Confessions of a serial mower - Farewell our lovely
We bade farewell to our beloved "Lady Doctor" as she was known around here, today.
She was only 67, and had suffered with a brain tumour for the past four years.
She moved to Suffolk some 35 years ago, with her young family, having qualified in Glasgow and working in large cities in the North. She stemmed from a hugely academic and talented medical family. We were very lucky to get her. Suffolk was a dramatic move for her, and she came to settle in the large old Rectory in my village. We thought she would be too posh for us. How wrong we were.
Lady GP's were somewhat of a novelty then.She joined our practice on a part-time basis to do the "women's things" as it were. General Practitioners then were mainly middle class, middle aged, set in their ways, men. Our glamorous LD was a vision to behold. She wore stilettos - always; very tight short skirts and low cut tops.
Her hair piled high with bright glitzy flowery things, wafting perfume wherever she went. She liked a fag and a gin and tonic but not in her clinic!; her family, her patients, classical music, Italian art, the local harrier hunt, and a giggle.
She was a vision; glamorous to the very end.
Her first marriage failed and she had a new partner and husband in her latter years who was devoted to and utterly besotted with her, and who can blame him.
She suffered much tragedy, not least the death of her young daughter last year, also of a brain tumour.
The Church was filled to bursting and I stood outside with my boy, and his friends who had driven from all over the country this morning to be here to support her only son, their beloved friend. For the first time in his life I think, No 2 son was early - he rang me at 11.00 from the church to say there was no one there. Of course not, the funeral was at 1.00 p.m. He was two hours too soon. We laughed, he came up to the house for some food, before we all set off up the farm driveway to the church a second time.
He had been up since 5.00 am, to sort the Heiress out and get child care for her as daughter outlaw is in front of the cameras today on Branscombe Beach in Devon. You will recall that the MSC Napoli lost its cargo here and people looted it. Today, the Receiver of Wrecks hands back some of the looted goods to that poor woman who saw her goods being taken from a container. I digress. Someone at least was having a brighter day than us.
The birds sang in the trees, as we sang in the churchyard - the small flint St Andrews' church sardined with her family, never mind colleagues, friends and patients. We had the sound relayed out to us. An appreciation of her life was read out by one of her practice partners, he sobbed throughout. Rooks called, goslings squawked in the meadow next door,and babies babbled and grown men cried. Our retired vicar came back to officiate, as did the retired vicar before him. Everyone wanted to say farewell. A far too premature goodbye. A true country send off; of folks in black, folks in working clothes,nurses in uniform, girlies in short short skirts, and boys in ill fitting jackets and tight jeans. No frowns at this mismatch of motley crew today.
She would have loved it.
The bells rang out and Bach played on the tape machine - "Sleepers Awake" - and four pall bearers of varying heights struggled with her coffin, tilting at an alarming angle, on the uneven grass. A single wreath of red red roses, bobbing along on the top. All that was missing was the clip clip of her high heels.
She would have laughed.
Particularly as I stood in a very large pile of goose poo outside the lychgate.
Laugh,.. until I cried.
