OQ Mandy Pepper has kindly shared with us a recollection of good friend OQ Wendy Whittle (Mrs Bird), (Section 027), who sadly passed away earlier this year.

Whilst at Q Wendy was in the first hockey team, the school choir and became Lower Trew’s House Captain. When in the 6th form she went to the dance Q used to have with Haileybury and met a young man called Revill Bird and they married in 1963. On leaving Q she did an English secretarial course. They lived for a year in Italy and then went on to South Africa for about 15 years. By this time they had three children: Roy, Clare and Diana. After South Africa they moved to Queensland in Australia where Wendy got her Associate Diploma in Theology in 1989.

After Rev died, her health deteriorated slowly, and she moved to near Melbourne where Roy and his family lived and cared for her. By the time she died on the 1st June 2021, just after her 80th birthday, she had six grand children and six “greats”.

She was a great friend and because of my flying career I saw a lot of her, Rev and the children. I am still in touch with them, her brother, Richard, and sister Jennifer.