In Memory of Edwina Hannaford

Wonderful tributes have been paid to Edwina Hannaford since she died, not least at her funeral on 22 February at St Martin’s Church. Last summer, knowing she did not have many months left, Edwina wrote her own words. This is what she asked us to publish:

Edwina was born in Freedom Fields maternity in Plymouth on 21st July 1960. She always considered herself to be Cornish however and used to say “I was conceived in Looe and spent just a few hours in a Plymouth hospital compared with a lifetime in Looe”.

Her childhood was idyllic. Trips out in the countryside where her father Colin Shore taught her the names of the hedgerow flowers which stayed with her all her life.

She followed her parents and grandparents in leading a life of duty to the community and the church. She sang in the church choir at St. Mary’s, played her favourite hymns on the piano at home, was confirmed, attended church fayres and faith youth groups.

The church was always a comfort to her, the rituals and sense of peace and tranquillity and beauty of the buildings.

Edwina loved school, in the main, and always soaked up learning how other people felt. She was empathetic and often backed the underdog!

This sense of duty and doing the right thing was a feature of her political life as well, shown in her duty to her community backed by her liberal ethos. These values stuck with her all her life.

She loved her pets, she and Simon were cat people, always suckers for the older cat that no one wanted. They would lavish great love on their fur babies.

Although in her 20s and 30s she regularly frequented the gym with friends, she always felt that she struggled with her weight. It wasn’t until 2017/18 that she made a supreme effort and lost 5 stone! Although never a runner and despite having arthritis in her knees, she embarked on the NHS Couch to 5k and joined the Looe Pioneers. She threw herself Into running 5 and 10k runs around Cornwall, Plymouth and Ivybridge, amassing several trophies and medals.

She developed an early interest in painting and graphic design attending Mid Cornwall Art College on the Camborne site near Pool. She studied four years for a degree in Graphic Design. On graduation she worked in Bristol designing logos, posters, point of sale materials and illustration. This was all before computers in design. She was self-taught in computers and technology appealed to her.

Edwina and her bestie Sheila met in the late 80s and immediately hit it off. A bit like Charles and Diana there were three people in her marriage but this one was her best friend, joined at the hip, always scheming about something or other. Before mobiles transformed the ways in which they could communicate, they would still be on the land-line talking which made them late for the night out they would both be going to!

Dressing up was always a passion, her friendship group would spend hours making outfits – to shock at times.

On the Millennium she wore a medieval dress where the bodice was ‘oiked up so you could eat your dinner off her chest! One new year she went full dominatrix with five inch thigh high patent boots, long black wig and black eye make-up. She thought no one would recognise her. But when she sat on the lap of a prominent community leader – just sitting enjoying a new year’s meal – he simply said, “Hello Edwina”.

Her first serious relationship would see her take up her first adventure as cook and deck hand on 1000 ton coaster carrying mainly cattle feed and china clay to Amsterdam, Ghent and south Wales. She learned on the job to cook for the crew, order provisions, make and use fenders and even paint a plimsol line on the boat.

She even water skied behind the boat in the middle of the English Channel and thought she was smart to make a quiche with one part veggie, forgetting when it was served which quarter was actually veggie, much to the veggie skipper’s distaste!

On leaving Cornish shipping and Bristol, incidentally her father’s home town, she moved back to Looe and worked for various printers in St Austell and Liskeard before going out on her own with her own business – the Artworks – for 20 years. She built a wide client base and you might still spot a few of her illustrations on holiday let brochures even now, all those years later.

Although she gave up working as a graphic designer professional in 2005, she still kept her hand in designing posters for various events and painted for pleasure exhibiting in the Old Lifeboat Boathouse gallery and a number of local cafes.

On moving back to her community of Looe she embarked on a number of community projects. Starting with a revitalised Great Cornwall Raft Race with others in the Looe and Polperro Chamber of Commerce, pioneering with others a 60 page What’s-on guide distributing 25,000 copies around SE Cornwall. Again with others she successfully gained business rate relief for businesses following extensive gas works in the town and signage at Trerulefoot to encourage people to take the turning for Looe and Polperro. She designed and gained funding for signage and for a leaflet for a walking route around the town.

