Sheila Stenning-Bennett

A memorial to a much-loved member

(photo supplied by Jeff Stenning)

Sheila in 1991 (photo supplied by Margaret Carlton)

Sheila in 2007 (photo supplied by Richard Stenning)

Sheila Stenning-Bennett

nee Luff

21st September 1927 - 20th September 2007

Fulani Women - click here for a sample of Sheila's writing

(mostly in her own words)

From an early age Sheila Stenning-Bennett always wanted to be a nurse. After finishing her training she worked in Britain, and then in 1952 joined her new husband, Derrick Stenning, and went to live for two years in a remote corner of Nigeria. She ran a clinic there and assisted him with his anthropological fieldwork, particularly recording for him information from the women. We have now published privately Sheila’s account of that time; her book is called Fulani Women. This is illustrated and runs to 200 pages; it is available at no profit to us or Sheila's estate through www.lulu.com. Or it can be downloaded free. Copies have been presented to key libraries including the School of African and Oriental Studies of London University, the six Copyright Libraries (which includes Cambridge and Oxford University Libraries) and the Cambridgeshire Library Service.

Derrick next took Sheila to Uganda where she taught African women to nurse sick children at home and examined these women for the certificate awarded by the Red Cross. Her other voluntary work was to go out on the mobile clinic run for children.

After the early death of her husband (in 1964), she took the certificate in Social Anthropology at Lucy Cavendish College in order to sort out her late husband’s many notes left from two field studies.

 As a single mother, she raised her two small sons, but remarried after eight years of widowhood. Subsequently she decided it had not been such a good idea and divorced.

 In the early 1980’s she qualified as a Blue Badge Guide for Cambridge and East Anglia. This was a much loved job because, she said, she was a bit of a prima donna.

She has been a long time member of Cambridge Writers and served as Chair a couple of times. She completed two works of fiction. Freedom is a 195-page novel that centres on expatriates in Uganda around the time of independence, and An Egg in the Hand, a 174-page green thriller about stealing golden eagle eggs. These are now available to interested readers from www.lulu.com or contact Jane via wilson.howarth@virgin.net.
 
Her articles have been published in the following:
  • The Canberra Times
  • The Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk Journals
  • The Lady
  • Cambridge University Centre Piece
  • Cambridge Pride Magazine
  • The Cambridge Insider
  • The Friends Quarterly (a Quaker publication)
  • Chesterton Local History Group Journal
  • Society of Cambridge Tourist Guides Newsletter (which she started)
  • She updated the Heritage Guides for Cambridge and has also given talks to various history societies.
 
Derrick J Stenning published his researches in book form in 1959 as Savannah Nomads: a study of the Wodaabe Pastoral Fulani of Western Bornu Province Northern Region, Nigeria. Oxford University Press / International African Institute 266pp; it was reprinted in 1969.

A Tribute to Sheila by Helen Culnane, Chair of Cambridge Writers

On 20th September 2007, just one day short of her eightieth birthday, Sheila passed away peacefully in her sleep at the Arthur Rank Hospice. She had not so much lost her long, always understated, battle against cancer as bowed gracefully to the inevitabe. Although a feisty and opinionated lady, Sheila was in all things gracious, albeit with a wicked chuckle. She exuded interest in everyone and everything and this was echoed in her writings, prose and poetry, published and unpublished, that ranged from Africa to local history and many areas between. At Cambridge Writers we appreciated her gentle, humorous and insightful contributions to our meetings: General, Poetry, Long and Short Prose; she attended all. In the course of many years she also organised outings for the group, helped with the poetry competition, served on the committee and could always be relied upon to charm others into doing their bit to help. It is clear from the nearly 200 people who attended her funeral that she was loved by innumerable people whose lives she had touched and we shall certainly miss her greatly.