Laetitia’s years at Downe House were undoubtedly a turning point for her. She had a much older sister so was essentially brought up as an only child. After an unhappy spell at a prep school a long way from her Westmorland home, she discovered at Downe her gift for friendship which was one of the great joys of her life both then and in later life.

Laetitia had a boundlessly curious and open mind. Her life was full of Interest and friendship. She married the man she loved, without her parents’ approval. He was a doctor, and one of the first people to enter the liberated internment camp at Bergen-Belsen in 1945. He was indelibly impressed by the many drawings of butterflies that he saw on the walls of the inmates’ rooms which represented the souls of the murdered victims. He spent his remaining years embroidering fine tableaux of many varieties of butterflies.

Laetitia, nicknamed Sneeze at school, was one of a group of senior girls who sailed across the Atlantic in a liner in 1936 to visit New York City and the Niagara Falls. The accompanying member of staff suffered badly from seasickness so the girls, under strict instruction from the bedridden Miss Croft, were allowed out into the bright lights of New York City on their own!

Laetitia spent her final years in a nursing home, from age 99 to 105, and was as well-loved there as she had ever been. Despite becoming physically ever frailer, her mind was always interested in the people around her which drew them to her. She was laid to rest in Gloucestershire together with her beloved husband.

Her Epitaph reads: I thank my God upon every Remembrance.