Cilla Cook obituary
My friend and neighbour Cilla Cook, who has died aged 75, was an inspirational figure in the Warwickshire village of Ashorne and devoted most of her life to its church, its parish and district councils, and the Women’s Institute (WI). She remained a religious countrywoman at the heart of village life for many years.
Embodying the saying that “if you want something done, ask a busy person”, Cilla chaired the parish council and served as a district councillor, was a longstanding committee member of the local WI and churchwarden of St George’s in Newbold Pacey for 15 years.
She was born in Gaydon, Warwickshire, to William Holder, a foundry worker, and his wife, Ruby, a cleaner. Cilla was an intelligent girl, but her parents did not have the funds to keep her at Oken school in Warwick beyond the age of 14, and she left to work in Leamington Spa, first in a chemist’s shop and then a sweet shop.
She moved to Ashorne after her marriage to Dennis Cook, a lorry driver, in 1963 and, while raising their three children, created a glorious garden, which was her pride and joy. She also did a variety of part-time jobs including working in a pet shop in Warwick (she was a great animal lover) and as a caterer for British Steel at their local offices near Ashorne.
Keenly aware of the danger of isolation even in close-knit communities, she started monthly coffee mornings in Ashorne in aid of Myton hospice, and after Dennis’s death in 2010 founded the popular “Old Chucks” group for local pensioners. She regularly attended Ashorne’s weekly Craft and Chat group and helped make clothes for premature baby units.
Above all Cilla was a devoted churchwoman, organising myriad fetes, flower festivals, harvest suppers, first world war displays and nativities. She cleaned the church within an inch of its life, delivered thousands of parish magazines, invariably donated her coffee sponges to community events, and set out the altar immaculately for services.
She also guided successive vicars on the arcane regulations governing burials, electoral rolls, ecclesiastical protocol and the dreaded diocesan faculty, required before the slightest church building work could take place.
Cilla fulfilled a long-held ambition when she passed history A-level in later life and she loved to research her family origins, poking around local churchyards in search of ancestors. She also volunteered at Chedham’s Yard, a restored wheelwright’s shop in Wellesbourne.
Although fiercely independent and a perfectionist, she was extraordinarily modest, shunning the limelight. Even when increasingly frail in her final months she tried to carry on “doing her bit”.
She is survived by her children, Steven, Emma and Susan, and a grandson, Josh.
