We would like to take this opportunity to say a special thank you to the family of June Duckworth, who died on 28th March 2017 aged 84 years old. A collection was held during the memorial service and June’s husband Norman has very kindly decided to donate £500 of the money raised to sign2sing. This donation is gratefully appreciated and will be used to produce the sign2sing resource packs and DVDs. Many schools find it very difficult to access online resources and these DVDs are vital for making the event accessible to everyone.
June was a teacher and passionate about music, despite being partially deafened as a child, so her family felt that sign2sing would be the kind of event she would’ve enjoyed. June’s husband Norman has very kindly shared some information about June’s life:
June Lily Duckworth was born on 22nd June 1932 and enjoyed many adventures during her lifetime. June’s young life was somewhat disrupted World War II – she was evacuated for a while to Hampshire (near to Winchester) to stay with her uncle, a head teacher – and an event in 1944 effected June considerably.
When June was out walking with her father, a sergeant in the Home Guard, they both heard what had that summer had become the dreaded absence of sound with the cutting-out of a rocket engine overhead. As the Doodlebug plummeted to earth, Andrew threw himself and his daughter to the ground. While both survived the explosion of the rocket, June’s hearing proved to have been compromised and in later life she suffered from significant hearing loss.
June never let her hearing loss hold her back and she went on to study teacher training at a college of St Osyth at Clacton in Essex. She continued to teach in Essex for a number of years before moving to Corsham in Wiltshire with her husband Norman, where she taught in the local school.
Music was an enormously large part of June’s life – she was an accomplished cellist (who as a young woman secured a place at the Guildhall School of Music) and a pianist. She and her husband were great music lovers and attended concerts, opera and ballet performances in Bath or Bristol whenever they could.
You can read the full memorium here.
