Val Hougham

Dear Tony, Rebecca and Nicholas, so sorry to hear about your great loss. Sending you my sincere condolences. I'm thankful for the year I lived with you as part of your family. Val was a lovely and hospitable person and a great mum and wife. Love and blessings to you all.

An amazing musician, teacher and human being. Thank you everything you did for our daughter, you shall be greatly missed.

Sending my deepest condolences to Val's family. I only recently had the opportunity to work with Val and experience her great work and legacy with the Essex String Quartet.

Thanks Val for colouring my life for many years, we’ve had some fun and laughed many times, I will remember you for those times. Much love to Tony and your family x

Mrs Hougham was an amazing teacher, I never thought I would ever be able too learn the violin as quickly as I did,yet, because of her dedication and outstanding teaching skills I am ready to take my grade 1 after only 1 year. I am extremely grateful for my year with her. Sincere condolences to her family. She will be greatly missed.

Very sorry to hear this. Condolences to family and friends. Val will be much missed.

Sending heartfelt condolences and thoughts to Tony and family. Val was incredibly welcoming when I joined Essex, especially as part of the Mentor team, which she really believed in and built great relationships with tutors, always seeking to draw out of them the best. I learned more about her when she had to reinterview for semi-retirement - but more so bumping into her in daily life - in the street once, at concerts or at the station - rarely have I met someone for whom music, the possibilities and joys of music, is so intrinsically part of them alongside such boundless gentleness and care. Everyone who has met her will have grown from catching her contagious kindness - she will be missed hugely, and will be remembered fondly and with joy.

Sending my warmest and deepest sympathies to Val’s family, her colleagues and friends. I first met Val socially in the 1990s through mutual friends some years before I joined EMS. We subsequently enjoyed chatting at training days in between our paths very occasionally crossing at parties/music events and in the course of her teaching violin to young people I was giving singing lessons to. Val mentored me for a while also. To receive such a positive appraisal from her was not only reassuring but greatly inspiring. A lovely lady who will be much missed.