Remembering
Helen Green
12th October 1974 - 10th April 2024
Helen Green was our devoted wife, mother and friend, who was sadly taken from us on Friday 15th April 2024.
Helen, was a beautiful, talented and creative lady who loved to travel, eat spicy and exotic foods, tend her garden and watch tennis, but family was always number one.
Born in October 1974 to Janet and Phillip, she was their second child, her older sister Sarah, born 4 years earlier. Helen always spoke fondly of her childhood memories and other than her funny stories of life with an older sister, they led normal happy family lives,.
Helen was 19 she was working at Lloyds Bank in Sheffield, and just 3 months later she met John. After first laying eyes on Helen he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and luckily his persistence finally paid off. They regularly went clubbing at Isabella’s, Roxy’s and Cairo Jax and they in September 1998 they were married..
Over the years, Helen and John developed a liking for cruises and went on a total of 13, which took them from the Mediterranean to Alaska to the Caribbean and beyond. They both loved to travel; Disneyland, California, San Francisco, Grand Canyon, Vegas, Gibraltar, Spain, Italy, the Bahamas, and one of Helens favourites, St Lucia.
Helen’s other passion was her garden. The garden started off as a steep slope of clay with a few rosebushes and daffodils. But over the next 20 years Helen and John transformed it. Barry did all the heavy work creating tiers, decks, walls and patios, and Liz tended the soil and each plant and bush with dedication and love until she’d created an oasis of colour throughout the seasons with beautiful magnolias, camelias, rhododendrons, and the lovely blossoms from the apple and cherry trees.
We will remember Helen for all the things she loved, her family, her friends, her poetry and in the spring, we know that she'll be with us in the garden surrounded by the flowers that she spent her years planting.
Remembering Helen
A tribute to Helen
The following service took place at Southwood View Crematorium on Monday 9th May 2024 at 2pm
The service of Helen
Independent Celebrant
Caroline Wright
Helens Poetry
Brave life adventurous and love—and you."
This collection gathers poems that have journeyed alongside a life well lived — verses of wonder, faith, courage, and beauty, chosen with love.
"For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils."
— William Wordsworth
iiiI will, so help me God, live bravely too,
Taking the road with laughter and gay speech,
Alert, intent to give life all its due.
I will delight my soul with many things,
The humours of the street and books and plays,
Great rocks and waves winnowed by seagulls' wings,
Star-jewelled Winter nights, gold harvest days.
✦ I will for your sake praise what I have missed,
The sweet content of long-united lives,
The sunrise joy of lovers who have kissed,
Children with flower-faces, happy wives.
And last I will praise Death who gives anew
Brave life adventurous and love—and you.
I May Cease To Be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
✦ When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
✦ And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
✦ Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
As A Cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
✦ Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company;
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
✦ For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
✦ But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
✦ Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
✦ For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have cross'd the bar.
Prayer
O please to keep thy lovely eye
On all poor creatures born to die.
✦ And every evening at sundown
I ask a blessing on the town,
For whether we last the night or no
I'm sure is aways touch-and-go.
✦ We are not wholly bad or good
who live our lives under Milk Wood,
And thou, I know, will be the first
To see our best side, not our worse.
✦ O let us see another day!
Bless us all this night, I pray,
And to the sun we all will bow
And say, good-bye — but just for now.
are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
but make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating
and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
✦ If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
if you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
and treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
and stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
and never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
to serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
except the will which says to them: 'hold on!'
✦ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
if all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the earth and everything that's in it,
and—which is more—you'll be a man, my son!
Helen Green
"With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."
— Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
— Finis —
Compiled with love
In loving memory of Helen
For donations in Helens memory to a chosen charity
Gallery of memories
