Pamela Fletcher Jones MBE
11/8/22 – 30/10/03
Contact: Cara Wides - 020 7631 9831
- c.wides@liberaljudaism.org
Date: 11.11.03
ObituaryPamela Fletcher Jones MBE 11/8/22
– 30/10/03
Born the daughter of a Fruit and Vegetable commission agent
in Covent Garden in 1922, Pam’s childhood was marked by
illness, in particular a bout of peritonitis, which led to her
not being able to have children in later life, a source of great
sadness to her and her husband. Trained as a shorthand typist
and also a nurse, Pam saw war service in the RAF and then as
a Naval nurse. After demobilisation, she embarked upon a career
in journalism that was to fulfil the rest of her working life.
Writing for Empire News in the fifties was followed by newsreel
journalism for the Rank Organisation and Pam was deployed to
travel throughout the UK and the world scripting and producing
a series of human interest ‘shorts’ entitled Look
at Life.
A nagging frustration that she had missed out on university,
meant that in her forties she studied for a BA in Humanities
with the Open University and then a Diploma in History from
London University. By this time she was an established freelance
writer. She became a staff reporter on the Surrey Comet, writing
articles renowned for their human touch. After her official
retirement in 1982, she continued as an enthusiastic freelance
contributor, particularly to the Comet’s gardening column.
Having published in 1972 a history and appreciation Richmond
Park, at the gates of which she had lived for nearly 20 years,
in retirement, Pam published the The Jews of Britain, an authoritative
and admired history of Britain’s Jewish community from
Roman times to the present day. She also took up travel writing
for The Lady, filing a series of popular reports, illustrated
by her own photographs.
A beacon in Liberal Judaism, Pam believed profoundly in its
tenets and doctrines, particularly its emphasis on the equality
of women. She worked tirelessly as a founder and distinguished
member of Kingston Liberal Synagogue, from its inception in
1967 until early 2003 when recurring bouts of ill health began
to restrict her involvement. She served as a Council Member
continuously for 35 years, headed the religion school for more
than a decade, set up an Adult Education institute, organised
the communal Seder for many years and was always the community’s
greatest ambassador and fundraiser.
Pam was active in the wider Liberal Jewish movement. She served
the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues (now Liberal
Judaism) as PR and Publications Manager from 1971 –1977,
editing ULPS News and Orbit (a magazine for religion schools)
and producing the first and several subsequent editions of The
ULPS Yearbook. To all these projects, assisted, as ever, by
her husband Norman, she brought a high degree of professionalism,
warmth and commitment.
Pam dedicated much of her time to furthering interfaith and
intercultural understanding, she was one of the founders, in
1976, of the Kingston Group for Racial Understanding, now the
Kingston Racial Equality Council. In 1990 she was instrumental
in establishing the Dittons Branch of the Council for Christians
and Jews and served for many years as their publicity officer.
A local celebrity in the borough of Kingston, Pam personified
for many, the Kingston Arts Festival, to which she lent her
incredible energies for fourteen years and for which she was
awarded the MBE in 1994 in recognition of her services to the
Arts in the borough. A painful struggle against cancer in her
final years, saw Pam, typically, throwing herself into fundraising
for the Kingston Can Appeal, to provide Kingston Hospital with
a cancer unit. She is survived by Norman, her husband of more
than 50 years, and mourned by him and vast extended community
of family and friends.
Pamela Fletcher Jones, journalist and fundraiser : born 11th
August 1922; died 30th October 2003
Notes:
Photo available on request
|
