Local Lynx No.129 December 2019/January 2020

our gratitude to the two of them for the time and effort
that they put in to their preparations.
The Anchor did us proud and produced a delicious 3-
course meal, which was much appreciated by all. The
event raised £885 for the Friends of Morston Church, so
many thanks to all who attended and all those who
helped make the evening such a success. We look
forward to seeing you all again at next year’s dinner,
which is scheduled for Saturday 17 th October. PT
RIP: SUSAN MARY GERALDINE
BATTEN (1931-2019)
by Mary Athill
On Saturday 26 th October, Susan Batten was buried at
Morston. The Rev Ian Whittle
officiated and Susan’s nephew,
The Most Reverend Justin
Welby, Archbishop of
Canterbury, gave a personal
address. Taking the committal of
his beloved aunt, Susan and
James’ son, Charles gave a
family tribute, before a large
congregation of family and
friends.
In 1940, it was wartime and
two little girls, Jane aged 10 and Susan aged 8, who had
been born in India, were brought back to England to safety
and to live with their politician-uncle R.A. Butler and his
family in Essex.
Iris Portal, their mother, returned to India to be with her
husband Colonel Gervase Portal, he to be part of the
defence of India and Iris to continue her organising and
working, nursing British and Indian troops coming out of
Burma.
The two girls were then sent to the Junior School
St.Gabriel’s, a small boarding school St Mary’s Wantage in
Berkshire, where I, Mary Hamond, had already been for a
year. Susan and I met for the first time in the hair brushing
queue. Susan didn’t know about queuing or that new girls
were inferior beings and should go last and that “H” comes
before “P”, so there was a slight altercation. She won and
we became friends for 79 years.
When Sue’s mother returned from India in 1944, she
came to Norfolk to look for a family home and to stay here
at Morston with my family. The parents were keen to meet
and became friends, ending up buying “Half Way”, now
“Blakeney House”, from our doctor, Dr.Atcheson, when he
and his second wife, Bridget Page, and all their famous
Bally Duff Labradors moved up to near the church.
The Portals had cousins and friends in Norfolk and
worked for the St John’s Ambulance. We children had
friends, boats and mud-jumping, camping at the watch
house, Sue learning to sail with Fat Freddie Long and
rowing with me in Morston Creek.
On May 29 th 1954 Sue was one of our bridesmaids and
two months later she and dear James Batten were married in
Blakeney Church with their reception of course at Half
Way, which in those days stretched from Little Lane to the
War Memorial, with a small field, an orchard and a large
kitchen garden.
And this was where Justin Welby was looked after
through his family difficulties by his grandmother, Iris
Portal. He learned to sail his 420 in the harbour.
Susan & James started married life, he as a junior master
at Radley, living in the gatehouse at Radley. They had no
car, no washing machine and very little furniture. Their
house was like an artichoke with “add ons”, so every room
had three outside walls and no central heating.
Andrew went with the Norfolk Regiment to Cyprus and
I had no home of my own and went to stay. Andrew had
sold his own Lagonda sports car and bought an A30 green
van with no windows and I put in the baby, Philip (Sue’s
godson) the gun and the dog and went first to Morston and
then to the Gatehouse.
It was summer and freezing and Sue hated cooking and
couldn’t do housework. “The trouble is, I’m lazy”, she
would say. When I arrived, I looked in one bedroom; there
was no furniture – just a huge pile of dirty washing on the
floor. So we put the washing, and the baby (in a basket), and
Maud the dog in the green van with no windows, and went
to Abingdon to the launderette!!
But things got better by shear hard work. James became
a housemaster at Radley, then the Headmaster of the King’s
School at Taunton, and Sue was there every step of the way.
She learned to cook well. Sue became Chairman of the
Magistrates Court. She was clever, organised, loved her
garden, but she never did learn to sew. I did that for her. She
charmed and kept her cool with naughty children and her
loyalty to James was really tested when they were retiring to
the Farm House at Alby. At Taunton the furniture vans were
outside when James asked her if she would mind
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