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IN LOVING MEMORY
OF
MARIE DOREEN BULLOCK

23rd March, 1928 – 9th January, 2020

ST. JOHN’S CHURCH, PEMBROKE
Saturday, 25th January, 2020, 3:30pm

ORDER OF SERVICE
Officiating: The Rt. Rev. Nicholas Dill Bishop of Bermuda
Organist: Cornell Fox

PRELUDE

WELCOME AND OPENING PRAYER

OPENING HYMN
Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there is hatred let me bring your love
Where there is injury, your pardon Lord
And where there's doubt, true faith in you

Oh, master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul

Make me a channel of your peace
Where there's despair in life let me bring hope
Where there is darkness, only light
And where there's sadness ever joy

Oh, master grant that I may never seek
So much to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love with all my soul

Make me a channel of your peace
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
In giving to all men let we receive
And in dying that we're born to eternal life

SCRIPTURE READING
John, Chapter 11: Verses 17-27
read by Justin Collis

The First Reading is from John, Chapter 11: Verses 17-27
Jesus Comforts the Sisters of Lazarus

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

READING
“Death is Nothing At All” by Henry Scott-Holland
read by Richard Collis

The Second Reading is “Death is Nothing At All” by Henry Scott-Holland

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.

Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.

All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

REMEMBRANCES OF DOREEN
Alexander Collis

My family and I thank you for being here today to pay tribute to one we had the privilege of calling mom, grandma and in the case of her great grandchildren Ario and Ella, GGB, that is Great Grandma Bullock

Over the last few weeks we have been greatly comforted by your emails and phone calls and we thank you for your love and support.

It was on the 9 January our grandmother went to join our grandfather in heaven.

Many of you know our grandmother as a small and quiet, unassuming woman. You will remember the white hair, the cashmere cardigan, her shuffle and in recent years how a flight of stairs became a mountain which was tackled three steps at a time. Indeed, there were many times in my brother's and my early years where we were told off by our father for hugging our grandmother too hard - he would joke that our hugs were like bear hugs and that we nearly shook her to death -the truth is we couldn't hug her hard enough ... But Grandma was so much more that the physical body she inhabited. A determined mother. A caring grandmother. A vociferous advocate for her family and her friends. A loyal companion and wife to her late husband Arthur. Grandma was a giant.

Throughout her life, Grandma faced many health issues each compounding on the last but she faced them with strength, with determination and with dignity. Grandma never complained, they were just a fact of life, not something to hold her back, she wouldn't let them. Grandma was quick to put others' needs ahead of her own and during her last hours whilst my mother comforted her, our Grandma heard her great grandchildren, Ario and Ella fussing in the background and insisted that Judy's focus be on them not her. She would be smiling now knowing that they are here today to celebrate her life.

The recent challenges faced by Grandma were painful and sometimes seemingly insurmountable, but she faced them head on, always, with Arthur by her side with her daughter Judy and more recently Marivic and Imelda .

Parents
Born on the 23 March 1929 in Newcastle Upon Tyne, Grandma was the eldest child of Joseph and Lillian Allman and the big sister to Joe. During the war, Grandma's father was ground support for the RAF and posted overseas. As a result, Grandma developed a keen interest in geography and could name the countries across a map and their capitals. In 1942, her father climbed to the top of Table Mountain in South Africa and plucked a eucalyptus leaf from the earthy red soil and wrote on it "Franschhoek, Table Mountain, 1942". She kept that leaf in a box which said "Doreen Allman - keep out'' inscribed in her 12-year-old handwriting. It was her treasure; she kept that box her entire life.

To assist the war effort whilst her husband was away, her mother, Lillian {like many women in the city atthe time) became a riveter in the shipyards. The shipyards and the city of Newcastle as an industrial city were targeted and heavily bombed during the war and early on Grandma and her brother Joe were evacuated to Middleton Teesdale. The evacuation had a huge impact on her life.

