05/03/2025
ONE OF MITCHAMS UNSUNG HEROES
Last Monday 3rd March was the funeral and cremation of Mrs Doris Elizabeth Matheson. Doris came from Guyana and settled in the UK in the 1950’s.
We honour her life in this post because she was a woman of courage and resilience, having lost her husband at an early age and having to bring up three children on her own.
Doris was our longest serving Volunteer having become a member of AECHO (African Educational Cultural Health Organisation) when it was formed in 2003. She was very much a part of the early developmental stages of the organisation, offering her home as a temporary office for their work. She must have helped stuff hundreds of envelopes, pre- email and WhatsApp time and helped organise countless events which were held to bring together of Merton’s minority ethnic communities and the wider very diverse communities in Merton.
She later became a part of BAME VOICE and helped in setting it up in 2016 and again took part in all of its events and projects. She learned how to drum, got to know the human body, how to manage various illnesses through numerous health and wellness projects, art and craft and the history of the UK and its former colonies, through the Black History Month events.
When she sadly fell ill and had to have a leg amputated there was some initial concern about how she would manage her condition but that was when her bravery and strength of character became evident to all.
Whizzing along the streets of Mitcham in her electric wheelchair, she was a force to be reckoned with. She became well known not only in Mitcham but in Tooting Broadway, an area she ventured into on many occasions. In Mitcham, she often stopped and chatted to people she met from earlier times, she was well known to the shops there, doing her own shopping either at the former Morrisons and Farm Foods or buying cards and other things from the traders in the market.
Up until the time of her recent illness, Doris would still do our postings, buy goods we needed and popped into Vestry Hall to see how we were getting on.
We will miss her kindness, her concern for our organisations and her great joy in being a part of the work we do in Merton. Above all we will remember with great respect her Christian faith which underlaid all she did
Her funeral was attended by the MP for Mitcham & Morden, Dame Siobhain McDonagh, Councillors Edith Macauley MBE, Joan Henry, Agatha Akyigyina OBE, her friends from Guyana, her church family at St Marks in Mitcham, Mitcham Parish Church and many others.
Doris is survived by her three children, Roxanne Denise, Carol and Nigel, eight grandchildren and five great grandchildren.
We pray she rests in Peace.
Hannah Neale
