Yvonne Cull

How many times, I wonder, have you heard people say when folk of Yvonne’s age pass away? ‘Well, he or she had a good innings’. I can tell you now that Yvonne had a brilliant innings. There can be few people on this planet who have spent more time caring for others and working for the good of the community.

She was brought up in a military household. Dad was in the army from the 1^st World War until 1935 and was then called up again in 1939. Home for Yvonne in her early years was the married quarters at Dorchester Barracks, then to Charminster and back again to Dorchester. She had 4 brothers and 1 sister which must have held her in good stead when she went off to train as a Nursery Nurse.

She was a bright girl and went to Dorchester Grammar School for Girls, otherwise known as The Green School and once described as a sort of civilised St. Trinians.

During the war if you were able you had to turn out and do some sort of work and she chose looking after kids. An easy option you might think but this could be hard going as my auntie found out. Her husband was based at Bovington and she volunteered to take in a couple of evacuees from London. After a three weeks she sent them back and went to work in an ammunition factory because it was less dangerous.

The place Yvonne finished up working at was a big house in Chetnole and there, of course, is where she met Toby who was helping his Dad in his timber haulage business. Toby would go up to the house for a bit of courting and the chap who looked after the heating system would kindly leave the boiler room open so they could canoodle in the warm. This warm relationship soon matured into marriage and Jackie and Jeremy followed. Yvonne also became very involved in village life and for many years was president of the W.I. This meant organising Fetes, Flower Shows, Barn Dances and running raffles etc. and helping to keep that good old village atmosphere which cannot be duplicated anywhere else. I first met her when she was helping to run the Cub Scouts in Yetminster and I can remember performing as part of the Yetminster & Ryme Intrinseca Junior Folk Dance Display Team at Chetnole Fete back in 1959 or thereabouts. It was opened by Ruby Murray who was appearing at Weymouth Pavilion for the summer season. Yvonne was not short of a bit of pushing and shoving if it meant good publicity. Ruby was a big star at the time and the field was packed. She also booked us to open a Flower Show come Fete about 30 years ago. I used to play this obnoxious old reprobate called Uncle Charl and cause chaos whenever I could. Yvonne was quite happy to join in and I have a picture of her posing for the Western Gazette photographer sat on the lap of lecherous Uncle Charl and looking quite happy about it. Cynthia, by the way, was not very fond of Charl because in him she could see me as an old rather uncontrollable wrinkly. Need I say more?

Her organisational abilities also came in very handy when it came to running Toby’s haulage business. Toby was a brilliant driver but he relied on Yvonne for all the background work. Sorting his diary, looking after the books etc. Behind every man there’s a good woman they say and Toby was very lucky to have Yvonne’s talents to back him up. She also, of course, worked for many years as an assistant in Yeovil Library

At Lamb’s Plot it was quite often open house. And when our lads were young they loved going over there because the hospitality was superb and Toby and Yvonne had that wonder of wonders a swimming pool. One time when we were due to visit Ben was recovering from a rotten case of chicken pox so we rang up and explained why we wouldn’t be turning up. Yvonne would not have that at all. She insisted that we come regardless and the welcome was just as warm. It’s amazing that she could turn out mountains of food for others but wasn’t much interested in food for herself. In particular she wasn’t much interested in vegetables. At Christmas though, as a concession to tradition, she would force down one Brussels Sprout.

When Toby passed away she moved back to her roots in Dorchester and quickly became involved in the community at Homechester House at the top of High West Street. Once again her organisational skills came in handy and for many years she helped to run coffee mornings and other social events. She was also a very relaxed and chatty neighbour and her little plot was always full of flowers.

Despite living most of her life in a very small community she was quite happy to spread her wings and travel, using her bus pass liberally and nipping off to Canada to spend time with her long-time friend Betty.

One of her relaxations was to go off with Jackie, Sheila and friends on charity shopping trips to Bath etc. A sort of gigglers bargain hunt. I have this image of her trying to keep some sort of control but I could be completely wrong and maybe, for once, they would have to look after her because she had no sense of direction whatsoever. I’m not much of a shopper, as Cynthia will tell you, but I would have loved to be some sort of fly on the wall when this bunch hit town.

Yvonne took the pitfalls that life threw at her with great stoicism and then immediately turned round to help others. For her I have nothing but respect and that’s respect in great big capital letters. 

Bonny