Avis & Ken had, long ago, discussed what type of funeral they wanted. When Jim went to their house to discuss the proceedings with Ken, he found that Ken had already planned the whole ceremony in detail. The evening before their wedding on August 23rd 1983, they had made vows to each other in humanist terms, as befitting our belief system. Ken is confident that what proceeded was entirely according to Avis’ wishes.

We gathered at the Chapel in the vast Islington Cemetery for 11:00 but some people had mistakenly gone to the Cremmy, to be collected by Avis’ Daughter-in-Law Clara while the congregation listened to Schubert’s Abendbilder D650 (Evening pictures).

Welcome and Introduction : Jim Trimmer Thank you for joining us to celebrate the life of Avis, especially those who have come considerable distances. My name is Jim Trimmer, I’m an independent humanist celebrant and an old school friend of Ken’s from Isleworth Grammar School. We’ve known each other for more years than either of us cares to remember.

Avis had a long and very full life. She was born August 13th, 1935, in Rusholme, Manchester, daughter of Cyril Saltsman & Frances Stansfield and attended Fairfield High School for Girls. At age 21 she joined Terry McGlynn’s Visual Art Master Classes that took over the conservative Manchester Academy of Fine Arts annual show. Later, Avis taught adults in Shropshire using the same revolutionary methods and founded the first pre-school playgroup outside London.

In 1959 she married Alan Watkins. They had two children, one of them being the actor Jason Watkins. Jason in turn has four children.

Avis taught all age groups using art as a stimulus to good learning and has taken part in community arts wherever she’s lived while keeping up her own practice as a painter and a printmaker. She was a founder member of the Artists’ Union which developed six branches throughout Britain and its librarian from 1972-82. In December 2001, Avis donated the minutes, magazines and campaigning papers of the Artists’ Union to the Tate and was made a donor for life with free entry. As a volunteer at the Tate Archive for seven years, with four others, they created three thousand artists’ files, including her own.

While bringing up her family and teaching full time, Avis studied for Part One of a London University Honours Degree in education and art. She took the examinations competing with full time students and produced an exhibition of new artwork gaining a secondment to study for Part Two. In 1976 she was awarded the 4th Year Degree after ten written papers and another exhibition of new work.

Avis and Alan Watkins divorced in 1976. On August 23rd 1983 she married Ken Baldry and six years later moved to Islington. She served as president of the NUT’s Hillingdon branch from 1984. The branch had a thousand members at that time. The same year Avis became Chair of the Brentford & Isleworth Constituency Labour Party in 1984. Ken and Avis started Art and Science in 1988, once Avis had recovered from her teaching career.

Once in Islington, Avis practised six different printing methods - screen printing which she learned from Erasmo Hernandez who had been a student with Leger in Paris - etching, woodcut, stone & plate lithography and collagraphy, using Ormond Road workshops, Summer courses at Falmouth School of art and her own studio from which she sold prints.

For six years from 1993, she chaired the community campaign which rebuilt the area behind Islington Green to create flats, a garden, gym, swimming pool, bookshop and cafes and an underground theatre below a new town space. Both of the latter have yet to be opened.

Joined the University of the Third Age (U3A in London) & gave ad-hoc Art lectures, heavily illustrated, on Modern Art Movements of the period starting with Cezanne (1839 - 1906) onward. The group is well represented here today.

I did say it had been a full life...

Tribute: Jason Watkins 1 Corinthians 13 (edited by Ken from St.Paul)

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered,  it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always preserves. Love never fails.

The greatest thing we have is love.

Jason spoke of his relationship with Avis, which following a difficult period settled after she met and married Ken. Avis, he believes was always searching for something and that something turned out to be Ken, Bottom to her Hyppolita.

Eulogy: Ken Baldry Dear friends. Thank you for joining me today. I first met Avis when I went to the AGM of the Hounslow Arts Council in June 1971 & noted that she was a super-beauty but of no erotic interest, as I was married to my superb first wife Jane. I only saw Avis once between coming off the Council in 1974 & February 1982 & that was at a funeral. Meanwhile, Jane had died. Before we got together on June 9th 1983, I had never seen her smile. Then, Avis, on a transparent excuse, wanted to peruse my Library. She told me about her Art Degree & that her assessor said her work could be compared to Bomberg’s. Before she could tell me who he was, I said, “Ah, Bomberg” & pulled a book about him off a shelf. She recognised that we were made for each other & started smiling. We married two & a half months later & had nearly 42 years of bliss. Thank you, my dear.

Jim reads “Fear no more the Heat of the Sun” from Cymbeline Act 4

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun; Nor the furious winter’s rages, Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and t’en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney sweepers come to dust.

Fear no more the frown of the great, Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke: Care no more to clothe and eat; To thee the reed is as the oak: The sceptre, learning, physic, must All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash, Nor the all-dread thunder-stone; Fear not slander, censure rash; Thou hast finished joy and moan; All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee, and come to dust.

Closing words & Retiring music Haydn Symphony 44 slow movement

Sung at the woodland graveside: The Red Flag The Workers’ Flag is deepest red It shrouded oft our martyred dead And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold Their heart’s blood dyed it every fold So raise the scarlet standard high Beneath its shade we’ll live and die Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer We’ll keep the Red Flag flying here

Afterwards, we celebrated Avis’ life in the Old White Lion in East Finchley. where Ken’s brother Geof, who had flown in from his Market Garden in Greece, had an opportunity to meet some of Avis’ family he had not hitherto met. Ken’s nieces Zoi from Bath & Mara from Lille in France came, as did his cousins & their children, Liz, Paolo & Rikki from Milan & Rena & Justin from nearer. There was a good turnout of U3A, from Claremont: Vivienne & Peter; the Peter who sang at Ken’s 80th & school-friends of Ken’s & Islington friends.