Carole
Fairbairn
January 21st 2005
Christ Church, Virginia Water
The moment I heard that Carole was missing I was immediately taken back to
a conversation we’d had one June afternoon four and a half years ago
when we were on the lower sports field at Coworth Park School watching the
inter inter-house rounders. Carole, seeing I was alone, crossed to stand by
my side. I’d known her since she began at Coworth and had spoken to
her on almost a daily basis when Donald was in charge of building development
at the school—and we’d ‘put the world right’ more
than once at the ladies’ lunches—often our opinions widely differed—but
it was during that quiet conversation that we came to establish an empathy
based on how much we shared at a personal level. Carole was devoted to her
husband and she doted on her son Tom—‘It’s good parents
come to watch this sort of thing, isn’t it?’ she said—before
confiding that while she’d loved her job she regretted not being able
to spend more time with them. Watching Tom play sport, for example. In exposing
this vulnerability to me at that time she displayed a compassion and sensitivity
I hadn’t noticed before and which I believe were important marks of
her character. We discussed the difficulties of balancing roles—‘fitting
in’ and the problem which arise form leadership. And it was then she
told me for the first time how much she valued her holidays when she could
‘take off and travel to the tropics’.
Some months later I found myself in the large public ward of a hospital far
from home having been taken there by ambulance following a silly accident.
Completely unexpected a basket for flowers, including tropical lilies arrived
they’d been sent by Carole. And just one week later, when my younger
daughter was knocked over by a car it was again Carole who phoned to voice
her concern.
Later on I said to her, ‘You tell me your’s and I’ll tell
you mine’—I was of course referring to holiday destinations. She
reeled off a list of places I'm unlikely to visit because they involve too
much hiking on foot to get to—she enjoyed a trek—but we quickly
settled on somewhere in common. Thailand. ‘Yes. Bangkok’s a great
place to visit,’ I agreed. ‘No, no, no.’ she swiftly corrected
me, as she was wan to do, ‘Bangkok’s okay but it’s noisy,
busy—Colin and I prefer remoter paces. Liked down on the southern beaches
of Phuket, like Patong and Chao Luk.’
So it was in a sad sense fitting hat Carole, with her terrific taste for adventure,
lost her life where she did alongside those people she loved so much—And
amongst so many children of primary school age—having devote her life
to education.
Dear Carole on behalf of the mothers of Coworth Park School we will always
remember you with great affection.