Revd Bill has confirmed that the funeral of his wife, Theresa,  will be held at 1.30pm on Monday 20 January at St Mary the Virgin, Stotfold. 

The service will be livestreamed and also shown in the Church Hall where there will be additional seating. A recording will be available for 30 days.

To watch the service: Open your internet browser and enter this URL:

http://www.truecapturemedia.co.uk/20012025. Enter this password: cb5rhr.  Press play on the live stream player when broadcasting. The live stream will start 10 - 15 minutes before the service start time.

If you visit the church website, www.stotfoldchurch.org.uk,  you will find additional instructions for viewing the service and you can download an Order of Service.

Family flowers only please. Donations in Theresa’s memory can be made to the British Heart Foundation, which has helped halve the number of people dying from heart and circulatory disease in the UK through its research. 

Donations can be made using this link, http://bit.ly/4h9YF5j.

Theresa Britt Obituary 

Theresa Allen was born on the 9th of November 1959 at Amersham Hospital, the first daughter of Janice and Gordon Allen. Her mother was an infant school teacher and her father was a precision engineer who had a factory which made crankshafts for the motorsport and classic car industries.  She was joined 364 days later by a sister, Geraldine. They were close and loving sisters.

She grew up in Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire. They lived in a road full of other children and it was a very happy place for the girls. Janice took both the girls to Sunday School at the village church and that was the start of their Christian path.

She passed the 11 plus and went to Beaconsfield High School. By this time, the family had moved to Gerrards Cross.  Theresa was academic and had an interest in knowledge for its own sake and also had a range of interests and a love of the outdoors. She joined the Girl Guides and became a Queen’s guide. 

She did a degree in English Literature at Bristol University and made lasting friendships there. She fairly quickly decided that she wanted to do further study. She was awarded a prestigious Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship to study toward an MA at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, where she met Bill on the first day of classes in September 1982. 

After a year she returned to the UK. Bill visited and proposed in the summer of 1983. They were married at the Parish Church of Chalfont St Peter on the 10th of June 1984. 

 Theresa moved from London to Texarkana, which sits on the border of Texas and Arkansas. In 1986 they moved to St Louis, Missouri and two years later moved to England, having already bought a house they had never seen in a town they had never been to, Leighton Buzzard. They landed on their feet, finding a wonderful church family at All Saints. Tom was born in 1990, followed by Alex in 1992 and Hugh in 1996. 

Theresa was a caring and supportive wife and mother and with the help of her mother, juggled working part time first for British Standards Institute and then the Open University. 

 As the children grew up, Theresa and Bill moved into a new phase in their life. Bill felt the calling to become a Church of England minister and was ordained in 2011. Theresa also shared this calling and actively joined in his ministry. His curacy was in Kempston and Bill was installed as Vicar of Stotfold and Radwell on the 19th of January 2015. 

They were very much a team in their ministry. She helped with the baby and toddler group, youth group, Bible studies, care home services, hospitality, intercessions, visiting people and singing. 

 After 25 years at the Open University, in 2019 she retired as Head of Stakeholder Engagement within the Business Development Unit.

She returned to academic study and was awarded in 2021 a Postgraduate Diploma in Parish Church Studies, from with the University of York. 

 She was a Trustee of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Historic Churches Trust from 2019.   After a year as a member, in the last year of her life, she became chair of the Diocesan Advisory Committee for St Albans, which advises on the care and development of churches. 

 Theresa collapsed suddenly and died at home, on the night of Sunday 22 December, after watching a performance on television of Handel’s Messiah.

 She is survived by her husband of 40 years, sons Tom, and his fiancée, Marilyn and son Paul; Alex and his wife, Sophie; and Hugh and his fiancée, Fernanda; along with Theresa’s sister Geraldine and husband, Tim, and their children Jessica, Joshua and Bethan.