Eulogy to Michelle Sadler 1941 - 2021
Elegant, good cook, kind, a willingness to put others before herself, the nicest lady I ever met, lovely lady, the best granny you could ask for, gave lots of Christmas presents. These are all sentiments shared by Michelle´s grandchildren when asked how to sum up her character.
The memory that her family will have engrained as we move forward is Michelle in her kitchen. The epicentre of the family´s world as she prepared delicious food fed titbits to her dogs and poured another glass of wine.
Michelle was born on 31st December 1941, new years eve. Maybe her birth brought her mother and family hope for a better future as 1941 had not been a good year. In the middle of World War 2, Michelle´s father was tragically killed during a training exercise before she was born, having just received his wings in the RAF. So she never knew him and so always felt keenly the loss of young lives from the war, finding remembrance Sunday a particularly moving time.
She was named Michelle after her Father, Michael Furnough, but referred to as Min by the family.. As a result, she was very close to her paternal grandparent’s Mop and Pop as she called them. She and her mother Pamela lived with them until her mother re-married Desmond Manners after the war.
She grew up in Woodlands in Rolleston on Dove in Staffordshire. The family kept Datsuns who Michelle would dress up in dolls clothes and push around the garden in a dolls pram.
When she was eight her little sister Diana (known as Dandy) was born, whom she mothered. Dandy described her as a big sister and role model. Always very proper and well behaved who she aspired to be like but never quite managed to get close! Min would always tell her she despaired of her.
They used to giggle a lot together and Dandy recalls her husband always knew when she was on the phone to Min as he could hear their raucous laughter.
Their brother Phillip was born in 1955 after Michelle had left home for boarding school at Felixstowe College.
School holidays were great fun, often spent with Mop and Pop who had a red speed boat and would take them water skiing. Dandy remembers Min being in hysterics as Dandy was dragged across the water on her bottom.
Min was very close to her cousin Carol, known as Lottie, whose mother Ruth was Pamela´s sister and they spent many wonderful holidays together on the Suffolk coast. Lottie’s brother Dru Stevenson often joined them he recalls, “We had wonderful summers in Thorpeness and Farnham. Min was the lynchpin and kept us together as a very happy band on our holidays. She was always very kind and thoughtful yet retained her fiery independence when needed. Min seemed to ensure we all had fantastic days and organised lots to do. I can honestly say that some of the happiest days of my life were spent with Min and I look back on them with great fondness.”
After Felixstowe, Michelle went to Finishing School in Switzerland. After returning to England she lived with Lottie´s parents, while she worked as a dentists receptionist in Hull.
One evening the two cousins were in a pub when Barry Sadler and best friend Jonnhie Brownsdon walked in. Barry was working for a wine merchant and was in the area and he spotted Michelle at the same time Johnnie spotted Lottie. Barry sauntered over to Michelle and dazzled her with the chat-up line, “Hello, beer or baby cham?” According to Barry, if she had said Baby cham, there would have been no date. And there began the longest double date in history with Barry and Michelle enjoying 57 years of married life together and Lottie and Johnnie 59 and counting.
Johnnie got Lottie a job at the Lygon Arms in Broadbury and Michelle followed to be closer to Barry and the two cousins moved in together. Barry explains they enjoyed a wonderful courtship, where he and Michelle and Lottie and Johnnie would meet friends in the Queen and Castle pub and get in their cars to go on a rural pub crawl before drink driving laws! They had a wonderful group of friends and their happiness was only hampered by one small detail. Michelle´s stepfather Desmond!
Desmond did not like Barry in the slightest and Barry soon found himself posted to a number of faraway locations, such as Exeter and Torquay, which Barry put down to Desmonds´s contacts in the brewery industry. Barry should not feel aggrieved by this as apparently, Desmond objected to all his children´s choice of life partners, but true love conquers all and they were married in Tetbury in Derbyshire. Claire was born in 1967 in Banbury.
Then one day, Barry spotted an advertisement in the Telegraph for a job in Praia da Luz for Symington Garviegh to work for Luz Bay Club. Barry went for an interview and got the job.
Barry drove to Portugal to set up their new life with his dog Bengy Boy, which Michelle had gifted to him as an engagement present. He was a beautiful golden lab and Barry named his first yacht after him. Michelle followed two months later with Claire in 1969.
She was one of the first ex-pat pioneers and she told me recently that she didn´t want to come but saw the opportunities on offer here. Indeed the Algarve was a very different place then, with no telephone, televisions, or even many foods available. She used to drive to Faro to obtain cream to cook with; at certain times of the year, you couldn´t even buy potatoes.
She lived with Barry and Claire in 6 Luz Bay Club before she returned to England to give birth to Nick in 1970.
After a difference of opinion with the owners of Luz Bay Club Barry was offered a job by John Anderson, the managing director of Vale do Lobo, who he has met on a boat from Southhampton. Barry and Michelle then moved to Vale do Lobo for four years, where a friend remembers her. “She was a welcoming friend to me and we took golf lessons together and shared ma times, entertaining clients and generally finding our way around the Vale do Lob scene.” Eventually Barry was offered his old job back and moved back to Lagos and took shares in Luz Bay club.
