A TRIBUTE TO ISABEL SANDERSON, Ph.D 1908-1987

I have a favourite memory of Isabel. Many years ago the Hampshire Field Club advised its members that a Dr. I. Sanderson would explain the results of iron-age excavations at Abbotstone, at their meeting held in Winchester. This was a subject which interested archeologists from a wide field.

Imagine their astonishment when, into the lecture hall, walked - not a bent, dessicated professor - but that healthy, rosy-cheeked countrywoman whom all who knew her admired, as did the audience when she had explained her subject with the firm certainty which was the hall-mark of her scholarship.

Isabel's series of books 'Dwellings in Alresford' are a heritage which few communities could rival, for they tell this and future generations, who lived where in the town and how their knowledge and skills served our District over the past three hundred years. She devoted her last years to that work.

But it is as an encouraging friend, though an exacting tutor, those of us who have produced this magazine over the last fourteen years specially remember her. It was typical of Isabel that she would not have a telephone in her house. If you needed her opinion or assistance you must take your work out to that cottage at the junction of lanes and tracks at Abbotstone which was known to travellers before Alresford existed. One came away knowing that one had been instructed in history at its source. Sadly, that experience is denied to our successors, who will envy our good fortune.

Digby Grist July 1987.