Local Face: Rosanne Adam

Rosanne and Gordon Adam came to live in Wendover in September 1968 because Gordon’s job with Barclays Bank had moved him from Manchester to London. Their two year old son Jamie and two month old daughter Alexandra came too while their son Alastair was born three and a half years later.

Rosanne had been born and brought up in Scotland and baptised into the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. In spite of a year in the care of a Wee Free nanny, the family were spasmodic church attenders so it was at boarding school in England that she first met the Book of Common Prayer and a more I regular church life. She was subsequently confirmed into the Church of England, and so when she arrived in Wendover, naturally started attending St Mary’s.

In 1969, the choir at St Mary’s was finding it ever more difficult to recruit enough young boys to sustain the alto and treble parts so the Vicar, Geoffrey Milroy, decided that women should be admitted. The only two remaining women from the original intake 1 from thirty-two years ago, are Rosanne and Geoffrey’s widow Ann, but the mixed choir continues to flourish. Gradually more church, roles were offered to women. Rosanne became a member of the Parochial Church Council in 1969 and still serves today as a member of the Deanery Synod.

Roseanne was happily fulfilled in her role of wife and mother, especially as Gordon’s job involved a lot of travel, and it was possible, for Roseanne to accompany him from time to time. This included visits to South Africa where Gordon’s employer was known as the “Anti-apartheid Bank” among those who in recognised the work they were doing to train Black workers. In the UK and USA protesters seemed unaware of these efforts. Through these visits Rosanne and Gordon came into contact with charismatic figures such as Bishop Desmond Tutu while a university friend of Gordon’s was a Guguletu and Kye- litshu black townships where “necklacing” was not unknown. This brought home something of the wide spectrum of experience at that unhappy time in the country’s history.

Gordon had never ski-ed, but Rosanne had done so since she was nine and later worked as a rep for the Ski Club of Great Britain. In 1974 the Kandahar Ski Club, to which she also belonged, celebrated its golden jubilee at Murren in Switzerland. Gordon suggested they attend, and that he try to learn to ski too. That Christmas they went again to Murren this time taking the whole family, which set a precedent for the next 21 years. It also helped her to keep contact with wider family on the Continent and to keep up her French and German, which she spoke fluently; although she had been thwarted in her original ambition to attend the School if Interpreters in Geneva. She also regretted the lack of a university education and, to keep up with family heading that way, became a student with the Open University, graduating in Chemistry and Biology in 1992. In 1972, when Alastair was a new baby, Rosanne started bee keeping. She was secretary of the mid-Bucks Beekeeping Association for a number of years. She was fascinated by the bees and at one time had as many as seven hives. They produced some wonderful honey from the hawthorn bushes and thyme in her garden, before oilseed rape, which the bees prefer to all other nectar sources, became so widely grown. Between Varroa mite gradually killing off the colonies and difficulty hefting the hives due to her own hip problems, now the last colony has gone, she feels it is time to stop.

By 1990 Rosanne had become a churchwarden at St Mary’s and this led her to explore her faith more deeply. For the past 8 years she has been a chaplaincy visitor and latterly also a Eucharistic Minister at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, along with Barbara Farr. She also runs a Reflection group in Wend over. Coming from a family with a diversity of denominations, she has always enjoyed contact with other Christians in Wendover and at an early stage helped them make up the donated soup powder for the original Lenten Austerity lunches. When a working group was set up for Churches Together in Wendover, Rosanne was an obvious choice and she still serves it today. She has twice before seen “a Vacancy in the Benefice” and is impressed with the work of the current Church Wardens and Parochial Church Secretary who are keeping everything running smoothly until the New Vicar is appointed.