This site is a tribute to Anthea Thomas. She is much loved and will always be remembered.

 Anthea was born in Bromley, to father Walter Gosling and mother Audrey.  She had one younger brother, Roy.
Being in Bromley in South London shortly before the outbreak of war meant her childhood was disturbed and her mother took her and brother Roy to stay with elderly aunts, in the comparative safety of the village of Newton in Cambridgeshire for the duration of the war. 

After school Anthea’s first job was with a firm of solicitors in central London but she then decided to go into nursing and became a cadet at Beckenham hospital where, in due course she became an SRN.  In the course of her stay there she acquired the nickname that stayed with her for the rest of her life.  One day a junior doctor asked what her Christian name was.  Upon being told “Anthea” he said “we can’t call you that, we’ll call you Spud”. So it was.

Young nurses at that time often rented and shared large flats owned by understanding, and largely deaf, landladies, who tolerated rather loud parties involving visiting boyfriends.
On one such occasion (Christmas 1959) Spud was standing on the doorstep trying to attract attention when a naïve young Welshman whistled along and threw gravel up at the window.  Fifteen months later they were married.

Anthea's first married home was in two rented rooms in Whitley Bay, Northumberland and first house in Newcastle upon Tyne.  Her first daughter, Jackie, arrived in a snowstorm in Hexham, Northumberland.  The family then moved to Caerphilly in South Wales, where second daughter, Sue, was born in a home birth.  After a couple of years in Maidstone, down to Polegate where son Neil was born.  Then up to Cambridgeshire and with the maturing of the children, a search for employment.  One such spell involved rather unpleasant work processing chicken for fast food.  Her rather callous husband informed colleagues that she was “working with animals”.  She gained employment as a nurse at an RAF establishment in Cambridgeshire before finally moving back to the place she loved best - Eastbourne and the Downs.

To know her was to love her.  Ask anyone who met her.  She hated injustice and did not hesitate to challenge it, raising hackles but earning respect.  She could be infuriating, but always with a good heart.  She was famous for her malapropisms, aided by her imperfect hearing.  One example;-  on a walk in Devon an encounter with a young man with a shotgun.  On being asked what he shot he said “crows and rabbits”.  Some yards on Anthea enquired “what did he mean shooting frozen rabbits”?
 
Family was everything to her.  She loved nothing better than a family get-together, as many as possible and too much food.  She was home-orientated and loved entertaining.  Until osteoporosis took over she loved tennis ,swimming, bowls and long downland walks with the family dog and visitors, with a lunchtime stop at a convenient hostelry.

Anthea was one of life’s optimists, always looking for the best in people and always finding something.

Anthea was definitely sociable, outgoing and family-orientated (in spades!). She is survived by Roy, her husband of 60 years and their three children. Anthea took great pleasure in spending as much time as possible with her four grandchildren and four great grandchildren.