Christine Cook (25 Mar 1932 - 8 Jul 2025)

In loving memory of Christine Cook who sadly passed away on 8th July 2025

Christine was born in 1932 and grew up in East Grinstead, Sussex. From an early age she wanted to be a nurse, having been influenced by her namesake, an aunt who nursed in France in the 1st World War.

After two years nursing children she started the rest of her training. She chose to go to Hastings, and shortly afterwards she qualified top of her year and there followed a succession of posts until she became a Sister in Eastbourne at the early age of 24.

It was there that she met Peter, and they married a year later. They lived in London where she continued to work as a nursing Sister while Peter was overseas with the Royal Navy doing National Service,

Jeremy and Christopher were born in 1961 and 1963. Shortly afterwards, Peter finished his training and obtained a research job in USA, and so the family moved to Washington, where they stayed for nearly two years. Christine was popular, and liked her American friends very much, but she did not like the American culture of the 1960’s and decided that she did not want to live there permanently. The family returned to the UK in 1968, and after a brief period in Kent, moved to The White House, on Highfield Lane, where Peter and Christine lived for the next 57 years.

Christine loved the house and garden, and her amazing greenhouse. She was a brilliant cook and a skilled seamstress making couturier designed clothes for herself. She learned to spin natural wool, which she would dye with the herbal, fruit and flower dyes that she prepared herself from, amongst other places, the field and the common.

She was an inveterate collector, and over the last 50 years has put together several widely different groupings of 18th Century English porcelain for which she had a very good eye. She loved hosting dinner parties for friends, with beautiful food, and well-chosen wine for which she had a discerning palate.

About 20 years ago she started to keep bantam chickens but, typically, her preference was for the rare and beautiful. Even in her very last days she was concerned that her birds should be happy in homes similar to those to which they were accustomed. She was always generous with her love.

In particular, she loved and was loved by a succession of dogs, all spaniels, of different breeds but mostly English Springers, reminding her of Jess, her first dog which she shared with her sister as a little girl and never forgot. ‘There is nothing like a Springer’ was a favorite saying, as an epitaph, it would please her sense of fun to perplex all who saw it.

She was a force of nature, unique and so very special.