In her later years she seems to have shrunk in stature but certainly not in personality.
Numerous mentions of ‘a warm welcome from this colourful character’, ‘always ready to party’, ‘always up to mischief with a glint in her eye’. ‘A much-loved social butterfly’.
Always beautifully dressed in her imitable quirky style, she loved bright colours - pink, orange, rose, colourful beads, stripy socks, jaunty scarves, sun hats in summer, furry hats in winter, she even had a pink one…
All her life she had a passion for horses and the races - even in her last days, a mention of Cheltenham brought a smile to her face.
Her interests were wide and varied – she loved to entertain, play bridge, the archaeological society, the Georgian society, watching the stormy seas…
She travelled all over the world rekindling treasured friendships, making new friends everywhere she went and always genuinely interested in people. She had an uncanny way, particularly in later life, of managing to get people to do things for her. In one of the many memorable messages on Instagram, a past student wrote she even ‘had him and his friend washing her Yaris outside the school on the last day of exams’! My response was ‘Just as well I didn’t catch her’!
Auntie Florence will be remembered for many things, but we’ll also remember her through her recipes, she loved to cook. Auntie Florence’s orange cake is the stuff of legends - it was chosen to celebrate the anniversary of the European Parliament and is a favourite birthday cake for many.
I can still see her standing by the Aga, flipping her famous crumpets, the standby treat for any unexpected guests. She even made the occasional loaf of soda bread up to a few weeks before she passed away.
Back in the 1950’s, before electricity had arrived in the village of Cullohill in County Laois where I was born, she would peddle her little bike all the way from Johnstown (8 miles) with a brick of HB Ice-cream carefully wrapped in layers of newspaper and a pack of wafers. You can’t imagine the joy and excitement when we saw her coming over the hill. Later we’d made raspberry buns from ‘All in the Cooking’ together at the kitchen table, a perfect first cooking lesson for a child eager to cook. There are so many memories connected to food.
I remember helping to clean the wild field mushrooms we collected together and then watching her stewing them in milk on the old ESSE cooker – I can still taste the flavour….
Another random thought - she loved lambs’ kidneys and would sidle up to the students during butchery class here at the school and say, ‘I’ll have those please’! She loved them dipped simply in seasoned flour, seasoned with salt, a few blobs of butter, a little water and cooked in the oven between two Pyrex plates. Try it – delicious!
And of course broth, Auntie Florence loved broth and certainly knew the value of it, she made a few attempts to die in recent years but each time, we brought her back from ‘near dead’ with organic chicken broth. Sadly it didn’t work this time, but, when we see the stock pots bubbling, they will always remind us of Auntie Florence
Back in the 1950’s, before electricity had arrived in the village of Cullohill in County Laois where I was born, she would peddle her little bike all the way from Johnstown (8 miles) with a brick of HB Ice-cream carefully wrapped in layers of newspaper and a pack of wafers. You can’t imagine the joy and excitement when we saw her coming over the hill. Later we’d made raspberry buns from ‘All in the Cooking’ together at the kitchen table, a perfect first cooking lesson for a child eager to cook. There are so many memories connected to food.
I remember helping to clean the wild field mushrooms we collected together and then watching her stewing them in milk on the old ESSE cooker – I can still taste the flavour….
Another random thought - she loved lambs’ kidneys and would sidle up to the students during butchery class here at the school and say, ‘I’ll have those please’! She loved them dipped simply in seasoned flour, seasoned with salt, a few blobs of butter, a little water and cooked in the oven between two Pyrex plates. Try it – delicious!
And of course broth, Auntie Florence loved broth and certainly knew the value of it, she made a few attempts to die in recent years but each time, we brought her back from ‘near dead’ with organic chicken broth. Sadly it didn’t work this time, but, when we see the stock pots bubbling, they will always remind us of Auntie Florence
