Elizabeth Derryan Paul (1938-2021)
Dr Elizabeth Derryan Paul (1938-2021) - Secretary of the Aberystwyth Bibliographic Group, 1989-1996
Elizabeth Derryan Paul (Derryan or Derry to her family and friends) was born in Radwinter, Essex on 18th August 1938. Her parents were Andrew and Elizabeth (Betty) Paul. Her father’s family had built marine engines on the Clyde and her mother’s people had been clothiers in Gloucestershire for generations past. At one time they had supplied scarlet cloth to the British army. 1938 was not a propitious year to be born. Events in Europe and further afield looked grim and would get worse. Her father at that time was a District Commissioner in the Sudan Political Service and was serving in Tokar close to the Red Sea. He would become Governor of Kassala Province before he retired. A sister, Kerstin, had come along only about a year after Derryan was born. Then, not long after war started, permission was given to her mother to join her husband in the Sudan and a perilous, lengthy, circuitous wartime journey was begun. Mrs Paul and her two babies travelled by sea to South Africa, breaking their journey at Durban for some months and eventually taking a train from there, travelling overland to Sudan; a tremendous undertaking. The rest of the war was spent in the Sudan. Kerstin remembers the mosquito netting they slept under, in the form of a cage on the roof, big enough to contain their beds, and getting up very early every day, about 5 a.m. and then having a siesta in the heat of the afternoon. She also has memories of travelling away from the Sudan to avoid the heat of the summer, which could reach well over 100 degrees, to places like Nairobi, Beirut, and Alexandria. A horse lover she does remember that she and Derryan had a donkey each. Only after the war was over was the family, now with a little brother, Colin, able to come back to Britain; this time via Alexandria.
With her parents based in the Sudan school was to be a series of boarding schools in England for Derryan and her sister Kerstin (and later their brother); in Dorset, then Berkshire and later Buckinghamshire. Their mother would come to England around Easter and stay during late spring and summer. Their father had long leave every couple of years. Christmas was spent back in the Sudan. Air travel was in its early stages and was leisurely. The journey began at Blackbushe airport flying to Nice & then Malta, where the night was spent. Then it was on to Khartoum with a stop in North Africa.
Derryan found a love of languages at school and would have exchanges with students in France and Germany which helped her fluency in those languages. She proved to be an able scholar; so much so that she went up to Cambridge in 1957 to read Classics at Girton, graduating with a 2(1) in 1960. Her travels in Africa and the Middle East had given her an appetite to see more of the world and she spent the next year in Finland teaching English to workers in a wood pulp and paper manufacturer there. Some holidays were spent in Greece and she added Modern Greek to her language portfolio.
Her love of learning and the wish to encourage others in this pursuit was to be shown in her choice of career. She decided to become an archivist, spending 1962-63 at the School of Librarianship and Archives at University College, London getting her Diploma in Archive Administration. Her career began at the Hereford Record Office. Herefordshire was a county to which she was always to have a strong attachment. She later worked at the Oxfordshire Record Office being promoted to Senior Assistant Archivist there. By 1969 she was Keeper of Books and Archives at the National Army Museum. Her last post before moving to Wales was as archivist at Royal Holloway College. Derryan arrived in Aberystwyth in 1973 to join the College of Librarianship Wales as a lecturer, later senior lecturer. When the College of Librarianship Wales merged with Aberystwyth University in 1989 she moved as a lecturer to the new Department of Information and Library Studies. She taught palaeography and archives and modern records management as well as local history studies.
Her interest in local history took her to Leicester in 1979-80 on sabbatical leave where she studied for an M.A. degree in Local History. This was to be followed later in 2002 by a Ph.D., also from Leicester. She wrote her thesis on a Herefordshire topic ‘The Care of Country Churches in Herefordshire, c1662-1762’. In the 1980’s she was elected both to the Academic Board and the Board of Governors of the College of Librarianship Wales.