As chair of the Chamber of Commerce she campaigned for support for Looe and South East Cornwall collaborating with SECTA, the Town Council and other organisations.

She instigated the West Looe May Fayre in 2011 with a stalwart committee and only stopped in 2023 on her diagnosis.

In 2003 she embarked on her political career based on the ethos of working for her community. This was firstly for Caradon District Council, where she chaired a finance committee and was tourism ambassador pressing others to promote Looe and Polperro and later in 2009 Cornwall Council.

She was also elected to Looe Town Council in 2003 and was so thrilled to have the great honour to serve as Mayor in 2022/23. So sadly, her diagnosis and treatment then hampered her ambitions to improve the prosperity of the town.

She fought and won seven elections often topping the poll.

She always put her community first, her case work was mainly around poor housing conditions, lack of housing and helping those less well off than her. She worked for things important to local people and the culture and history of the town she loved.  One former Mayor said “crack Edwina open and you’d find ‘Looe’ at her core like a stick of rock”, and she was keen to say that she and Armand had this in common.

In Looe Town Council she helped set up an enhanced Looe Community Meals, a Looe Community Fund, Community Cupboard and Secret Santa during lockdown. All these still operate now.

Her colleagues voted for her to be portfolio for planning the environment in 2016. She delivered an environmental growth plan for Cornwall Council – a first of any local authority in the country. She also delivered the Cornwall local plan, the development plan for Cornwall, weaving climate policies into house building plans and protecting green spaces.

The green agenda goes back to her father who, much to her mother’s annoyance, was endlessly making cardboard bricks, recycling everything in sight and championing schemes to reduce food miles.

Her passion for the environment and concern for climate change was recognised when she was made portfolio holder for communities and climate change in 2019. A coupling that matched her ethos perfectly. She helped the final push to devolve all Cornish libraries to local communities. Devolving assets and services to the community that will be most affected is important, but things move slowly. This has always been a frustration to Edwina, but she was not a person who ever gave up and usually found a way.

Edwina was voted in as group leader of the Lib Dem group of 13 at a time when they were feeling defeated as the Conservatives swept to power in 2021. She worked to rebuild the “family”, steady the ship, and get them into a position to fight back. She handed the reins over to her new group leader colleague Colin Martin who is now taking up the challenge with a strong team ethos. She worked hard to build consensus and collaboration in a political arena that could be brutal. She never forgot her grounding values and was respected for this across the chamber. Attack the record and policies not the person.

Edwina was recognised for her work on a bespoke climate change decision-making wheel that attracted national and international interest on how Cornwall Council was linking climate change with restoring nature in all its decisions. This culminated in winning the Municipal Journal award for outstanding work on Climate Change at a glittering event in London in front of all local authorities across the UK in 2021. This was truly a great achievement.

In the end her friends and family were the most important things to her. She always said she was blessed with having such kind and supportive friends. They had fun “out out” days and parties and socialising while rallying around each other when times were tough, especially in lockdown.

She did love to organise things. So, with her best friend Sheila in the early 2000s, she organised charity fashion shows that showcased local clothes shops, beauty salons and hairdressers. Together they cajoled people to take part, raising over £2000 over several annual shows.

Edwina with Billy Martin and a small group started the first Looe Music Festival (Making Waves) and again in 2018 and 2019 with Looe Saves the Day and Looe Live. Again bringing the community together in a festival of music from scratch.

The love of her life was Simon her husband, she could not have wanted for a better husband, he was always on her side, making her feel like a princess, loved and cared for. Her niece Abi and great niece and nephews were her pride and joy. She was so proud of her niece in particular who has weathered such tragedy in her own life but remains the best mum a child could want. Abi is dedicated to her family despite at times being dog tired. Edwina was so proud that Abi treated her as a second Mum throughout her life, she considered this such an honour.

Edwina was dedicated, a good communicator, put others first and would never give up. She was creative in thought as well as in her art and of course had an abiding passion for Looe.