As you know, Area Meeting used some of Hugh and Joyce Mellor’s legacy to buy a house in High Wycombe to be used by Wycombe Refugee Partnership as short-term temporary accommodation for refugee families. The house has been named Mellor House in their memory.
It is also a memorial to our Friend, Rachel Ashton, who was one of the five people on the steering committee which managed the purchase and made decisions about the renovations. As Treasurer, Rachel had to steer us through some astonishingly complicated bureaucracy. She worked through it with verve and commitment, right up to the last minute. She and I organised the open afternoon at Mellor House which was held last November: she was excited about putting that on and drove over the day before with mugs which she had borrowed from Jordans, but sadly she never made it to the event itself as that day was when her illness finally laid her low. Mellor House was her glorious swan song.
The first refugee tenants of Mellor House will be moving in on 25th May. The family consists of a Middle Eastern woman, her 13-year-old daughter and her 8-year-old son. They have fled horrific violence at home – I can’t say more than that for reasons of confidentiality. We look forward to helping them rebuild their lives.
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