The family built their first family villa, Quinta dos Celeiros on Funchal, which was the family home until 1989 when they built the second Quinta dos Seleiros in 1989. Michelle made a warm and happy place for her husband and family.
The Sadler family enjoyed the golden years of the western Algarve when the beaches were empty and they moored an old fishing boat on the river before the marina was even dreamt of. The family had a VW camper van and spent happy holidays camped on the beach in Vila Nova de Milfontes in the Alentejo.
With the absence of a school to educate her children, Nick and Claire, Michelle was a key and instrumental figure in starting the Barlavento School from scratch in the early 1970s.
There was no English Primary school in the Lagos area and it was Michelle who interviewed Sheena Donaldson, later Sheena da Luz, on her own. She immediately liked Sheena very much and on the spot offered her the job of headmistress of a new little school for the princely sum of 7000 escudos a month! Once the school finally secured permanent premises in Espiche and having grown significantly in size, a board of trustees was required and Michelle was one of the three appointed; Silva, Sadler and Vickers Lda. Her involvement in the school as a trustee, parent and volunteer continued for many decades. What a wonderful legacy and success story the Barlavento remains today, nearly 50 years on. Michelle and her family can be very proud. Indeed the children who are educated there now have Michelle to thank for the spirit and ethos of the school that still remains today.
Barry´s success in business is due in no small part to Michelle who hosted many dinner parties for villa clients and was a pillar of support for Barry throughout his career. She was always a brilliant cook and will be remembered by us all for being responsible for adding an inch to our waistlines.
A friend remembers Michelle was organised, resourceful, generous and a thoughtful and kind friend. A consummate hostess and exceptionally accomplished cook, she was also a long-standing, respected and active member of the local community.
A Funchal neighbour recalls a really great memory of Michelle, “one New Year’s Eve quite awhile ago. Michelle and Barry were having quite a big group, maybe 20 people for dinner. Well, just as we sat down for dinner, all the lights went out! Michelle being the top hostess (and completely unflappable) managed to get all the courses out in complete darkness! Apart from candles, we dined in darkness until the lights came right at the end of dinner! What a star Michelle was.”
She loved tennis and hosted tennis mornings and she was dubbed the Funchal tennis captain. From the 1970s to 1990s, there would be tennis mornings followed by post-match refreshments and she enjoyed immensely playing with Herbey Phillip, Desmond Nixon, Arthur Wadland and Robert Snapper to name a few. She regularly attended Wimbledon, which was one of the highlights of her year.
When Nick and Claire went to boarding school, she would write to them every week without fail about what was happening at home. She always signed off her letters, “All my love always darling, Mummy.”
Holidays were happy times and one friend of Nick and Claire´s remembers, “She always had so much love for everyone and I always looked forward to seeing her. I can´t think of anyone who was so selfless and always so quick to laugh. Many of my happiest memories feature her and your family and of course the best chocolate cake in the world.”
Lottie´s son Nat remembers “so many fun times we had in those Portugal summers that your mum made so special for us. Some of my favourites were the Meia Praia beach days with Bovril pap secs, ice cream on the way home and the chicken pies she used to serve us in the kitchen.”
When Barry acquired their yacht Lady C, friend Tony Simmonds delivered it to the Caribbean and they Spent ten years of holidays sailing the Turks and Caicos, the Grenadines, Mustique and Antigua. Michelle was in charge of the galley or, as she called it, “the black hole of Calcutta”.
She loved spending time in their London flat in Greycoat street, she ingratiated herself with the caretaker sid by taking him duty-free cigarettes, so he always looked forward to her arrival. She would treat Nick and Claire to dinners out and she enjoyed shopping and going to shows.
You cannot talk about Michelle without mentioning her dogs. Michelle has devoted her time and walked many hundreds of mile with the many dogs in her life there have been, Sam and Leo the lion, Murphy and Holly, Sam, Nelson and Bess, Patch, Winston and Clemmy; and the dogs that outlived her Craker and Willow.
Indeed my first memory of her is having just met Nick arriving in the Algarve to help nick house sit his parent’s dogs. Nick informed me that his Mum had left a few dishes in the fridge for us and would I pick one and heat it up. I selected a rather tasty looking chicken casserole, when Nick returned, he informed me that this was the dog´s dinner, not ours. Her dogs certainly enjoyed her cooking too.
A much-loved member of the community here, I certainly have never heard a bad word said against her. A friend has written to us to say she was a beautiful lady in every way.
In later life, she devoted herself to her grandchildren, who all adored her. Her grandson Max says, “she put everyone first always no matter what the situation, she knew how to light up a room and made the best cup of tea….so good I had it tattooed on my body.”
She finally emerged from the black hole of Calcutta and in her twilight years, enjoyed some wonderful cruises on the Silver Sea, taking a number of transatlantic cruises. She and Barry enjoyed the fantastic service onboard on voyages from Miami to Bermuda to Lisbon and Barcelona to Lisbon with the Brownsdons.
Wife, mother, grandmother, friend, she will be sorely missed.
There is no doubt Michelle had something that you cannot teach - class. She was unique, irreplaceable and the shock of losing her so suddenly is almost too much to bear. But when we feel sad, we should take the best memory of her, whether that is the taste of her cooking, the sound of her laugh or the memory of her smile and hold it in our heart and that way she will live forever.
