John & Judy Saville -- Christmas Letter 2004

Gable Cottage 

        December 15, 2004

 

You may have heard that 2004 has been a difficult year for us and that we spent most of it apart – each on our own side of the Atlantic. John visited Judy in February and May but we decided to stay apart. However……….

 

“Reports of the death of our marriage are greatly exaggerated”….John Saville After Mark Twain.

“The separation just didn’t work out”…….Judy Saville

 

In August we both realised that we still wanted to spend the rest of our lives together so John visited the US for 8 weeks in October and November and we returned together to the UK on December 5th. In future we plan to spend our time more evenly between US and Europe. (Line deleted for security reasons)

 

John has continued to be involved in Formula Student as Deputy Chief Judge (as well as participating in Formula SAE in Detroit in May). He was invited to join the I Mech E Motorsport Committee. He gave a couple of talks on “IT @ F1 Speed”.
2004 was the first year (ever) he’d lived on his own and got great satisfaction from “homemaking” and his love of, and expertise in, cooking has been greatly extended. 

Judy worked most of the year for her former employers, Mobile Ed Productions which provide educational programs for school assemblies across the US. She worked very hard at re-decorating the Redford house which had suffered from several phases of tenants. 

 

We have both kept up with our singing, individually and together. In the US we have been worshipping at  Aldersgate Methodist in Redford and in the UK we join with the Exning Anglican churches. 

 

John’s mother is now 81 but keeps very active with her work at Kingsley Hall in Dagenham: regularly attending the Sunday worship; as treasurer of the Tea Dance which Dad ran for 18 years; and on Fridays helps with the “old people”; she has given up the yoga! In May she was mugged in the road she’s lived in for the past 60 years. She was hurt and had several out patient visits to hospital and is much more circumspect about talking to strangers. 

 

Jeremy has had several jobs during the year. He has provided us with a grandson and granddaughter.
Jacob was born on February 19th. John has visited him and his mother, Yvonne, regularly through the year.
Sky was born on November 20th  to Jeremy and Sharleen who currently live in Harlow. 

Martyn continues to work at building fences and other landscape gardening. He has started doing private work at weekends and had a bad road accident when taking slabs to a customer. This closed the A12 for 2 hours and he was very fortunate to escape with minor injuries……..though bits of glass still need removing from his arm. Fiona continues at the Diamond Trading Company sorting diamonds and it’s possible she and Martyn may have an opportunity to go to South Africa for a year. 

 

Judy’s son, Charlie, lives at the Redford house and is still working for Masaba Airlines (subsidiary of NorthWest Airlines). He’s had a couple of promotions and now works in the control centre including communicating to the pilots which stands they’ve been allocated. It does mean he gets cheap air travel and so we hope he and his girlfriend will visit us in January.

 

Her daughter, Abby, still lives in Florida and we were able to visit her for a long weekend in early November. She’s just changed jobs to working in an upmarket jewellery store – so we have “daughters” at both ends of the diamond business! 

 

We are looking forward to 2005, dividing our time between UK and US and hope to see many of our friends in both countries…..
We wish you a very Happy Christmas and every blessing in 2005.
John & Judy