Celia Storey, 88 years

Steep, 7th October 2026

It is not just an immense privilege but also a challenge to dare to speak into such a vibrant and interesting life as Celia’s. When I asked David about what we should say of her, he felt that she would want us to focus on the present and the future, rather than the past – praying for those with us today, rather than dwelling over-much on Celia’s own life.

Gathered here to say our farewells to her, our hearts full as we come to give thanks for all that was good in her life. There is of course, so much to remember, upon which to reflect. Celia was not just a friend but an encourager and an inspiration to many that she knew and met along the way of her well-lived life.

The fascinating time-line of her life was prepared by Celia herself – part of a writing exercise for her, but for which we are so grateful. She herself has picked out salient events, features and experiences – times and people and places that shaped her and influenced her.

As you may have gleaned, God’s people and God’s places were prominent in her life from the start. Her story begins beside a church and her earliest memory of worship is at the age of three, when the family lived next to the church on the edge of Llangorse Lake in Breconshire. In his room, David has a lovely painting of the scene that she painted. Church was woven into her childhood: matins on Sundays, chapel at school. Her intrigue about faith and her challenge of the standard presentation of it began young – in a confirmation class she was deeply dissatisfied when she asked a question about other faiths and was told she needn't learn about them. She wrote that she knew that was wrong. That was Celia all her life, curious and open-hearted, and unwilling to close a door that God might be standing behind.

Many of you knew her as a force of nature, and as a wonderful listener. She had very little filter, especially as she grew older, and a great sense of humour. She put it down to the Yorkshire blood in her.

She and David were married in October 1965, and what a partnership it was. David has said that he was always running to catch up with her. They not only shared interests and causes but also gave each other room to do the things they loved – a rare and generous kind of love. Together they shared a family life in Sussex, then Oxfordshire and later here in Steep. Mike and Lynette, you were brought up in a home that was full of people, ideas and food.

Celia grew free-range children. They had the run of the village and the downs. The rules were few: simply be back for mealtimes. No wonder friends and cousins loved coming to your house, and that there were always extra children round the table.

The children got the message from Celia that they could never really do anything wrong. They received disapproval rather than discipline, which was somehow far more effective. Always, when they needed her, she was there.

Food and the garden were close to her heart throughout her life even until the last few years. She was a mainstay of the church flower organisers and volunteers, and when the Steep Flower Show came round she dragooned and coached every child and grandchild within reach to contribute creatively to a range of classes.

Even back in the 1970s Celia was teaching wholefood and vegetarian cookery, long before it was fashionable, because she believed we should give our bodies the best ingredients. She would grow vegetables and keep chickens. She went on to lecture in wholefood cookery. And she loved to travel: for years before she met David she travelled on her own and with friends. She wrote a book called £50 in My Pocket about her adventures as she worked her way around the world. She blagged a Mini Cooper in America for example, to travel around promoting the new product, and spent time as a governess in Australia. Intrepid is an understatement – courageous, adventuresome, taking life in both hands. She continued to pursue her love of travel with David, including being welcomed warmly by people who they, and her father before them, had met and worked with.

Celia was a searcher. Her faith was lively, questioning and unafraid. She was moved by Billy Graham at Wembley as a schoolgirl. She and David were involved in parish life in Arundel, on the PCC, and became close friends with the vicar and his family. Later she explored meditation, was inspired by time at Findhorn with the family. In time, that curiosity took her round the world, helping to organise interfaith work with friends, from Europe to America to India, and building an office in Oxford so that people of different faiths could know and respect one another. Here in Steep we have known Celia as a committed member of the church family and the community, for a long time a lynch pin of the team producing the Parish Magazine. It is testament to Celia’s genuine searching for God that this belonging has sat alongside the fact that not everything about church life suited her.

She said honestly that she struggled with parts of the Creed, and that she preferred to stay silent where the words did not ring true for her. Yet she never stopped praying, and she never stopped belonging. She meditated each morning, asking, "Here I am, Lord, what would you like of me?" And she was glad, in these later years, to live next to this beautiful church, in a community she found open and caring. She wrote that God will speak to us if we would only listen. Celia listened. Perhaps that is partly why she was such a good listener to everyone else.

The poem that Mike read to us speaks of a weaver, and of dark threads and bright ones all being needed in the pattern. It’s an image Celia used herself. Her life was a rich one, with bright threads of laughter, friendship, travel and good food, and some darker ones too. In her last years she needed long-term nursing care following her serious stroke. We give thanks for all who looked after her so that she could keep her dignity to the end, with a smile on her face, love in her heart and laughter in her soul.

In our bible reading we find Thomas, known as the doubter, but ultimately seems to be one who often sees more clearly than others. He says to Jesus, "We do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" And Jesus answers, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." Celia spent her whole life looking for the way, and she did not look alone. She asked questions, she listened, she welcomed everyone. We trust that she is now at home in her Father's house, where there are many dwelling places, as she always believed there were.

So we say thank you, Celia: for your listening ear, for the laughter, for being an embodiment of God’s generous and open arms of grace, for the doors you kept open, and for the love you gave so freely. As we know she would have wanted, we pray for David, their family and all those she loved, and for everyone who misses her deeply today, and for all of us that our journeys continue to be enriched and inspired by Celia’s memory and example.

We are bold to pray that she may rest in peace and rise in glory.

Amen.