A very warm welcome to the second of my tributes to departed relatives. You will have noticed that I’ve run out of parents now, so I hope that this will be the last eulogy I will be giving for a while.

The French have an expression, l’esprit de l’escalier which literally translates as “staircase wit”. This refers to the moment you are going downstairs after an interview, argument, talk or eulogy, when you suddenly remember or think of what you really wanted to say – that clever riposte to an argument, that apology you should have made etcetera. Lest, then, that I should forget to mention them later, I would like to start today by saying some thank yous that I know mum would have wanted to say had she been able to. Firstly, thank you to all of you for coming today; you are here because mum meant something to you, but you meant just as much to her. Thank you to all of you for the support and care you have shown to mum, particularly in this last year since dad died. Thank you especially to mum’s lovely neighbour of over 50 years, Viv, our third sibling growing up, and her husband John, for always keeping an eye on mum and dad. Thank you to Cherri, who looked after so much more than mum’s hair. Thank you to Loreen for the beautiful flowers today, to Barry for the service. Andy, Thank you for the Music, and thank you for letting me get an Abba quote in. Particular thanks, though, to my nephew Thomas who has been living with mum since April; Thomas, you were a source of joy to Grandma, and a source of comfort to her in some dark moments; she said more than once she didn’t know what she would do without you, so, from all of us, thank you.

I knew that my sister Jo wanted to read a poem today, and I did start looking around for something that might be suitable in case Jo hadn’t found one. I came across a book of poems amongst mum’s papers at Green Farm and happened upon one entitled “My funeral” by Wendy Cope. Ah, I thought, this looks promising, but then I started to read it and thought otherwise, opening as it does rather brutally with the line “I hope I can trust you, friends, not use our relationship As an excuse for an unsolicited ego-trip”. However, a little further on, another line caught my eye, “If you are asked to talk about me for five minutes, please do not go on for eight”, and so I thought I had better heed that. I have, therefore, no more than five minutes to capture the person that mum was. Those five minutes, by the way, and just in case anyone is keeping an eye on the time, start now.

There is beauty in grief, a joyful sorrow, or a sorrowful joy, if you’ll pardon the oxymorons. That beauty may be hard to grasp, until you realise that the person you are mourning lived that beauty, the beauty of human decency. I say I have five minutes to capture the person that mum was, but I don’t need that long. Mum, quite simply, was love. Love emanated from her like an aura. The unconditional, unbending love she had for her four children, her love for her grandchildren, for her great grandchildren. The love she had for Chantry and this community. The love for her friends. The love she had for this very building in which we are today. Her love for animals, whether pets or others – I still remember her weeping for dead sheep, and one of my earliest memories was of mum sitting overnight wrapped in a blanket on the front porch of our house in Mells, comforting her dying horse, Bracken, refusing to let her die alone. Less comprehensibly, perhaps, mum’s love for Sainsbury’s in Frome, and I did sometimes wonder if she thought she was, by

shopping there, supporting some worthy charity, as charitable giving featured heavily in mum’s life.

I recall years ago stumbling for the first time upon the sitcom “Keeping up Appearances” and seeing the gloriously named Hyacinth Bucket and thinking, “Oh good lord – it’s mum!” I don’t mean that with any sense of unkindness, as Hyacinth was, of course, also a woman with a heart of gold who would do anything for anyone. The similarities between mum and Hyacinth don’t end there. They were both always determined to look their best, no matter the task in hand. Viv was telling me just the other day of how she remembered seeing mum wading through mud, straw and sheep muck at Green Farm, but still with her hair pristinely permed, wearing make up and immaculately dressed, wellington boots notwithstanding. For mum, standards mattered; they showed respect for oneself, respect for others.

Like all of us, perhaps, mum needed to feel needed. That is why she loved motherhood so much. That is why she started her career as a nurse, although in later life it was her work as a teaching assistant at Upton Noble Primary School and then as a Governor at Mells Church of England First School that brought her great joy and satisfaction; it is, perhaps, no great surprise that all four of her children ended up in careers connected to education. This community here in Chantry, particularly this Church, continued to give mum purpose right up to the end of her life, and we thank you for that.

I started today with some thank yous. I would like, then, to end with a final thank you. Val, Valerie, Mrs Rawlins, Grandma, Mum, thank you. Thank you for the generosity, the guidance, the support, but most of all, thank you for the love.