MISSION PARTNERS’ FELLOWSHIP Tributes February 2020 Dr (Lilian) Stella Walters died July 2019 Nigel, Stella’s son, writes: Stella was born Lilian Starr Underhill in 1925 in Peshawar on the north west frontier of British India, in what is now Pakistan. Her father was an officer in the Indian Army and mother a nurse with the Church Mission Society, who, at the age of 39 and being of small frame and carrying a large baby, did not expect to survive the birth. So, she wrote a very moving letter to her unborn child, dedicating her to the service of God; the simplest way of describing Stella’s life is as a fulfilment of that commitment. Her mother did survive, the following year her brother Harry was born, and then in 1929 the family moved back to Britain, to Farnham in Surrey, where Stella and Harry both grew up. In 1943, Stella was accepted to study medicine at the Royal Free Hospital in London. In February 1945 she was injured in a V2 rocket attack; she had been working in a basement laboratory, and suffered acid burns to her head and neck. She had skin grafts, and plastic surgery to remake her ear. After a year’s convalescence she returned to medical school, going on to qualify as an obstetrician and gynaecologist. Having trained at Foxbury from 1953, she went to Pakistan in 1955, with CMS like her mother and grandfather before her. She learned Urdu and some Pashtu and worked briefly in Quetta and Multan, before moving to Bannu in the north west frontier province, where she worked until 1963. And then our father, William Walter, enters the story. My parents had known each other in Farnham as students. He had subsequently emigrated to Canada, becoming a chaplain in the Royal Canadian Navy. In July 1962 his wife, Pat, was killed in a road accident, leaving my two brothers, Alan and David. William made contact again with Stella’s parents, and began corresponding with Stella in Pakistan. They got engaged by aerogram, on the basis of that friendship from some 15 years before, and married back in Farnham in August 1963. They then returned to Canada, where Stella swapped the heat of Pakistan for the near Arctic. Stella became mother to David and Alan, who by then were 9 and 10, providing a firm foundation for family life after a very turbulent time for them and giving them a sense of stability and security that endures to this day. William became chaplain to the forces base in Churchill on the Hudson Bay – polar bear country – and Stella was the medical officer. When she was expecting me she was already 40, and I was expected to be born by caesarean. As the only person in Churchill able to perform a caesarean, she thought it wise to travel the 2,000 miles by train down to Winnipeg – but took scissors and twine with her just in case she went into an early labour. 1 A few months later, the family moved to Britain, settling back in Farnham. In due course, our father became a Royal Naval chaplain, and his first posting in 1967 was to Malta. It was a happy time of life for Stella, and it was great fun when we took her back there to mark her 90th birthday; at that stage Stella still had extraordinary stamina, for example walking around Valetta unaided for an entire afternoon. After Malta, we returned to Britain in 1969 and moved into Khyber Cottage, the house her parents had lived in Farnham, which is where Stella continued to live until she moved to Histon in 2017. For most of that time she had a prayer and counselling ministry with her good friend Ione Carver. Their friend Peter Horrobin describes Stella and Ione’s friendship and ministry as “something wonderful to behold – so much fun and seriousness all rolled up into a friendship which impacted many lives”. Stella’s mother, Lilian, lived with us in Farnham until she died in 1977. Later that year, Stella was asked to return to Pakistan, to the hospital in Bannu, to do an eight-month locum. Having by then been a long time out of medical practice, she found the prospect daunting; but she met with the local GP to help her re-skill. Since the hospital closed during the summer, I was able to spend my summer holidays with my mother, travelling in the hills of northern Pakistan – Abbottabad, Murree, the Kaghan valley, Swat, Nathia Gali – a trip that made quite an impression on a 12-year-old schoolboy. Stella was able to return to Pakistan again in 1988, while I was working in Islamabad, and again in 2000 with Alison Blenkinsop and her late husband Tony. So, Stella’s was certainly a full life. But you cannot understand this life well-lived without understanding what came before it. Since Stella moved from Farnham – where seemingly nothing was ever thrown away – my brother Alan has done a great job of sifting through personal papers, and transcribing letters, particularly those of Stella’s mother, Lilian. Stella and Harry are the children of Lilian’s second marriage; Stella was named after Lilian’s first husband, Harold Vernon Starr, who was killed in March 1918; that death, and Lilian’s response to it, form part of the big story into which Stella was born and which has given shape to her whole life. Among the many letters that Alan has transcribed are two written by Lilian in the days immediately following her husband’s murder, one to her own mother back in England, and one to the local church community. My daughter Isabel read both letters to Stella just a few weeks ago, one Sunday before lunch. For Stella, those letters offered a vivid reconnection with her mother, and with the family story; it was profound and very moving. In those letters, her mother describes the circumstances of her husband’s murder; how he was stabbed in the night and how she nursed him through to his death the following day: She wrote: “We were conscious that Christ was present as he never had been so fully before. He looked so happy at the end, was only one short moment unconscious – and then had gone to God. I had never seen him look as he did after, perfectly restful and almost a smile. Death had no sting. It simply was not death.” Those letters help explain how Stella understood what you might call the geography of death. For her, death was not a surprise, nor an injustice, nor a failure of medicine, but a completion, a drawing near to her life’s goal, stepping into the presence of Christ. Her mother wrote this of the moment of her husband’s death: “The awfulness had passed – the afterwards transformed it.” I believe that much of what people have so kindly said they admired in Stella – the love, the sparkle of humour, the friendliness – were there because she carried that “transformative afterwards” with her. 2 One baby photo was captioned by her mother “Stella enjoys a joke”. That was certainly true, and many of the cards and letters we have received refer to her chuckle or the mischievous twinkle in her eye. There are two things about the circumstances of Stella’s death which, knowing her as I did, would I think have amused her. Firstly, she was a woman who liked records; so, to have died on the hottest day ever recorded in the UK would for her have been the cause of some pride. And secondly, it is surely fitting that she was getting ready for a party – in so many photos she seems to have food and/or drink in hand. For some time, Stella had wanted to have some friends from Windmill Grange for tea and cake; but she was worried about who to invite, and remembering names. Her solution was to invite everyone for drinks on the Friday evening. Of course, that particular party never happened; but I think her timing was clever, a last joke even. From her point of view, she has moved on to a bigger and better party. Stella was no saint. But hers was, I think, a great life. She was, of course, a Starr. However, this was not a life of fame, not one that will make it into the history books. But it was a remarkable life that was lived thoroughly, intentionally, with direction, in service, with humour, in grace. And all of that was rooted in and bound together with her faith. The last four lines of this hymn speak well for her: “I looked to Jesus, and I found In Him my Star, my Sun; And in that Light of life I’ll walk Till travelling days are done.” Stella’s travelling days are indeed now done. She has arrived home. She recently shared an image with a friend from church. Death, she said, is like walking down a corridor, and at the end there’s a nook with a warm fire, and an armchair, and Jesus. Whether or not we share her faith – and she would long for every one of us to do so – for her, death is homecoming, and therefore the cause of great rejoicing. Rev H Neill Mackay died September 2019 Mrs Jean Mackay (wife) writes: Neill was born in Beverley, Yorkshire, in 1927, the youngest of three children. His mother was a missionary in China but returned owing to poor health. We were told she said, “if I can’t be a missionary I’ll breed them!” True words...