People
Obituary - Lisette Beatriz Graziani
Lisette Graziani died peacefully aged 80 in St Helena Hospice on 5
December 2009.
A native of Brazil (Campinas, São Paulo State), Lisette graduated in
Anglo-Germanic studies from the University of São Paulo. In the early
1960s, she was teaching English language and literature as an Assistant
Lecturer at the same institution, and simultaneously at the prestigious
training college (‘Colégio de Aplicação’) of the Pontifícia Universidade
Católica. An inquisitive, adventurous spirit, she soon left home to
continue her studies, first in Urbana, Illinois, in the US, then
crossing the ocean for Bangor and Reading, in the UK.
Lisette arrived at Essex in 1967 to take up an instructorship (now
‘teaching fellowship’) in Portuguese in the then Language Centre, under
the directorship of the founding professor Peter Strevens. Full of
energy, enthusiasm, and zest for life, she played a major role in the
language training of several generations of students. She particularly
contributed to the then Preliminary Language Year, an 18-hour a week
1-year ab initio course geared to building the language foundation
necessary for entering the various branches of Latin American studies
already available at Essex, and also to the innovative Conversion
Course, designed to ‘recycle’ previous knowledge of Spanish into
Portuguese with less time expenditure. These activities were greatly
assisted by the three volumes of the language course she wrote (Encontro
com o português ‘Encounter with Portuguese’), which remains unpublished.
Lisette lived through the transformation of the Language Centre into the
present Department of Language and Linguistics, with the concomitant
shift of focus from almost exclusively language teaching onto
linguistics. She retired early as a Chief Instructor (now ‘Principal
Teaching Fellow/Senior Lecturer’) in 1983. From then on, she lived life
intensely, primarily devoting herself to her many friends and to the
upkeep and beautification of her house and garden, in both of which she
manifestly took considerable pride. An outgoing and generous
personality, she entertained often and engaged in a number of outside
social and cultural activities. She was also a keen traveller and got to
know parts of Europe and North Africa, besides her yearly visits to
family and old friends in Brazil.
Lisette had an early encounter with cancer in the early 2000s, but was
operated on successfully. Sadly, it returned after a number of years and
soon got worse. She put up a courageous fight, always keeping her
spirits high, without surrendering hope and successfully negotiating her
way through the nooks and crannies of various health systems. On my last
visit to her home, already more or less confined to an armchair, she
swiftly answered my query about her wellbeing with a firm and cheerful
tudo ótimo (‘everything absolutely fine!’). At some point later, she
decisively chipped in on my conversation to correct a Portuguese vowel I
had apparently mispronounced. A teacher and a communicator until the
very end, Lisette was, above all, a good and generous person. She will
be sorely missed by family and friends, indeed by the very many whose
path she crossed in whatever capacity in the course of her life.
Professor Ignacio ‘Iggy’ Roca, Department of Language
and Linguistics
Obituary - Brenda Corti
Brenda Corti, who died in January after a long illness, had worked in
the Department of Sociology for nearly 30 years from 1970 until 1999.
She came to Essex as a child when her parents took the Post Office at
Thorpe-le-Soken. After reading History at University College London, she
taught in London secondary modern schools.
Returning to Essex she first worked in Sociology as a Research Assistant
for Jane Marceau, and then went into department administration, ending
as Departmental Administrator. Very able, her responsibilities included
the timetable and collating exam results, but her main work was with
graduate students, especially those from overseas. Brenda had a gift for
friendship and listening, and she is remembered with affection as a
problem-solving `fairy godmother’ by students from around the world.
Throughout her life Brenda had wide cultural enthusiasms, including
music and films, art and architecture, and especially books. Brenda kept
her connection with the University after retirement, working as an
invigilator until last March. She had a special enthusiasm for oral
history, working with Paul Thompson as an interviewer and collator on
the pioneering Edwardians oral history project, and for 12 years acting
as Review Editor of Oral History. Since 2000 Brenda had worked on the
local `Remembering Wivenhoe’ and `Colne Maritime’ oral history community
projects, for which she was secretary and administrator as well as an
interviewer.
With her special warmth and intelligence, her empathy and enthusiasm,
she will be deeply missed by her family, her former students, staff and
by her many friends.
Michael Roper and Paul Thompson
Also in the printed February edition of Wyvern:
- Jo helps info flow
- Day Nursery raises money for Haiti
