Barbara Butcher (24 Jan 1926 - 4 Apr 2023)

Barbara was born in Tollesbury, Essex in 1926 and her father was a merchant seaman captain.

After her father’s early death, when Barbara was 3 years old, she attended a Masonic boarding school in Rickmansworth, where she excelled at tennis and piano.

During the Second World War, Barbara met her future husband, Roy who was an RAF pilot: he first trained in Texas in America, then returned to the UK and flew Spitfires in the second half of the war as the allied forces liberated Europe.

Despite numerous offers to become a GI bride, Barbara and Roy married after the war. Barbara worked for many years in the same school where Roy was the art teacher and then deputy headmaster, in the school office as secretary and switchboard operator.

Barbara and Roy had a long (over 60 years) and happy marriage, and made many friends in Colchester, and particularly in their Lexden Park flat.

Barbara has two sons, David and Rod, and had recently become a great-grandmother.

In loving memory of Barbara Butcher who sadly passed away on 4th April 2023