Obituary - June Greaves 1964-2002
Author: Pamela Milward
From Issue 42 Jul 2002
Those of you who know June Greaves will be sad to hear of her death from Liver cancer. She knew this was terminal but the end came very suddenly and was peaceful. June was a very special person whom many will have met at shows with her mother Christine.
June had been completely blind from birth and also deaf since about the age of 4, though some were unaware of this as she was able to hear with her hearing aid. She had suffered many years of illness and was in a wheelchair but had a very keen mind, read rapidly in Braille , was an excellent knitter of complicated designs from the patterns Chris copied into Braille for her and lately had enjoyed her computer. June judged the pets class at several shows and would like to have become full judge but of course was unable to do so as she couldn't see the colours, although in some extraordinary way she seemed to know and recognise these.
She could see with her hands more than many sighted people could with their eyes and was an expert at sexing baby hamsters!
She use to both show and breed her hamsters but a few years ago gave up as they were becoming too much of a tie but when they had just started to build up a new stud when the Papova Virus struck and she had to have all her hamsters put to sleep.
She will be greatly missed and I am sure everyone would like to express their deepest sympathy to Christine. Those of us who were her friends felt it was a privilege to have known her.