Amazing mother-of-five who helped city’s needy
A “wonderful” woman who helped hundreds of people in Bath during her lifetime has passed away aged 97.
Hilary Garven, nee Evans, was known for her voluntary work with many local charities - but perhaps lesser well-documented was the aid she provided to persecuted folk in Burma, now Myanmar, and her role in smuggling Bibles into communist China.
Her friend Brenda Carter, whom she met through St Swithin’s Church, remembered her as an “extraordinary” woman. “She never thought she was doing anything heroic or unusual. She just got on with things and did what needed to be done,” Brenda said.
Hilary was born in Weybridge, Surrey, on June 16, 1925, as the youngest of four daughters to Sir Robert and Lady Dorothea Evans. She grew up in Penn, Buckinghamshire, before moving to London to study drama at Rada.
Not long after she arrived at acting college, the Second World War broke out and she volunteered as a nurse in the Navy. It was during the war that she met William Garven from Dumbarton.
Her daughter Billie, 67, said: “My father died when I was very young and my siblings boarded at Kingswood School in Bath. When my mother came to visit them, she fell in love with the city and moved the whole family there.”
In the 1960s, Hilary found herself widowed with five children to raise alone and Billie remembered how she could “turn her hand to anything” to make ends meet.
“Sometimes she had money and other times she didn’t. When she didn’t, she would do washing up in the local pub, be a home help worker for the council, or work at Bath Museum of Costume.
“She was a wonderful mother. She did her best all her life to keep the family together and get us to school. She loved animals, so our home was always full of dogs and cats and rabbits and she always made sure that we had holidays,” Billie said.
When her own children had grown up, Hilary started helping the less fortunate young people of Bath.
Billie said: “There were some children in Snow Hill, who hadn’t been able to go on holiday, got to go away somewhere. She would take them to Fellowship Afloat, a sailing centre in Tollesbury, Essex, and on camping trips.
“Mum was a very devout and committed Christian all her life. That meant everything to her and it inspired her to be loving and charitable to everybody.”
In the 1990s, Hilary was an active member of St Swithin’s Church, where she met her great friend Brenda. At the time, Brenda worked for the Genesis Trust and ran the Sunday Centre, which provided a drop-in lunch for 60 people a week.
Hilary helped her run it for 20 years, Brenda recalled. “Three years later, I started the Ark restaurant for those on the margins - not necessarily homeless people - but people who needed somewhere to go. That was successful and it offered good-quality food.”
While people will of course remember Hilary for her charitable work in Bath, she brought aid to people all over the world. This included visiting the persecuted Karen people of Burma.
“She took them aid and Bibles, sometimes at great risk to herself. She also took Bibles into communist China - which was a very dangerous thing to do,” Billie said.
Her sister, Annie Winkler, accompanied Hilary on a trip to Thailand, where she said her mother had again been totally fearless. When she saw a metal truck full of illegal immigrant children who had been rounded up and collected from the Burmese border, she was intent on giving them water.
“There were all these little children in this truck and they looked so hot, all crammed together. So my mother stepped out in front of the vehicle - and over there they really respect older people, so of course, the truck stopped - and she went round handing out water bottles to all the children, and they just looked so happy,” Annie said.
Back home, in Bath, Hilary was just as determined to take young people under her wing.
Her granddaughter Lizzie Winkler said: “Granny was a Rada graduate and she inspired and encouraged me to become an actor. She would take time to test me on lines, she helped me to like and understand poems, she came to watch every show, and she always had intelligent thoughts and questions.”
Hilary moved to Derby, to be near one of her daughters, who could provide her with support in old age. She passed away peacefully in her sleep last month.
She leaves behind five children, 12 grandchildren, and a host of great-grandchildren and greatgreat-grandchildren.