A stalwart of the Skelton community who has given decades of service in public life, is preparing to leave the village.
Jean Bloomfield, who turns 95 this weekend, is heading to East Anglia to be closer to her family.
At a special event to mark the centenary of the village hall, Jean was a guest of honour, and was presented with a bouquet of flowers in recognition of her long-standing service to the community.
Over the years she has been at the centre of village life, including serving as chair of governors for Skelton Primary School and secretary of Skelton Parish Council. She has also been involved in many local events, including judging Skelton’s platinum jubilee scarecrow contest.
With a heavy heart, Jean says she has placed her beloved Swinburn Farm on the market and will be moving to Norwich where she has lots of family and friends.
Jean and her late husband Richard initially moved to Eden in the early 1970s, living first at Sowerby Hall, before switching to Swinburn Farm, in Skelton, in 1976.
“I am very sad to be leaving,” admits Jean. “I am leaving the village because as I get older, I do less, and I have less contact with people. I am going down to be near the family in Norwich, and I have got a flat there. It is within walking distance of two families, and I have got another granddaughter there in the city and I know one or two people because my husband came from there. I am 95 on Saturday and I thought it was about time as I needed a bit of help here and there, and in old age you slowly get more isolated unless you take some measures. I feel this is much more suitable not only for me but my family.”
Jean says in her time she has seen much change in the village. “I have seen the village grow and I have seen the village change. Whereas the school used to be for farm workers’ children, there are not many farm workers and labourers about now. We have turned into a middle-class area.
“It was changing in the 1970s. We used to have all the facilities here, but now we don’t. We don’t have a post office any longer, or a shop any longer, or a butcher. We go to supermarkets with our cars. The post office was important, you got the village news from there. But that is the way of the world.”
Jean also recalls the village hall was the centre of much more activity. “The hall used to be used an awful lot. It was a reading room, a billiard room and it was the centre of life. It used to be the venue for any party, weddings, 21st birthday parties, all special occasions, christenings. It doesn’t happen as much now. People’s friends are not just in the village any more, and people don’t do their own catering to the same extent as they used to. It is the change of life. It is not as locally focused these days as we are all more mobile.”
Jean’s message to the community on her departure is “to be interested in the lives of each other” and try to make a difference.
“My motto in life is look at any problem, what are the different ways of approaching it, and find a way to get the best results. Sometimes it’s giving people a little steer to get things moving in the right direction,” she says. Jean also reported on the Skelton community for many years for the Herald and was keen to wish the newspaper well in its role supporting the community.
Following her earlier career in education that included working as a lecturer in psychology at Edinburgh University, as well as for the Medical Research Council — investigating factors impacting young people’s education — understandably, one of Jean’s favourite contributions to the village has been supporting youngsters in their learning. She and her family have even provided woodland for local schoolchildren’s environmental studies.
