Remember with a smile

Des & Meri Heath

Meeri Tuulikki Tynkkynen (Meri)
1929 – 2016

Eric Desmond Heath (Des)
1926 – 2025

From two very different worlds.
One extraordinary life together.

A life of sisu

Meri

Meri’s childhood

Meri was born one of four children in East Karelia, Finland. Like so many of her fellow Finns, she was born in a sauna, a warm and clean place that was ideal for giving birth. After her father died in a tunnelling explosion, and her mother, suffering from severe depression, was confined to an asylum, the children were separated. The two boys went to live with cousins; the two girls were taken in by ‘guardians’ and rather mistreated as labour on a farm.

When the Soviet Union invaded Finland during the Winter War of 1939, Meri as a 10-year-old orphan, along with approximately half a million people, were relocated to the remaining parts of Finland.

The tiny and mighty Finnish army pushed back in the Continuation War and regained their land. 260,000 of the displaced people, including Meri, returned to their beloved Karelia but their homecoming didn’t last. Defeat came again in 1944 when Finland was forced to concede Karelia to the Soviet Union, and once again Karelia was evacuated, never to be regained. Meri, now aged 15 years was displaced again.

Life was desperately hard for these displaced people, especially with no parents. One of Meri’s beloved older brothers died of pneumonia while working in the forest, aged just 18. She had memories of being warned they had 15 minutes notice to leave, waiting in the freezing cold for hours at the railway station and being on the train for several days. Her beloved cows being shot and the sky red with burning buildings so as to leave only ‘scorched earth’ for the Soviets who took their land.

ThatRemindsMe · Meri

Listen as Meri remembers

her childhood

A twenties something Meri

Like many displaced people, Meri left Finland in 1953 and went to London where she trained as a nurse and then a midwife.

She had to become fluent in English while building an entirely new life. She also became pregnant with her daughter Karina, by a Spanish man who she loved and lost. Despite everything, she won awards from her nurse training school and proudly gained her British citizenship.

Meri in photographs

A life of service and curiosity

Des

Des’s childhood

Des’s mother was one of 13 children, mostly girls, so although he was an only child, cousins continued to appear throughout his long life! Born in Liverpool, he was raised by his mother after she left his father – no easy thing for a single woman in the 1920s.

He was an adored child with many aunts. One childhood recollection was of standing with his mother in Deansgate Manchester to see King George V when he opened Manchester Central Library in 1934. Gaining a stepfather in later years, Des was raised mainly in the Manchester and Sale area and educated at Altrincham Grammar School.

A twenties something Des

Des was keen to join the RAF but got called instead to Military Intelligence. After undergoing intensive training in Derbyshire, Anglesey and India, which included learning Urdu, he was posted to Myanmar (then Burma) where he had to quickly learn the Burmese language. There he investigated Japanese war crimes and developed a lifelong love of Asia, and of Myanmar in particular.

After Burmese independence, Des left the army and studied Agriculture at Bangor University which included a one-year practical placement at Home Farm, Dunham Massey at a time of severe post-war food shortages. He went on to gain a post graduate degree in Tropical Agriculture from The University of Cambridge. This took him back to Asia, to the tea research stations of Assam for several years.

Des in photographs

From two very different worlds

Their life together

Meri – a strong, feisty Finnish woman known for her ‘Sisu’ (the Finnish spirit of stoic determination, grit, bravery, and resilience in the face of extreme adversity). A proper nurse, and homemaker, who was strict with a soft centre, unintentionally funny and still speaking with a strong and distinctive Finnish accent after decades in Britain.
Des – an English gentleman: highly intelligent, an amusing and elaborate storyteller, gardener, cook, artist and magician. With his military intelligence background and later career as a tea-growing specialist, he was thought by some to be part David Niven character, part spy!

Each was a parent of three and grandparent of seven; Des also lived to become a great grandfather of two.

