Feeling great sadness and shock, today that a close friend and mentor has died , suddenly.
R.I.P. Doreen Iredale Markam 1937 - April 2021
Doreen was my mentor and trainer, when I started working, as a fresh faced lectrice, at the University of Nanterre, Paris aged 21, in 1976.
She helped train all us new graduates to teach English language including phonetics, English literature to unsuspecting French students studying for equivalent BA and MA degrees in English. Learning phonetics was great fun! We weren't the best of students..quite mischievous, in fact.. We called her Doreen with a schwa (phonetic sound name).She also taught us how to teach in the language laboratory.
She was an indomitable person.. very beady eyes, a lot of people were scared of her .....brilliant teacher, linguist, independent, intellectual, feisty, lively, questioning about the status quo, loved literature, loved people, eating out, sampling the many different cuisines in Paris, heated discussions about politics, loved visiting art galleries, walking, member of the RSPB and WWF, a doer, questioned everything.... but above all she had a twinkly sense of humour, was very kind and did not suffer fools gladly . Several of us became friends with her.
For me, it was particularly nice because I discovered that although, she had been born in Cardiff, which you would never have known from her crisp English accent, she grew up not very far from my family home in The Avenue , St Paul's Cray, Kent.
I can safely say, she was one of the most important female influences, on my life. We became good friends but lost touch in later years, as she moved back to Leicester
.However, I am pleased ,we made contact again just before lockdown last March. She was still the same person.Still as busy, lively, questioning and lovely , getting involved in all kinds of causes.
I thought she would go on ,forever,...and, I feel so sad she is not there , anymore...
That lovely memory of being young in Paris has been dented for a while but, I will always remember her.
For Doreen Markam ..you taught me so much.
Sue Turner ne Fellingham Nanterre University 1976 - 1978