Tribute to Mrs Edna May Trickett – Save the Children Rossendale Branch.

Rossendale Branch are sorry to have to announce the death, at 103 years of age, of their of our founder members, Edna May Trickett. Edna died ‘peacefully and snug’ with her family on 21st February after her health started to fail shortly after the New Year.

Both Edna and her husband, Jack, were founder members of the Rawtenstall branch – its title later changed to cover the whole of Rossendale after local government boundary changes  in September 1962. Edna was an infants school teacher for 40 years, with Jack teaching woodwork at the local grammar school, and it was no doubt their professional interest in children together with their strong social conscience which drew them to Save the Children.

Since its inception the branch has raised over £400,000 for Save the Children’s work around the world, and Edna was a big part of that effort.  She and Jack held various posts on the local committee and they represented the branch at the  AGM in London for several years – this despite Edna once managing to get lost in The Barbican during the meeting, tannoy announcements having to be made to guide her back to the conference hall.

Pictured in 1999 showing volunteers outside our shop. Edna is fourth from right and Jack sixth from right.

For 43 years, from its opening in 1963 until it finally closed in 2006, Edna and Jack both played a big role in the Save the Children shop in Rawtenstall as it moved from one low-rent property to another. Jack’s skills as a master carpenter were put to good use knocking together shelving from off-cuts of wood, and shaving bits off the warped shop doors, all under the direction of Edna, as she and the other volunteers sifted through the donations of old clothes and bric-a-brac ready for sale.

Outside their committee work Edna and Jack were also supporters of Save the Children in their own right, for many years sponsoring individual children in third-world countries, under the former Save the Children Sponsorship Scheme, to get them through their education.

Despite being unable to attend events and meetings since she went to live in a care home six years ago, Edna was still taking an active interest, through her daughter Elisabeth Lonsdale, also a committee member, up until Christmas.

Rossendale branch of Save the Children has many long-serving members, but at the age of 103 we’ve now lost a very valued member whose almost 55 years of commitment and unassuming hard work will be hard to beat on a national level, let alone just in Rossendale.