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Mary Pownall
and family
On 1st June 2022, we said our final farewells to our beloved Chris, comforted in
the knowledge that he had had a life well-lived and one blessed in his family
and his home.
Chris had an extraordinary ability to draw people to him. He had a great sense
of humour and a hugely inquisitive approach to life which helped him make
conversation with just about anyone, always able to find common ground. His
grandchildren adored him, and he was the central, steady point in all their
lives.
Chris started life at St Joseph’s as a boarder in 1955, demonstrating an early
confidence and independence of spirit having to leave his family behind in
Macclesfield. His parents, Arthur and Kathleen, were very eager for Chris and
his three siblings to gain a good education and to make full use of all the
opportunities it may provide them. Chris always spoke very fondly of his school
years and he deeply valued the friendships made in adolescence and sustained
into adulthood. Always so gregarious and sociable, he particularly enjoyed the
Old Boys’ reunions and the chance to catch up with old friends.
His years at St Joseph’s instilled a great love of learning in Chris. Even with
the advent of Google we called him the Family Encyclopaedia. If you tried to
catch him out by double checking some nugget of information he’d confidently
shared, he was invariably always right. He had a vast breadth and depth of
history. You wouldn’t really want to be on the wrong side of a debate with him,
although many tried! We shall so miss his shrewd advice, his wisdom and his
incredible warmth.
His curiosity and sense of adventure inspired his many interests – foremost of
these was his passion for rock climbing, formed in the Roaches and the Lake
District with friends from Macclesfield and Manchester University, and later the
French Alps. He introduced first myself and subsequently his three daughters and
grandchildren, to fell walking. We will always think of him in the hills.
In retirement he
enthusiastically took up bee keeping – even giving talks to local gardening
clubs and the W.I. He spent hours reading up on the subject – one which provided
the perfect combination of two great interests - science and nature.
It feels, in many ways, like Chris would last forever! He was such a vital
person and his death seems almost impossible, unthinkable. But he has also left
us with so very many happy memories, and a blueprint for his children and
grandchildren to continue in his footsteps – to live a full life, with family at
its heart, and with a fair number of unscaled Wainwrights to conquer. He will
always be with us.
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Stephen
Pownall, July 4 2022
Chris was my big brother. He was also a devoted husband to Mary, loving
father to Sarah, Eleanor and Catherine and Grandad to eight aged from 14 to
just turned 1. Chris was blessed with a fulfilled and happy life.
He was very comfortable in his own skin. He had the confidence and
conviction, which made him ‘firmly planted’ - in his faith, his family and
his home. He had that rare ability to speak to anyone and everyone on equal
terms. Perhaps this was a skill he started to learn when aged 2, he would
climb into the window of Mum’s fish and chip shop, a few streets from here.
With a twinkle in his blue eyes, he would call out to passing American GIs
“Would you come and buy some of my Mummy’s chips?”
The first of four children, Chris had a happy childhood and a loving family.
He was born here in Macclesfield and we lived just round the corner.
Following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, he started his
education at St Albans Primary School which in those days was just opposite
this church. As a boy Chris was always very creative. He held magic shows
and game shows in our backyard charging the local children a penny entrance
fee. This wasn’t always a commercial success, as they often demanded their
money back.
He would invent board games, which he made and painted, and we would play
them for hours, sometimes days on end. I always lost!
At the age of 11 he started at a boarding school run by the Christian
Brothers in Blackpool. He thoroughly enjoyed his time there and made some
lifelong friends. There were also a number of scrapes that the boarders got
up to. Stories involving custard in the grand piano are best left for
another time. There he fell in love with cricket and keenly followed the
Test Matches throughout his life.
He went on from there to Manchester University, taking a degree in
Chemistry. Here, he would stay up into the small hours with a close group of
friends, debating, and putting the world to rights. He followed his degree
with a PHD, dealing with the physical chemistry of flames - or as he used to
say “How to blow things up”.
But much more importantly the University was where he met Mary and was
welcomed into her loving family. Chris and Mary married in 1967. By 1979
they had three young daughters and Chris had established his career with
ICI, eventually becoming Sales and Export Manager for Latin America with
Astra Zeneca. Chris really loved his job. It gave him the opportunity to
meet new and interesting people, explore landscapes and to become fluent in
Spanish. He would regale his daughters with tales - meeting Fidel Castro in
Cuba, riding pillion in a pick-up across the Sierra looking out for banditos,
flying over the Amazon rainforest in a biplane and camping out with an
indigenous tribe.
But he always
came back to Kingsley, their home for nearly 40 years, ready to get stuck
into a new project in the house or garden. He was a very practical person.
His mother-in-law, Sadie, once said to Mary “He can turn his hand to
anything, your Chris.”
Mountaineering was also a hugely significant part of his life. A passion
discovered with rock climbing on the Roaches nearby. But after he saw the
Lakes, he never looked back. He knew every summit and could visually map
every landscape. He climbed, as he lived, steadily, taking in the view, feet
planted firmly on granite or grass. Mary told me how he was a stickler for
tightly fastened boots and would lovingly lace her boots and then, in turn,
each of his three daughters’, creaking the leather into submission.
Chris was a hugely hands-on Dad and Grandad, with a fantastic sense of fun
and adventure. The games he played with his girls, he repeated with his
grandchildren. Kingsley has always been the centre of family life – for
tractor rides, games of cricket, or bows and arrows. And he absolutely loved
a treasure hunt! To this day there are stashes of copper coins buried in
little mounds all over the summits of the Lake District, waiting to be
uncovered by following one of Chris’ intricately drawn maps. Indeed he never
lost his sense of fun. Even in very recent years, when the snow fell, he’d
telephone the girls at first light to bring the grandchildren sledging on
the field. “Come quickly!” he’d say, “it mightn’t last long and I’ve already
gone down twice!”
Chris was so incredibly proud of his daughters and devoted to his
grandchildren. He particularly loved watching them develop their own
individuality and always had so much time for them.
He read very widely. The bookshelves in Kingsley groan and bend with the
weight of his interests. He always had a book on the go.
After he retired he had time to devote to his hobbies of tracing the family
history, stamp collecting and gardening. The Family History we did together
researching online and spending hours at the Chester Record Office. Always
followed by a visit to the nearest pub for a pint of beer. He enjoyed
sampling Real Ales!
He always astonished me by his extensive general knowledge. The last trip we
made together was in October when we went around the Oxford Colleges and he
enthusiastically talked about the history behind the buildings and plaques.
Chris was a much-loved son, husband, father, grandad, uncle, friend and my
brother. He will leave, as one of his sisters said, “a huge, Christopher
shaped hole in all our lives” and will be so very much missed.” |
