Pat Wythe died on 30th December 2013. She was born on the 28th November 1925 in India where her father was working as a mining engineer.
From January 1945 to May 1946 Pat served with the Wasbies - Women’s Auxillary Service (Burma). In 1951 she joined the Womens Royal Army Corps, was commissioned in April 1952, and was posted to Hong Kong where she met Robert. They married two years later and so she had to leave the army.
Following a time in Cambridge, she and Robert moved to Walberswick about 30 years ago. Her passion was history and together with Don Thompson she founded the Walberswick Local History Group, which held its first meeting on 7th January 1992. One of her first tasks was to investigate and record every detail of the history of each house in the village. One glance at the history archives will show many references to Pat, books and articles together with the “Index of all houses in the village” and much, much more. Together with Richard Steward, she photographed every house in the village with their then owners as part of our Millennium celebrations. Indeed, Pat had started archiving every conceivable aspect of the history of Walberswick before suffering a devastating stroke in 2009. This sadly affected her speech and in effect removed her from village life.
Amongst her other interests, she was an ardent supporter of the British Legion and the poppy appeal, she must have been the first female member of the old Walberswick Computer Society (qualifying with her much loved Amstrad). She also collated material for Suffolk churches.
Pat had no relatives, and the village was her family. We shall miss her and we shall be thankful to her for as long as Walberswick’s history exists!