We were offered a few short minutes to deliver some words during the funeral so I put together and presented this. Our dearest Gwen As we say our farewells we remember the love and the selfless devotion you showed to your family and to your friends. As a mother you’ve were an inspiration, a shining light of guidance, who encouraged your children to pursue their dreams and aspirations. As a companion and friend you were a comfort, with an openhearted enthusiasm for life, and

It seems those thundery late July skies were not celebrations, but omens of an awful tragedy. My mother is gone. An active, fit woman for her age, she went down with a stomach bug which felled her in three days. It was very sudden, very unexpected. No-one, least of all her doctor, thought it was a fatal illness, just a minor stomach upset. The official cause was septicemia brought on by gastroenteritis. My father called me with the news and I caught the earliest flight back t