Obituary

Valerie Dean (née Slater) was born on 28 June 1947 and spent most of her early years in Huddersfield, where she attended Huddersfield Grammar School for Girls. She went up to St Anne’s in 1966 to read English and immediately met Roger. They married shortly after finals, in 1969, and stayed in Oxford to take Certificates in Education.

They then spent a year in central Sicily, teaching highly intelligent poor boys from the Province of Palermo. After a brief period at schools in Kirkby, near Liverpool, they settled in Stevenage where Alexandra and Paul were born. Valerie taught English there in a secondary school and at Stevenage College; she also marked and moderated English examinations, including English for a Foreign Language. In 1980 the family moved to Brussels, where Laura was born shortly afterwards. Valerie taught English, mainly as a foreign language, privately, in one of the European Schools and in the European Commission. She loved the opportunities for travel from Brussels and its internationalism and multi-lingual atmosphere, a period sadly marred by the death of Alexandra. She took up painting with a number of teachers and had successful solo exhibitions, both locally and in the European Commission.

On returning to England in 2007, she continued to exhibit her work, in Rochester, elsewhere in Kent and occasionally in London. She also became involved in working with the visually impaired and with local foodbanks. Towards the end of her life, she was becoming increasingly involved in the life of Rochester Cathedral. She died very suddenly on 14 January 2025.