We said goodbye to my mother in a moving non religious ceremony at Glynne Valley crematorium, Bodmin, Cornwall last Wednesday.

The view from the picture window across a wooded valley to the distant edge of Bodmin Moor and it’s patchwork of purple heather, was a reminder of how beautiful, green and lush England is in autumn. It was a fitting location for Dad, Angela, Princesa (Mum & Dad’s Spanish dog), friends, relatives and I to say goodbye to a woman renowned for her beauty, hard work and kindness.

Mum did not have much luck when it came to illness, she spent a significant portion of my lifetime in and out of hospitals coping with arthritis and the serious side effects of the drugs used to treat it, but I never once heard her complain about the pain It is, therefore, some comfort to know that she no longer has to put up with that debilitating pain.

In our travels around South Africa we have encountered a number of Afrikaners who, when they realise we are English (that doesn’t take long!) have pointed out that their great grandfathers married English women. When we enquire as to why they would have married women from a country that they were fighting and hated, they reply that English women were renowned for their physical and mental strength, their ability to work hard, their composure under great privation and their unswerving loyalty.

My mother came from that same stock, I will miss her.