'I hope you dance' was Jenny's choice for the period of Quiet Reflection during the service. You will find the words lower down this page

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These are Cassies words at her mums funeral:

For someone whose job has been words for so long, today, words are not enough. There’s nothing in language that can express the depths of our sorrow as a family, the extent of our loss or how much we miss Mum – Jenny – Dodo; my father’s wife of 44 years, Bob’s and my mother and Brooke’s grandmother.

Mum was the heart of our home; no matter what you’d done – and Bob and I did a lot as terrible teenagers – if you could make it back to Cherryfield, or High Trees or BlueHouse Lane, you’d be ok. That’s how Mum – and Dad – always made us feel; safe, loved, supported and cared for. 

Mum in particular had a gift for nurturing that made people warm to her; no wonder she was such a fine teacher of 1^st year school children, or foreign students. No wonder she took on charitable duties for Homestart, helping local families with small children.

Mum’s empathy meant she could always see her way through any problem or difficulty of mine, no matter how tricky or labyrinthine; she would make a cup of (very weak) tea and talk through worries and troubles. Sometimes she’d be the one to tell me to ‘get a grip’; oh, she always had advice – even when you didn’t necessarily want it, otherwise known in the family as ‘meddling’ – but she only got involved because she cared so much.

She cared about her body as well, becoming a vegetarian long before it was fashionable, not drinking or smoking, keeping herself fit by cycling miles on her beloved bike. Some people have said how unfair it is that she died from cancer when she’d always gone to such lengths to eat well; I see it that we had Mum for an extra 8 years after her first bout of cancer in 2003 because she was so healthy. We could so easily have lost her then.

Instead, she got to see her beloved Brooke born and grow up into a confident little girl; She went on incredible trips to Russia, the USA, Thailand and Europe; she spent hours with her close friends at lunches, dinners and ‘mystery tours’. She said before she died that she had no regrets about the life she’d lived – and because she’d always lived it to the full, we knew that was true.

Mum was never short of words and sometimes these could be heated; we all tried to avoid her when she was sulking – the classic sulk taking place in the middle of the Arizona desert when me, Dad and Mum were driving to Palm Springs. But she could be guaranteed to make us laugh, usually over her terrible joke telling and – during one memorable afternoon last summer – trying to teach her French exchange student Eleonore Cockney rhyming slang.

She was an avid film buff, and would regale us with the plots of movies she’d enjoyed (occasionally giving away a crucial ending – I never needed to see Thelma and Louise after she had); she loved texting us as well, and we would have endless ‘chats’ on text every evening. She cooked like a demon – especially at Christmas, when her feasts were legendary. We swapped books, clothes and make-up – she loved going shopping – and when she was ill, and refused a trip to the shops, I realised all that was slipping away from me, from us, and won’t ever be replaced.

She left us with the best gifts though – the capacity to love, to be kind, to look after those around us – as well as Bob’s and my left handedness, eye colour and springy hair, those are the best presents she could ever have given us. We all miss her so much, her laugh, her terrible jokes, her amazing cooking, her lengthy stories, her love. But somehow it’s here – she left us with those gifts and now it’s our turn to pass those presents on.

So sleep well, precious lamb. And in the words of your many texts to me - LOL. 

Below are the words used by Rev Wallace at the grave side as Jennys coffin was lowered into the grave. My final act before the grave was filled in, was to throw a single large red rose on to her coffin. As I did so I called out to her. "I love you, I will love you forever"

"I Hope You Dance"