Somerville College Report - University of Oxford

86 | Obituaries
Peggy’s and John’s Golden Wedding Anniversary was celebrated by their children,
grandchildren and friends in 1993 in the grounds of Goldney House of Bristol
University.
Most sadly, Peggy suffered a stroke in 2006 leading to impairment in speech and
mobility. John and Peggy then went to live in the home of Julia and her husband
Jim, who cared for them lovingly until their deaths, John’s preceding Peggy’s in
2007.
Julia recalled: “Whilst gradually losing her speech and mobility over the last five
years, her spirit remained the same – ever positive, gracious, giving, her radiant
smile helping all who helped her.”
A favourite motto of Peggy’s: Quisnam dat velox dat bis.
Liz Daunton, 1937
Rosemary Garvey (Pritchard, 1937)
Rosemary Garvey was born in London on the 19 September 1918 as the first
child of Dr Harold Pritchard, who came from North Wales, and Edith Little from
Dumfriesshire, who had met working in a military hospital in Flanders. Between
the wars they brought up two children in the heart of medical London, where
Rosemary started school at Frances Holland, went on to Downe House, and then
up to Somerville to read History in 1937. She came down after five terms when her
father died; her hopes of returning to her degree ended with the outbreak of war.
During the war she worked first for the British Council and subsequently for Political
Warfare Executive, doing what she described as ‘white’ propaganda. In 1940 she
married Con O’Neill, from Northern Ireland, who had resigned the Foreign Service
in 1938 in protest against the Munich agreement. In 1941 her younger brother Peter,
an RAF pilot, was lost in action over Denmark; his death was not confirmed until
after the war. And during the war years she also had two children, Onora O’Neill
(Somerville, 1959) and Rowan O’Neill (Worcester, 1963).