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| category | changed | comment_count | created | featured_image | images | ix | nid | original_author | path | title | type | uuid |
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| 8 | 2019-10-01T11:28:22.000Z | 0 | 2019-09-13T07:04:00.000Z | murielin her 20s.jpg | 40 | 56 | content/elsie-muriel-stokoe-1919-1976 | (Elsie) Muriel Stokoe 1919 - 1976 | article | d2a35af1-8d70-46b2-b648-09eafb47767d |
Muriel was born on 12 April 1919 in Dulwich, South London; she was the middle child of 3 with an older brother Geoffrey and a younger sister Irene. Her father, Sydney, was an analytical chemist and her mother, Katherine (known as Minnie), was a teacher. Muriel and Irene both went to James Alleyn's Girls (secondary) School in Dulwich where they excelled academically. Muriel had a talent for art and subsequently went to Goldsmiths Art College, London, in about 1938.
After War broke out in 1940 her family moved to Loughborough where she got a job as secretary to the Principal of Loughborough College. It was there that she met Stan Stokoe and they were married in July 1949. Their first child, Janet, was born in Feb 1950 and six months later Muriel sailed to Kenya to join Stan at the Duke of York School in Nairobi., Kenya. They lived there for 20 years and her other children Michael (1954) and Katherine (1957) were born during this period.
NB - see Muriel's "letters to Mother" and "Kenya, the early years" for an insight to her life in from 1950 to 1960, also "Bedtime story for Janet" for her childhood.
Muriel's life started to go wrong in the early 1960s when she had a nervous breakdown and was admitted to Winterton Psychiatric hospital in Sedgefield, County Durham. She was very unhappy: having to remain there while the rest of the family went back to Kenya. She was given ECT treatment which was both frightening and ineffective and between hospital stays she lived with her in-laws in Tursdale who were not very sympathetic to her condition and often told her to 'pull herself together', comparing her illness to Stan's spine operation which he recovered from in 1952. She was in and out of hospital for about 2 years but never fully recovered, not helped by her subsequent addiction to the barbiturate drugs which were prescribed for her during this period. It is not clear what caused her breakdown and subsequent affliction with anxiety and depression; there were probably multiple causes one of which might have been the arrival in Kenya of her sister Irene, with her 2 small children, and the impact this had on her marriage. Irene and her husband Gordon (and his mother) - The Smithes - arrived after a trip from South Africa and stayed for nearly 2 years (although Gordon and his mother returned to the UK after a few weeks)
When Muriel returned to Kenya in 1963 the the family had moved to Kericho and all her children were away at boarding school. She also became something of a 'golf widow' as Stan spent most of his evenings at the Club and she rarely went with him as she was afraid to drink alcohol because of the barbiturates she was still taking. She did get involved in the amateur dramatic activity in Kericho and helped with set painting, costumes and make up but she really lived for the school holidays. When the decision was made to move the children to schools in the UK in 1969 Muriel decided to stay in England with them and Stan set up a home for the whole family at Hengar Manor in Cornwall, where the Smithes were now living. Muriel and the family did have regular holidays in Kenya - at Kericho and the Coast - until her death.
It was in 1976 while on holiday in Kenya (in Machakos) with Janet, Kathy and Nick, that Muriel fell ill with what seemed like a stroke, she lost movement and co-ordination down one side, and her short term memory was affected. She was diagnosed with a cyst on the brain by an African doctor in Nairobi - Dr Washow, so she remained in Machakos to wait for an operation while the rest of the family returned to the UK. The operation was performed in Nairobi in October 1976 but Muriel never came out of hospital; although the cyst was successfully removed, a few days later she developed a blood clot and died of a pulmonary embolism. She was cremated in Nairobi with only Stan and close family friend, Molly Cawley in attendance. It was too costly to bring all the children back to Nairobi for the funeral.
The saddest postscript to Muriel's death is the possibility that her mental illness might have some connection with the cyst growing on her brain (it was apparently quite large when removed), none of her doctors ever looked for a physical cause to her illness, her only treatment was strong medication - barbiturates, anti depressants (including valium, temazepam), and she was also treated for high blood. pressure.
She was only 57 when she died.