Comments on: Tizzy Taylor

By: chrissie

chrissie — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 12:44:10 +0000

I knew Tizzy almost alll the time we have lived in Leeds - more than forty years. We had a few things in common - we both grew up in Scotland. We both have adopted children, now all mature adults. Our daughters went to the same primary school and got to know each other well and remain friends. Tizzy and I were also colleagues at the then Open Learning Centre in Beeston, South Leeds.

Shortly before her illness took over completely, we shared a very happy telephone conversation. I was celebrating recovery from illness and she had regained what she called her "clarity of thinking" and was especially relishing her enjoyment of poetry again. Her son Robert took care to provide her with many of her old favourite poetry books while she was at Moorfield House. Tizzy asked me several times when I visited her there to read her this poem which I also love. It will always remind me of her and of the frequent train journeys I made to my home in the North East of Scotland.
It is Edward Thomas's poem - Adlestrop.
Adlestrop
Yes, I remember Adlestrop -
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop - only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

By: robtaylor1973

robtaylor1973 — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 13:11:29 +0000

Some memories of Tizzy from Australia
I am writing this on a cool, rather melancholy day in the upper Blue Mountains in NSW, Australia. From this room I can see mountain mist low on the tree ferns, and rosellas and king parrots squabbling over the seed trays. David knows this room very well, and so did Tizzy. It seems an appropriate place to write something about my friend.
The time is the early autumn of 1967. I remember walking into the staffroom of a small English Language school in Torino Italy after a morning’s teaching and seeing Tizzy sitting at the table. I had been there a week, and Tizzy had just arrived. ‘Hello’ she said, ‘let’s go to the bar downstairs”. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. I ditched my frosty Torinese landlady in the suburbs, and Tizzy and I got a flat with a couple of other girls at the top of an old apartment building in the red-light section of the main street; we didn’t realise our location until we visited the hairdresser in the ground floor of the next building which turned out to be a gathering place for the girls.. We had an excellent year. The following summer Tizzy joined me on the staff of a summer School of English at Cobham Hall, in Kent, run by a rascally crew of New Zealanders, met David, and the rest is history.
The next year I returned to New Zealand – very reluctantly -- and missed all the fun of Tizzy and David’s romance and marriage, involving glamourous settings such as Casablanca. But looking back, it is interesting to reflect how much friendship can be preserved by old-fashioned snail mail. By the time Umberto and I finally settled down in Sydney and started a family, Tizzy and David were some years ahead of us. Whenever we were in UK on holiday or I was on a conference trip we made a point of getting together. Snapshots pop into my head – Tiz and David’s kitchen, strung with overhead lines of nappies; waking up in their attic with a cat on my bed and a wonderful smell of baking bread; a particularly nightmarish ride back to Leeds from an outing with Tizzy behind the wheel – it turned out to be the last time she drove a car.
The last time Tizzy was in this room was on her final trip to the antipodes. I particularly remember two episodes. The first involves David and Berto embarking on a serious bushwalk, while Tizzy and I took an unscheduled wander on an unsealed path through the bush with Tiz in the wheelchair. When we were not at the agreed meeting place at the agreed time, they tracked us by the wheelchair tracks and found us totally bogged, waiting rather hysterically to be rescued. It was very funny at the time. The second episode involved incorrectly labelled taps in the bathroom. I still feel quite badly about this, although it certainly had its funny side. You will have to apply to David for details …….
I saw Tizzy with David in Paris in 2010. Sadly, we often don’t realise that the last time we saw a friend was actually THE LAST TIME.
I am really going to miss my friend.

Helen Bonanno

By: vicky smeaton

vicky smeaton — Wed, 08 Mar 2017 11:36:48 +0000

I first met Tizzy when we were both at university in Besançon. We immediately became firm friends, spending hours in cafes chatting over the cheapest drink: diabolo menthe. Neither of us had baths in our digs so we either went swimming or to the public baths where we conversed over the partition with many giggles. Our next encounter was in 1970 in Leeds where we taught French together. In 1972 we were both expecting our first babies. As young mothers, together with Helena, we shared a lot of fun time, often exchanging recipes for bread and cheap meals. Two abiding memories of Tizzy are of her preparing delicious meals at a huge kitchen table while talking non stop and doing the housework with James on her back and Robert and Patrick generally causing mahem.
Tizzy was the kindest, most thoughtful person I have ever met. She always put others first, giving most generously of her time and energy. She was lively and fun-loving, always able to see the funny side of situations, at the same time extremely intelligent and committed to supporting the disadvantaged. She endured her MS uncomplainingly and it is a tribute to David’s loving care and the support of the family that she lived such a long and full life. Barry and I send our warmest wishes. Our thoughts will be with you on Thursday.
Vicky Smeaton

By: robtaylor1973

robtaylor1973 — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 18:06:03 +0000

” Tizzy was such a special person – a light in a dark world. My oldest friend from 1968 and my almost twin, sharing November birthdays, I have treasured memories over the past 50 years of a warm , inspiring committed human being, who reminded me constantly of the real value of life and the individual. We taught together in Morocco, we shared multiple couscouses and our children’s stories as time moved on from the wedding in Casablanca, and the family in Leeds . Then other meetings in Leeds, Hampshire and Provence all underlined our “special relationship” and Tizzy will be sorely missed. A very special person.
With much love and warmest thoughts to all the family …. Alison, Michael, Samia & Mona

By: sarahfinch

sarahfinch — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 17:58:51 +0000

The photo is dated 1945 so Tizzy was 3. I think it was taken at Ellerslie in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, where the family was staying with Aunt Marg, not a real aunt but a lifelong friend of Tizzy’s mother. The family spent a lot of time there during the Second World War, and Tizzy was born there. (from Tizzy’s niece).

By: nicole moureau

nicole moureau — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 09:05:29 +0000

By: nicole moureau

nicole moureau — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 09:05:10 +0000

J’ai connu Tizzy lors d’un camp de “jeunesse et reconstruction” près de Bordeaux, ensuite à Paris en 1965 lorsqu’elle était assistante d’anglais. Devenues amies, nous sommes parties ensemble en vacances en Grèce (en auto-stop! via l’Italie). Depuis, nous nous sommes vues en Ecosse, en France, en Angleterre. La dernière fois à Leeds fin 2015. Son courage face à l’épreuve terrible qu’elle a vécue pendant tant d’années a fait mon admiration. Elle va beaucoup me manquer. Je serai près de vous tous le 9 mars par la pensée
Nicole

By: nicole moureau

nicole moureau — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 08:53:25 +0000

Au revoir, Tizzie!
Nicole

By: elizabethleith

elizabethleith — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 00:53:36 +0000

Tizzy aged 3 or 4? So sweet. Do you know where it was taken?

By: elizabethleith

elizabethleith — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 00:53:11 +0000

So glamorous ! I love it.