Her later professional life was teaching and research. She developed a strong interest in local history and worked with a late colleague, Mike Dewe, on a number or projects in this area. Her early publications had been concerned with her work in Record Offices. She contributed an article in Oxoniensia (31, 1966, 163-165) on ‘The records of the Banbury Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends’ for instance. Later publications were in the field of local history. She had found the subject for her PH D. thesis in Herefordshire and her book, based on her thesis, ‘Why so few? Rebuilding Country Churches in Herefordshire, 1662-1762 was published in 2005 by the Friends of the Centre for English Local History, Leicester.
Derryan’s other interests were many. She had a serious interest in classical music, playing both the violin and piano well. In London and in her early days in Aberystwyth she played in orchestras. She also played the viol and was in a quartet which gave regular concerts of early music. She had a lifelong devotion to ballet. At school she had taken ballet lessons and had indeed been very good at dance. Here her interest covered both classical and modern ballet. She enjoyed both the great classical ballets relayed to the Aberystwyth Art Centre from the Bolshoi in Moscow and modern dance such as that performed to the music of Janis Joplin and brought to Aberystwyth by a touring company. She loved walking, belonging for a number of years to the Walking Group organized by Ray and Audrey Kyle. These were enjoyable, social walks but they could also be strenuous; not just local to Mid Wales but further afield; part of Offa’s Dyke was walked for instance. David and Celia Matthews were also members of this group. When she bought her house in Penrhyncoch she developed her love of gardening. Like everything she did this was taken very seriously and she produced good results. She had a large fruit cage to the side of the house and grew wonderful raspberries and other soft fruits. Derryan was also a great hostess, cooking memorable meals for small dinner parties. Her friend Diana Dixon asked particularly that these be mentioned. Her abilities as an organizer were shown when she was Secretary of the Aberystwyth Bibliographic Group, 1989-1996. She worked well alongside Donald Moore, the then Chairman, and they became good friends. After his death she was to liaise with some of his family members about the care of his property in Penrhyncoch. And while she was fit she continued to travel. She had good friends in Canada and visited them regularly. Derryan had settled well into Wales. She had a love and ability for ancient and modern languages and thus studied Welsh and in 1979 was awarded a Certificate in Proficiency in Welsh by the University of Wales. Her spoken Welsh was fluent enough for her to be interviewed in that language on the radio.
In later life Derryan developed serious health problems which curtailed much of what she had loved to do. She retired early on ill health grounds. But she was still able use her organizing ability as Secretary of the Mid and West Wales ME Group, 1998-2013. She even went so far as to arrange Gentle Yoga sessions in her house for the ME Group. Life was not easy for the last few years of her life. Her health problems severely affected her physical activity. She had the support of family and friends and former colleagues such as Anthony Thompson, as well as invaluable assistance from Yvonne Thomas, a neighbour and a Sister on the District, but she was often frustrated with the constraints that illness brought. Eventually she made the difficult decision that she needed to be in a care home. First of all she moved to the Bay Home in Towyn, then to Plas Cwmcynfelin near Clarach. Here she settled well, even taking up a new interest. As always, this being Derryan, it was taken seriously. She went to painting and drawing classes at the home and did well enough for her paintings to be entered in the Talybont Show; and she won a cup! As already mentioned Derryan was an essentially serious person but she had a good sense of humour and a very kind heart. She was a cat fairy godmother. Not having a cat of her own, for some years next door’s cat would arrive outside Derryan’s patio door once her people had gone to work – and spend the day with Derryan. She looked after friends’ cats when they (the friends) had to travel, even sick cats. Once when a cat had eye problems she visited him six times a day to give him his eye drops.
As a loved family member, friend, and neighbour, she will be much missed.
Helen Davies March 2021
P.S. People can be surprising. I thought I knew Derryan well. I knew she loved poetry but I had no idea she wrote poetry. This was only discovered by putting in her name online. If you put Elizabeth Derryan Paul into a search engine you will find an obituary in WAMES the Welsh ME Group Newsletter together with one of her poems.