Dr Monica Jalloq

It is with sadness that we announce the death of Dr Monica Colebrook Jalloq, aged 86, formerly of Llangorwen, Aberystwyth, who passed away peacefully with family around her on 1st August. Wife to Mo, mum to Shareef and Mariam, granny to Cooper and Rocky, and sister to Rosemary and Jonathan.

Monica was born in Kampala on 22 August 1939, to Daisy Irene Colebrook Taylor and Dr Thomas Hugh Colebrook Taylor, a prominent British entomologist then researching cotton pests in Uganda. The family returned to the UK in 1944.

Monica read botany at St Anne’s College, Oxford before completing a PhD at Liverpool University where she conducted research on the spread of Spartina, an invasive grass, in the Dee Estuary, work later published in the Journal of Ecology.

Following her time in Liverpool, she moved to Aberystwyth where she initially joined the Agricultural Botany department of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, before moving on to become a research assistant at the College of Librarianship Wales, where she specialised in statistics. After CLW Monica moved to the Careers Department at the University where she spent the rest of her career, eventually becoming Director of the service. Alongside her work at the University, Monica served as a governor of Penglais Secondary School, later becoming Chair of governors.

Monica met her husband, Mohammad Jalloq, in Aberystwyth. Mo had grown up in Amman, Jordan, and came to Aberystwyth on a British Council scholarship to study mathematics. He later went on to work for the Computer Unit at the University. In the mid 1970s they bought a plot of land in Clarach and began work on the family home. The house, which they named Dorchester, became a lifelong project and many friends, colleagues and family members helped over the years.  The children, arriving in 1978 and 1980, initially lived in the site caravan while the house was still being built.

After retiring from University life, Monica spent a number of years caring for Mo through a long illness before he passed away in 2018. By this time, her own dementia symptoms had started to progress and she moved to Cambridge in December 2019 to be close to her son, Shareef. Monica loved being close to her grandchildren but always missed the hills of Wales and her seaside walks. She continued to live in Cambridge, visiting friends and family when she could, until a fall prompted a move into the nursing home where she was cared for in her last years.

A service will be held in Cambridge on Tuesday 8th September at 10:30am with a follow-up memorial service in Aberystwyth at a later date. If you would like to attend either service, or would like to share any photos or memories from her life, please get in touch with the family via the email address, monica@jalloq.co.uk.