Over the course of her life, my mother Chloë Blackburn, who has died aged 93, helped hundreds of people through difficult times. She was a fount of tea, wine, sympathy and solutions, to friends, relatives and acquaintances. “There is so much to celebrate in the joy of knowing Chloë,” wrote one correspondent soon after her death. “How to live life to the full, how to be gracious, and most of all, how to be kind!”
The daughter of Sir James Gunn, a noted painter, and his wife, Pauline (nee Miller), Chloë was born in London. She and her younger brother, Paul, had a childhood of adventure and travel – living in a succession of exciting locations (made possible by finding cheaper “end of lease” houses) – near-death encounters with scarlet fever and diphtheria, and wartime evacuation to a Scottish fishing village.
