Jean Durrant (8 Mar 1937 - 15 May 2026)

Jean was born in 1937 in South Creake, the younger daughter of Kathy and Sid, and little sister to Sheila. The family moved around North Norfolk every four or five years with her father’s job. Those early years were shaped by wartime rationing, which left Jean with a lifelong devotion to sweets, ice cream, and chocolate. She often told the story—always with the same delight—of the first time she tasted a banana. She was utterly incredulous that her entire family didn’t like them.
Jean was bright and determined. They closed Kelling Primary school for the day so she could take the 11plus -following in Sheila’s footsteps four years earlier, and she earned her place at Fakenham Grammar School. It was there she discovered the passion that would shape so much of her life: sport, and especially tennis. She joined every team, broke the school high jump record—we still have the programme—and somehow also completed Alevels in English, French, and Spanish. She later admitted she spent most of her free lessons on the tennis courts.
She played the piano and the organ in church on Sundays. She loved music, and she loved going to the cinema with her friends. Her life was always full of movement, but also full of culture and curiosity.
After leaving school, she went to secretarial college. When her parents retired to Foulsham, she joined the ladies’ cricket team and met Daphne, who became a lifelong friend. They shared a flat in Norwich until Daphne married David—and then, a little later, Jean married his brother, Bernard. They moved to Poringland in 1965 where they raised their two children.
Jean was, in so many ways, ahead of her time. She loved the fresh air, the freedom of being outdoors, and the joy of playing sport.
She was a good tennis player. In 1974 and 1975, she and her partner won the Norwich Mixed Doubles Tennis Championship, and she also won the Norfolk WI tennis competition going on to represent Norfolk in the National WI tennis tournament.
Jean returned to work part-time in the local Vehicle Registration Office before everything became centralised at Swansea and also volunteered at the Oxfam shop on St Giles Street every Friday afternoon—for forty years. She loved it there until the introduction of the credit card machine!
Jean was not precious about her house and our teenage friends were round all the time. There were many parties!
She was a wonderful grandmother too. She would simply get on the train and travel up to the North East without fuss.
She was brilliant at keeping in touch with her friends, always writing, calling, and staying connected.
In 2009, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but she continued to play tennis for another ten years, until she was 81. Remarkably, she could always remember the score—whether in tennis or in cards—long after her short-term memory had faded. That was her: steady, instinctive, and quietly extraordinary.
From 2018 onwards, she had carers who supported her with kindness and dignity. She went swimming, played tennis, and walked her beloved Carr Lane route. She was cared for by some truly wonderful people, especially Olivia and Tracy from the Nightingale Brooke team, whose compassion made a real difference in her final years.
Jean lived a life full of movement, friendship, laughter, and love. She gave her children freedom, trust, and the confidence to be themselves. She leaves behind memories that will continue to warm and steady us: stories of bananas and rationing, of freezing custard in the snow to make ice cream, her lifelong grudge against Reception teacher Mrs Scales, of tennis courts and cricket fields, of jam dad made because she wouldn’t, of McDonald’s milkshakes, of meeting celebrities on trains and not knowing who they were, and of a mother who loved deeply and believed the best of her children.
We say goodbye to Jean—but we also say thank you. For the love she gave, the example she set, and the life she lived so fully.