OENONE All who knew her use the word lady. And Oenone Venetia Carew-O’Sullivan was truly a ‘gentlewoman’ – which is not to say that she was incapable of expressing strong feelings of disgust or indignation at aspects of this imperfect world of ours. But, to use a word she respected, her ‘nature’ was a gentle one: intrinsically good and kind, caring, intelligent, and liberally interested in all things. And by nurture too, here was a Lady (though titles meant little to her). Her parents were Sir Thomas and Lady Phyllis Carew of Haccombe in Devon, where the first of their two children, a daughter, was born in June 1929. She was given the name Venetia for its pleasant sound and associations, and Oenone also for sound and for classical associations – Oenone was wife of Paris, a nymph born on Mount Ida where the gods sequestered themselves during the Trojan War. Sir Thomas and Lady Carew valued classical learning and books. Oenone Venetia and her brother Rivers were beneficiaries of this, in more ways than one. Haccombe House, built in 1805 on the site of a much earlier manor-house is described in White’s Devonshire Directory of 1850 as “a large plain building, standing in a well wooded lawn at the bottom of a gradual descent, and near the church on the door of which two horseshoes were nailed, as the story goes, by a Carew who won a wager of a manor of land by swimming his horse further out to sea than his challenger”. Venetia was not a swimmer as I knew her, neither was she a horsewoman of note. But she had some of the independence and courage of that Carew ancestor, which spirit each of us witnessed, especially in her last years. Haccombe she would remember especially for its kitchen garden and the glass-house where her father grew plants from many parts of the world. Ten years after she was born, however, war came ; the house was occupied by a girls’ school evacuated for safety from Portsmouth. During that time Oenone Venetia attended that school, while the family lived in a large cottage nearby.. After the second world war her father decided they should move farther afield – to the West Indies. While Venetia did not take to the insect and especially the spider life, she loved the exotic plants, birds, and in particular the vibrant colours. And we all remember the woman who could surprise us on occasion, sometimes even shock us, by abandoning her usual black and appearing in her favourite brilliant red.