Evacuation.
Every day, for weeks, she and her brother went to school with a pillowcase packed with their belongings, including gas masks. Nobody knew when the evacuation would take place and when the order was finally given, Grandma didn't get the chance to say goodbye to her mother. That affected her.

When the train carrying the evacuees pulled into Middleton Teesdale, they were chosen by one of the organisers of the evacuation and told by her not to leave with anyone else. Grandma never knew why Mrs Bell chose them, although she always suspected it was because of their clean clothes, clean pressed pillowcases and the fact that she and joe held hands so that they would not be separated. They were with the Bells for duration of the war seeing their own mother only once a year and their dad only after he returned to the UK. This separation from her parents was tough but she was resilient even at that age.

The Bell's had recently lost their son, also named Joseph, so Grandma's brother became the Bell family favourite. Although keenly aware of the favouritism, Grandma had fond memories of Middleton. She did well in school and made good friends one of whom became Judy's godmother. She joined the young farmers association {believing that a career in farming might be in her future) and fell in love with the game of tennis. Her career path did not involve farming {but as a tribute to her early career aspirations Old Macdonald in the nursery rhyme of the same name is always referred to as "she".

Golf with Poppa replaced the game of tennis but not her love of that game. She remained an armchair tennis player all her life and we all knew to be quiet if tennis was on, especially when Federer was playing.

Marriage.
Soon after the war my Grandma and her brother returned to Newcastle. She met my Grandfather at 16 whilst she was still in secretarial college. He was 17. They were introduced by her uncle Harry under whom my Grandfather was apprenticing as a carpenter. They were married when she was 21 and he 22 in the mining village of Burradon Northumberland where Poppa grew up. Notwithstanding the end of the war, there was still rationing in Britain at that time and so the village pooled together their ration cards for the cake. Grandma's uncle was clearly a "grand" (Geordie word for wonderful) matchmaker and the village of Burradon clearly knew this was to be a lasting union, worthy of the sacrifice of their rationing cards so that the young couple could have the ingredients for the cake. They were right, my grandparents enjoyed 67 years together.

Moving to Bermuda.
In the late SO's Poppa joined the merchant navy as a carpenter on the Queen of Bermuda which sailed weekly from New York to Bermuda and back again. With the exception of a three-year hiatus in the UK when my mother was born, Bermuda became their home. The friends made on the day of Grandma's arrival in Bermuda, John and Margaret Watts, became their family.

Auntie Margaret visited or called Grandma nearly every day and made sure Grandma had a traditional fruitcake every year at Christmas. During Grandma's recent time at the hospital, Margaret brought in fine bone China and cream tea which was Grandma's favourite. They shared many good laughs and always when they were together you saw the years roll back and Grandma as a young woman sharing laughter memories and secrets with her best friend.

Telephone Company
Arriving in Bermuda, Grandma applied for and got a job as secretary to the General Manager of the Telephone Company and worked her way up for about 30 years finally retiring in a senior role in advertising. She was hugely proud of her career and the Telephone Company. I have memories of being taken to the telephone company on to attend staff and family events like Halloween parties as she showed off, me, her grandson and introduced her friends and colleagues to me.

Cynthia and Maxine
Grandma made some incredibly close friends at the Telephone Company, like Cynthia and Maxine who worked with her for many years and remained close with Grandma long after she retired. They would chat regularly and, if by chance there was a brief period when she didn't hear from them, she worried until they spoke again. She enjoyed spending time with them, always returning from their lunches with a smile on her face and looking forward to the next meeting.

Terrible 10.
Outside of the Telephone Company, Grandma's life was enhanced by her close relationships with her friends and her family. Grandma and Poppa were in a ten-person dinner group, appropriately known as the "Terrible Ten" who met monthly for dinner at each other's house on a rotating basis. The late-night dinners were sometimes boisterous and always with good fellowship. Their 8 friends provided no end of joy and amusement for my grandparents. So much fun did that group have that they met far more often than monthly. They invented special occasions just to be together- like launching a Bermuda dinghy in a swimming pool, the captain decked out in captains' hat and blazer. This group of friends travelled together, laughed together and were there for each other through the good times and bad.

