliver the monthly ecumenical church magazine Roundabout to the doorsteps of those who couldn’t get to church.
Phillis lived life to the full; during visits to Alison (married and living in Texas) she discovered the joys of scuba diving and once competently took over the piloting of her son-in-law’s plane!
Joan Weedon (with additional material from tribute by John Underwood on 6 October 2006). Article first published in the Eynsham Roundabout.