Mum's funeral

Mum's obituary made the Leicester Mercury, in proper print and everything. With a Kibworth Chronicle spread on the way soon, and already featured in The Harborough Mail, she's had pretty good coverage all round.

Her funeral was a resounding success. A tribute to the work put in over the last two weeks by Jude, Hev and myself, we had an astonishing turnout. Standing at the podium you could see it was standing room only at the back, so well over a hundred, maybe 120 people had come to see Mum off. From Pat and Lynn in Montrose and Irene and Diana from Glenrothes on down. Smashing.

Shona gave a beautiful reading of the Laetitia Barbauld poem that had also been at Dad's funeral; Betty Byrne sang Loch Lomond; the congregation sang Auld Lang Syne; there were tributes read out by the Kibworth Chronicle, the High School, and the Gold Club; I did my bit about Mum's life; the celebrant covered everything else; and we went out to the sound of Dancing by Kylie Minogue. All Mum's choice, and all spot on.

That photo of Mum, taken on the staircase of Jude and Doug's house back in 2015, has certainly had good mileage, and I'm glad she chose it, to save us the bother of finding one more perfect. What we did find was boxes of old photos which went on the TV screen at the Golf Club and ran throughout the afternoon do. Of which I wish I'd taken more photographs. I really didn't capture how many people were there, only remembering to take pictures when it had thinned out slightly. So here are just a couple of classics from the big screen and snaps from the day.

There were so many people who've gone uncaptured by the camera, which is such a shame given the great history of getting people on film, which Mum & Dad achieved over the past 60 years.

This was further attested to at night when Pam (above) gave us a DVD of Mum & Dad's Hogmanay party from 1987-into-88 which featured dozens of people performing. A gem to treasure. Here, with the only glimpse of Pat & Lynn, is us all watching it.