Dancing
One of Grandma's great pleasures in life was ball room dancing with Poppa. They never missed an opportunity to glide across a dancefloor. Their movements were effortless. People admired how they moved across a dancefloor always in time and always together. The way they danced is perhaps a metaphor of how they lived their lives together- with a quick step here (on Poppa's part) and a little twist there (on Grandma's part) it all worked. ... ' .. They continued to dance until shortly before Poppa died and on a recent visit to a cardiologist a young woman stopped Grandma and Judy to say that she and her husband had taken up ballroom dancing because of them. They too may enjoy 67 years of marriage.

Talking to people.
Another great pleasure of Grandma's was the conversation that chance encounters brought about. She had strong views and wasn't shy of expressing them. She enjoyed the visits of local politicians from both parties. She loved bumping into old Telephone Company colleagues and friends she had made when she worked as a pink lady when she retired and had a tremendous ability to recollect faces and names .... An enviable life-skill. She was interested in people and would engage everyone she came in to contact with. She would listen intently to a stranger's story and would expect nothing in exchange.

Grandchildren
I know that Grandma adored her grandchildren, me, Richard and Justin and more recently Ario and Ella (her great grandchildren). Any excuse to be with us was a welcomed excuse, whether it was picking us up from school, taking us to doctors and dentist appointments, dropping us off at tennis lessons or dancing at our weddings. Life before three grandsons must have been fairly quiet although even without us the Collis clan can be quite noisy and it had already embraced Grandma and Poppa as their own, but our arrival certainly turned the volume up.

She was absolutely energised by the fourth generation Ario and Ella and lives to see the daily photos and videos of them.

End
This tribute is too short to give justice to Grandma's 91 years of experience and life.But the message I want to convey is a message of gratitude for this petit woman who truly was a giant in our lives. She was engaged in life until she drew her last breath and would expect of us the same. So as much as we will miss her, we will honour her and pursue life as she did with enthusiasm, love of family and friends and with purpose and joy.

God bless her! She is now in heaven with our grandfather, no doubt the two of them dancing to one of their favourite songs ....

READING
Cheek To Cheek
read by Justin Collis

The Third Reading is the lyrics from “Cheek To Cheek”

Heaven, I'm in Heaven,
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak;
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together dancing, cheek to cheek.

Heaven, I'm in Heaven,
And the cares that hang around me thro' the week
Seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak
When we're out together dancing, cheek to cheek.

Oh! I love to climb a mountain,
And to reach the highest peak,
But it doesn't thrill me half as much
As dancing cheek to cheek.

Oh! I love to go out fishing
In a river or a creek,
But I don't enjoy it half as much
As dancing cheek to cheek.

Dance with me
I want your arm about me;
The charm about you
Will carry me thro' to Heaven

I'm in Heaven,
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak;
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.

WORDS OF COMFORT
Rt. Rev. Nicholas Dill

 PRAYERS AND THE LORD’S PRAYER

COMMENDATION AND BLESSING

CLOSING HYMN
Lord of the Dance

I danced in the morning when the world was begun,
and I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,
and I came down from Heaven and I danced on the earth;
at Bethlehem I had my birth

Chorus:
Dance then wherever you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance said he,
and I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
and I'll lead you all in the dance, said he.

 I danced for the scribe and the pharisee,
but they would not dance and they wouldn't follow me;
I danced for the fishermen, for James and John;
they came with me and the dance went on.

Chorus I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black;
it's hard to dance with the devil on your back.
They buried my body and they thought I'd gone;
but I am the dance and I still go on.

They cut me down and I leap up high;
I am the life that'll never, never die;
I’ll live in you if you'll live in me:
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.

 INTERMENT

PALLBEARERS
Alexander Collis, Richard Collis, Justin Collis, Charlie Collis, John Preece, Graham Watts

The family sincerely appreciates the support shown here today and cordially invites you to join them at The Royal Bermuda Yacht Club between 4:30pm and 6:30pm for a time of reflection and refreshment following the service.