"A Good Innings"
12/01/1911 to 26/03/2005
Jill ran herself out - just 6 short of her century on the eve of the Ramblers' tour to Malta, on which two of her six grandchildren were competing, in adult cricket, for the first time. Of this she would have thoroughly approved, having supported Ramblers' cricket and hockey for 80% of its existence. It is a great shame that she didn't live six more days to be told that Jono led Sydenhurst off the field at the Marsa Club at the end of a victorious tour. She would have been very proud. Her own sons were Jono's age when they started with Sydenhurst.
Una Jill Terry (nee Swan) was the eldest of four children of a leading London cancer surgeon. She was launched into this world ahead of the "Titanic"; when China still had an Emperor and Russia a Tsar and when the £ sterling was made of gold, not alloy.
Her father was a competent sportsman being an England rugby trialist; a member of M.C.C. and captain of Stoke Poges Golf Club playing off a handicap of +2. Their London home was 72, Wimpole Street and they had a country house at Farnham Royal, close to Wycombe Abbey where Jill was sent to boarding school. She inherited her father's aptitude for sport. Like many girls' schools of those days, Wycombe played cricket. Jill captained the 1st XI. Her side included Molly Hide, who later captained England. Jill was also an exceptional tennis player, reaching Junior Wimbledon standard. On leaving Wycombe, she went - like many young girls of those days, to finishing school in Switzerland and then on a three month tour of Canada.
She returned to London to work for Sir Samuel Beale, who later negotiated the "lend/lease" agreement with Dean Acheson. She spent as much of every winter as possible skiing in Austria and Switzerland. She met her future husband at an Interparliamentary Banquet at Westminster Hall. After a long engagement, they were married at St. James's, Spanish Place and had their reception at the Dorchester Hotel.
World War II quickly intervened and her husband disappeared to instruct the Canadian Army in gunnery. Jill tried to follow him around for the first two and a half years of the War enduring 26 moves. She eventually settled very much in the front line, on the Fleet Air Arm Base at Lee-on-Solent, while her husband went up to Combined Operations to draw up the offshore bombardment plans for the Normandy invasion. Christopher and Patrick were born around this time at Alverstoke.
After the War, they moved to Somerset where Hugh and Jonathan were born. Her husband was killed in a car crash in Gloucestershire on 8th May 1952. Later that same year, Jill won a West of England tennis tournament. She then downsized, selling the family home and moved to Surrey, where she met 'Mike' Gauntlett (snr), who encouraged three of her sons to play for Brook and the Ramblers. For the next fifty years, she associated herself closely with both clubs, becoming a Life Member of Brook in 1994. Her main duties involved making team teas and cleaning Ramblers' hockey shirts by hand.
Jill is succeeded by four sons and six grandchildren of whom Christopher, Patrick, Jonathan, Charlie, Jono and Jimmy have played cricket for the Ramblers - and - in the case of the first three abovementioned, Ramblers' hockey as well.
Provisional arrangements have been made for a Service of Celebration of Jill's life, in Tilford Parish Church on Friday afternoon, 21st April.