A HOST of clergy thronged a tiny Herefordshire village church to bid farewell to a woman who played a vital part in the Three Choirs Festival, Hereford Cathedral and the wider community where she lived.

Stirring music at St Lawrence Church, Canon Pyon was played by Peter Dyke, organist and assistant director of music at Hereford for the funeral of June Hallowell-Chase who died last month at the age of 91. 

The grade I church where Mrs Hallowell-Chase married her second husband, the late Leonard Chase in 1980, rang with the voices of the Wellington and the Pyons Group Choir conducted by Nick Russell, swelled by the ‘Friends’ from Kingsland, Bodenham, Leominster Priory, Hereford Chamber Choir and Border Voices.

Former Dean of Hereford, the Very Rev Michael Tavinor returned for the service, as did the Rev Michael Cluett, for six years parish priest at Canon Pyon.

An inspiring art teacher, beloved by students at Lady Hawkins’ School at Kington and Whitecross High School, she was a driving force in various other realms.

“She made things happen,” said the Rev David Wyatt, curate at St Lawrence’s who took the service. “She liked to get things done and her powers of persuasion were renowned.”

Mrs Hallowell-Chase had a long association with the Three Choirs Festival, her work for the event and the community in Hereford earning her an MBE in the 2006 New Year Honours’ list.

A few days before she died in hospital at Hereford, she keenly watched the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, her MBE proudly placed on a table beside the bed.

She was born at Cusop, near Hay-on-Wye, where she had an “idyllic” childhood. In recent years she told Norton Canon History Society how she and her sister would take the train from Hay to Moorhampton.

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They would walk the two miles to visit their grandparents at Calver Hill in Norton Canon, carrying buckets in readiness for apple picking or other tasks. After Brecon Girls Grammar School she attended Swansea University’s School of Art where her love of architecture began.

She married her first husband Fred Hallowell at Cusop in 1956 and they eventually moved to Canon Pyon in 1967, Mrs Hallowell-Chase taking maternity leave after the arrival of their daughter, Samantha in 1968.

Sadly, Fred died in 1978, and June later married Leonard, whose son, Will Chase, built up the Tyrrells crisp business before turning to production of Chase gin and vodka.

In 1992 she retired from teaching but was “busier than ever”, working in the garden at Tyrrells Court House where she and Leonard lived. Her baking skills were renowned and her grandchildren called her ‘Granny Biscuit’.

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