Wendy was on the mailing list of the Norwich Interfaith Link group. Wendy came with NIFL to visit the Buddhist centre in Attleborough.

She had an interest in Buddhist ideas as well as regularly practising the skills of yoga locally and on holidays abroad. At an evening vigil with a circle of candles on Banham village green, organised by my wife Daphne, in the month following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, as one of the passages to be read, Wendy gave me a poem by an unknown Buddhist monk about someone who wanted to change the world.

“When I was young, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as I got older, I tried to change my family. Now I am old, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.”

In conversation with Wendy in the years I knew her as a fellow resident of Banham and in my wife's monthly book group, I found her a person very open to serious consideration of values, experiences and beliefs about the actions, relationships and motivation of people in the community and in the news, and enjoyed my talks with her. She will be remembered and missed as a generous and life affirming person who served the wider community in her professional work, and as a person who enriched the lives of the people she met after she retired. May God go with her on the next step of her journey.

David Griffith

Chair of the Norwich Interfaith Link