Coming from two very different worlds, theirs was an unlikely meeting of minds and cultures, yet they found each other and built a life together. For more than five decades they travelled to every corner of this beautiful planet, exploring with passion and curiosity and making lifelong friends of people of every creed and colour along the way.

Since their marriage in 1962, they lived, loved and fought together, sharing a remarkable life filled with adventure, curiosity and an enduring sense of wonder.

They were very different characters, with strong opinions and strong wills, and life between them was not always easy. But beneath the disagreements was a deep bond that endured throughout their marriage.

Marriage

After Meri and Des met in London and a whirlwind romance, the couple married at the Finnish Church in London. They moved to Surrey where Des worked in agrochemicals. Des adopted Karina and along came two sons Christopher and Timothy.

Life and work ‘Up North’

In 1970 the family moved to the pretty and affluent village of Prestbury, Cheshire and Meri and Des remained in this village until their quiet deaths, at the ages of 86 and 99.

Their home became the constant around which their extraordinary lives revolved: a place to return to after each adventure, and a place where family and friends were always welcomed.

Meri was a hardworking and immensely proud nurse, firstly at Stockport Infirmary and then as a theatre sister at Macclesfield District General Hospital, specialising mainly in orthopaedics. She continued working, including emergency trauma call outs, beyond ‘official’ retirement age.

Meri dancing

Their letters

Des took on multiple agricultural work commissions, mostly acting as a tea advisor across Asia and often away for weeks at a time.

During these absences Meri and Des wrote to each other religiously, at least three times a week. Des sent news of local politics, agricultural crises and the activities of foreign diplomats. Meri replied with details of operating theatre dramas, updates from the vegetable plot and life at home where she was keeping three unruly teenage children under control with firmness and fairness.

Travel

Meri and Des had an insatiable curiosity about the world and an enormous appetite for adventure. Between them, there was scarcely a continent they didn’t explore. Meri was fiercely proud of being a Brit and a Finn. Most years she travelled back to her beloved Finland and, when Russia, 40 years after displacement, allowed occasional visits to family graves, she made an almost annual sad, nostalgic pilgrimage.

Having learned to ski almost as soon as she learned to walk, most years an Alpine ski holiday was taken. Des a non-skier, acted as chalet maid, serving up delicious meals for hungry skiers. However, as Meri’s bones became more frail, Finnish Lapland became an annual winter destination where she continued to gently ski into her late 70’s.

Meri started to accompany Des on his trips to Asia and would travel independently while he was working. She would think nothing of sharing a railway carriage across China with strangers, whilst drinking red wine and enjoying the views out of the window.

Asian river cruises, expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctica, railroading across Australia, and a road trip across South America were amongst some of their travel adventures. They were even among the first tourists into Cuba after it opened to international tourism. And they did it all without one of today’s great travel safety nets: the mobile phones.

Tytherington Leisure Club

After retirement, Meri transferred much of the energy she had given to hospital life into gym sessions at the Tytherington club where she continued to go until just weeks before her death at 86 years.

After Meri died, Des followed her example. Even when he was no longer able to manage the gym, he loved to sit in the bar or on the terrace at the club, something he continued to do until his 99th year.

Their life in photographs

Ten more years

Des after Meri

Des lived another 10 years after Meri died and the first years without her were particularly hard. He wrote his memoirs, moved into a more manageable house, entertained family and friends and remained heavily involved with the Military Intelligence Corps. He continued to live independently with help from wonderful care at home until three weeks before he died at Prestbury Beaumont Nursing Home.

He was reunited with Meri just 3 months before his 100th birthday. Their ashes are returned in the churchyard at Saint Peter’s Church Prestbury, with some of Meris’ also scattered in her motherland Finland.

One last adventure

Des’ swan song, just four months before he died, was to attend the 80th anniversary commemorations for Victory over Japan (VJ) at the National Memorial Arboretum where he sat with King Charles and Queen Camilla. The Conservative Party Leader, Kemi Badenoch shared a picture of him on her Twitter feed. After chatting with Queen Camilla he declared that they were best of friends!