SKENE, (Karen) Prudence Patricia, CBE, 1944 - 2025

[S R Eglesfield]

A probate notice in the Hounslow edition of the Chronicle and Informer local newspaper of 15 October 2025 shows that (Karen) Prudence Patricia ("Prue") SKENE, CBE died on 5 March 2025. She was an arts administrator who ran the Ballet Rambert, and was born on 9 January 1944 as the second child of Robert Worboys SKENE (20 V 1908 - 15 IV 1988) and his wife (married 1937), Phyllis Monica LANGLEY (24 XI 1912 - 15 V 1982). She was the second wife (married 12 IX 1986) of Brian Henry WRAY (1939 - 26 VI 2002), and more recently the partner of the actor Michael Vivian Fyfe PENNINGTON (born 7 VI 1943).

 

She had three siblings. The youngest, her only brother (Robert) Douglas Flockhart Carlisle SKENE (8 IV 1947 - 27 IX 2007) was the first husband (marriage registered Q1 1973 - Chippenham) of Judy Violet Ella SHOWERS (born 1 IX 1949), daughter of Col Lionel James Gaselee SHOWERS, DSO (14 VIII 1904 - 1977) and his wife (married 12 VI 1944), Elizabeth Mabel BARNE (18 X 1911 - 13 VI 2000), of that landed gentry (LG) family. Col Showers was himself the son of Lt-Col Herbert Lionel Jerwood SHOWERS, CIE (16 VI 1861 - 2 II 1916) and his wife (married 7 VII 1903), Christian STIRLING (14 I 1879 - 1979?), of that LG family, of Garden, Port of Menteith, Stirlingshire. Mrs Judy Skene, née Showers, was married secondly, in 2010, to (as his second wife) the Hon John Hugo Trenchard RUSSELL (born 13 X 1950), the younger son of the 3rd Baron Ampthill.

 

Her eldest sister, Frances Sarah Elizabeth SKENE (born 1942), was married, firstly (registered Q1 1966 - Kensington), to David Stuart BLACK, and secondly, in 1975 (divorced 1989), to (as the second of his three wives) the 7th Baron Wolverton. Her youngest sister, Lucy Stephanie SKENE (birth registered Q1 1946 - Pancras), is the wife (married 7 II 1967) of John Seymour Dudley ("Johnny") MADDEN (born 22 IX 1939), head of that landed gentry family, of Hilton Park, Clones, County Monaghan.