Tributes to Stella

The sound of pealing bells rang out across Uckfield on Saturday after a thanksgiving service for the life of a woman described as 'a much loved Queen Mum figure'.

Holy Cross Church was packed, upstairs and down, as tributes were paid to Stella Peters, who died on April 4, aged 83. She was the wife of former rector Canon Bill Peters.

Reference to the Queen Mother was made by the Rev Brian Wilcox, current rector at Holy Cross, as he welcomed the congregation to the church in which Stella 'worshipped so often and loved its life for so long'.

As part of the service granddaughter Daniella Peters (11) read out a copy of a poem that she and her six-year-old brother Jack gave their grandparents for Christmas: Why God Made Grandparents.

And niece Sarah Bridal, who was brought up by Stella from the age of four after the death of her mother, sang a solo, Panis Angelicus. The Rt Rev Timothy Bavin, who was a curate at Holy Cross and went on to become bishop of Johannesburg and then Portsmouth before becoming a monk at Alton Abbey, recalled Stella's love of gardening and even more so her love of 'the birds in the air and beasts of the field'.

Pets

He said she filled her own home and sometimes car as well with animals and pets of all kinds. He remembered a dovecot on the rectory lawn and flocks of pigeons one of which built a nest on a wardrobe in the rectory spare room.

He remembered a lethargic labrador and a Pekinese which 'more than once sank its fangs into the rector's legs under the dining table' and said that even in retirement, in the more restricted confines of Calvert Road, Stella and Bill still had their pets, two dogs and two cats.

He also asked: 'Was there ever a more generous and hospitable heart than hers?' and spoke of the friendship and welcome she gave to people who came into her home or to her door. After morning service on a Sunday when he accompanied the rector back to the rectory Stella would ask, 'A rasher or two Tim?' and he said that was typical of her hospitality.

Canon Peters spoke too, recalling, as he did in the Express last week, how there were rarely fewer than ten people sharing Sunday lunch at the rectory and around 25 sharing Christmas lunch, as he and Stella invited home those who were to eat alone.

'She never put herself forward, she kept in the background. What a marvellous strength and support she was to me, what a friend she was to all those people, what a lovely mother she was to Simon as he was a son to her,' said Canon Peters. 'Thank you Stella you were a marvellous wife, you were a marvellous mother and grandmother and friend to us all.'

A private cremation took place on Friday.