Mrs Robyn Hersey.
SEAVIEW Regatta stalwart, retired PE teacher and former village postwoman Robyn Hersey has died at Woodside Hall nursing home, Wootton. She was 70.
Born in Colchester, Essex, she came to the Island in 1949, when her father took up the post of head herdsman at a farm in Mottistone.
She went to Bishop Lovett Secondary School, Ryde, before moving to The Fairway Secondary Modern School, Sandown, before attending catering college in Portsmouth.
Mrs Hersey had a lifelong passion for athletics. As a teenager, she was Hampshire county hurdles champion and represented the county.
She began athletics coaching at Ryde High School in 1970, when her children were involved in the sport, and was subsequently encouraged to begin her long career by the inspirational head of girls’ PE, Isobel Phillips.
She later taught PE at Bembridge School, retiring when Bembridge and Ryde schools combined.
Mrs Hersey was a qualified British athletics club coach, specialising in high jump and sprint disciplines, although she would also coach any technical discipline her athletes wanted to pursue.
She was a qualified UK Athletics level two regional technical field events official.
She officiated at southern athletic events, at the Island Games and also at the English Schools’ Championships over a number of years.
Mrs Hersey always enjoyed serving as an official at the annual Combined Services competition in Portsmouth and in May 2002, at the county championships, she was awarded the Sinfield Trophy for her services to sport and her support of Hampshire athletics.
Mrs Hersey was a member of Seaview Regatta Committee and was former regatta president. She enthusiastically ran the regatta tug-of-war competition for many years, in which teams tugged for the Hersey Shield, presented by her husband, county councillor Alan Hersey, who died in 1999.
They married at St Peter’s Church, Seaview, in 1956.
Mrs Hersey is survived by her sister, her four children, eight grandchildren and one-year-old great grandchild.
She died at the nursing home on Wednesday last week and the funeral service will be held at St Peter’s at 10.15am on Monday, followed by committal at the IW Crematorium at 11.15am.
Flowers and/or donations to the Earl Mountbatten Hospice should be sent to William Hall funeral directors, Newchurch.
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