Patricia AnnLOWNDESRemembering Patricia Lowndes who passed away peacefully on 17th March 2026.
Pat was born in Derby in 1937. She married David in 1957 and had two sons and a daughter in the sixties. She loved being a wife and mother, but she knew she could offer more. Pat had always wanted to work with children and began volunteering at the St. Luke's playgroup which strengthened her resolve. She returned to Wilmorton college as a mature student and gained her NNEB with distinction. After brief contracts in nurseries, she got a job with the Parks Department and set up and ran the first playgroup in the Arboretum in the mid-1970s. Her role grew to include running youth clubs, mother and toddler groups and eventually all areas of the community. As the community focus grew, the Parks Department became Leisure Services and Pat ran community centres all across Derby including Boulton Lane, Cotton Lane and St. Kitts, amongst others. She touched the lives of many young people, always with a smile and compassion and helped them grow and gain confidence. She took early retirement in the 1990s and then began a second career, fulfilling a lifelong ambition when she became the first manager of the workplace nursery at the then Derby City Hospital. She had input into the layout of the building, buying equipment and recruiting staff. She loved the challenge and loved the children in her care. Even after she retired for a second time, she continued to work at primary schools and nurseries on supply and when that finished she became a volunteer in the maternity unit of the Derby Royal, which continued until lockdown stopped those efforts. She was there when the volunteer team won a collective MBE, so joked she had 1/500th of one. In later years life was not kind. She lost her sons Jonathan and Andrew to cancer, but still carried on helping others through the tears until vascular dementia robbed her slowly of everything. The staff at Stanton Manor did an amazing job of taking care of her and the family are so very grateful for the love and kindness shown.
She is much loved and missed by daughter Alison, son-in-law Adrian, grandchildren Xanthe, Alexander, Torin and Kathryn and great-grandchildren Jordan, Adam, Astraea, Freyalise, Arthur, Jack, Harry and Dylan.
Her funeral is at Markeaton Crematorium (Round Chapel) on Thursday 30th April at 11.30 am.
If desired, donations in lieu of flowers will support The Woodland Trust and can be made online or given at the service.
All enquiries to
Central Co-op Funeral, Sinfin,
01332 271088
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