Revd Clarice Smith
1925 – 2014

Captain of the Grammar School Guide Company
 

Many past pupils will be saddened by the news that Clarice Smith has passed away recently at the age of 88. Clarice was Guide Captain of the Grammar School Guide Company for approximately nine years.

Clarice was born in 1925 in Tutshill, on the Gloucestershire side of the Wye at Chepstow, which gave rise to her distinctive accent. Clarice showed promise in school and was destined for a university education but as her mother was widowed, Clarice was obliged to leave school at 14 and found employment in the Red and White Bus Company offices in Chepstow. Her mother died when she was just seventeen. Now an orphan, with her elder brother serving in the RAF, Clarice came to Aberdare to live with her aunt and uncle in Mardy Lodge in Wind Street, and conveniently found employment in the tax office at Mardy House. She was steadily promoted, serving in the tax offices in Pontypridd, Llanishen, Brighton, Merthyr and Brecon. It was during her time at Merthyr that she was Guide Captain to the School Company.

In Brecon her Christian faith - always a benchmark in her life - deepened to the extent that she wanted to serve in ordained ministry, and by so doing Clarice was at the forefront of women entering the priesthood. At the age of 50, Clarice resigned as Inspector of Taxes in Brecon and began a two-year course at St Michael’s College, Llandaff, where she was the first woman ordinand. Initially Clarice was obliged to ‘live out’ but the demands of early services led to the Bishop allowing her to ‘live in’, which caused some consternation to the male residents at the college but revealed Clarice’s great sense of fun with many amusing moments. She successfully completed her training and became a Deaconess in 1977 and held the appointment of Curate in the Parish of Pontardawe from 1977 to 1980, and was made Deacon in 1980, the first in the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon. She was later appointed Curate to Llwynderw, Swansea, from 1980 to 1984, and eventually St Peter’s Newton Swansea from 1984 to 1988 where she served until retirement.

In Newton, Clarice renewed her friendship with Pat Williams (née Scourfield) who was a Guide and Patrol Leader during her time at the school, from 1954 to 1959. Pat remembered with great affection the combined camp in Jersey which was shared with the St Elvan’s Guide Company under their Guide Captain June Ingram, with June and Clarice being lifelong friends. June now has a huge number of photograph albums of Clarice’s Guiding career and if any past pupils have memories and anecdotes of their Guiding years under Clarice, these would be most welcome to supplement this brief tribute to Clarice. Warm-hearted, generous, determined, straight-talking, challenging established principles when they needed to be challenged, firm in friendship, full of common sense, strong in the Christian Faith, enormously good company - she was much-loved by all who knew her. She bore her recent trials with great fortitude and passed away peacefully at home on 27th April 2014.

 

Roger S. Williams,
Swansea, May2014.