Dear Jud Your last eight weeks were so manic we never had the chance to say goodbye. I keep thinking back to the first time we met, it was January 1969. I was 18 and you were just coming up to 16. We both worked for the same retail company, you in a shop and me on the travelling display team mainly dressing the windows. That winter I had been given another shop to look after, Heckmondwike, a place I had never heard of. It turned out to be a small but busy market town. I walked into the shop and was greeted by a tall athletic looking girl eying me sceptically and wearing an impossibly short dress. I asked for the Manager and you nodded curtly to the back of the shop where a lady was stood. Over the next two or three days you were pleasant enough but it was obvious that you didn’t suffer fools at all. I tried breaking the ice with some idiot jokes and flippant comments but soon gave up. But, over the next year or so on my periodic visits to the shop we did become friends and I respected and liked the fact that you had no pretentions or airs and graces. Even though the distance between our respective home towns was not very great, the way you and others spoke was very different at times and I often had to ask you to translate what you said into English. By mid-1970 we were dating. I don’t remember who asked who out. In fact, we and a busload of other employees were on our way back from the regional bash in Manchester, you were sat in the seat behind mine, and we just somehow agreed to meet the following Saturday evening after work. Meeting your parents was scary, I immediately concluded that the sceptical look you gave me on that first meeting was inherited from your mum. Your dad was tall and built like a heavyweight boxer, but pleasant and with that constantly smoking pipe in his mouth. We got engaged in early autumn that year. We were in no great rush to get married, both enjoying still being single and each other’s company, whilst saving up for the deposit on a house. We didn’t quite have enough in the bank for a deposit when we did tie the knot, so we found a one-bedroom flat in Halifax. How did we manage to cram all the furniture we had bought over the years into that tiny space? I remember the day after our honeymoon, we hadn’t met all the neighbours yet, but one old man in particular was never to forget his first sight of you. We all shared a green space at the back of the flats where neighbours would hang out the washing or just sit and chat. You decided to hang out our washing; the old man from upstairs told me later that he was sat at the back half dozing when this tall amazon-like creature bounded round the corner with something large under one arm and a spear in the other hand. What he had seen was you striding quickly with the wash basket and a prop for the washing line. He repeated that story to anyone who would listen. That winter (1973/74) was the winter of electricity power cuts and the three-day week. We were walking to the flat one day just after Christmas when you suddenly remembered that there would be a scheduled electricity power cut that evening. I moaned about it but you slipped your hand into mine and told me not to be so miserable and that we could have a romantic evening watching television by candlelight. Then I realised you weren’t joking. It was almost four years before Andrew came along. He is the light of your life and your pride and joy. You loved being a mum. We decided at that point that you would be a stay-at-home mum for as long as you felt it necessary. You were soon left on your own with a new baby when I ended up in hospital for most of that summer. We had long since left the flat, but that autumn saw us make the first of five house moves in just over ten years to different parts of the country. Over that next ten years or so you were always there like a rock to support the two males in your life. We had lots of great times and made loads of friends during that time; some, we are still in touch with. But the two constants over the decades are your sister Kath and your lifelong best friend Judith (also known as Jud.) I used to imagine the fear and havoc the two Juds would wreak as schoolgirls. We were living in Kent when the chance of a move back to Cambridgeshire came up in 1988, we grabbed it and resolved to stay put until Andrew had completed his education. The first time we met Andrew’s then girlfriend, Carol, wasn’t a long meeting, but you said: “I like her she’ll be just right for him”. I thought that was a bit of a leap at that early stage, but you proved to be right. You adore our two grandchildren, Ryan and Chloe, although that might not on occasion have been obvious, particularly to Ryan who caught the sharp end of your tongue on several occasions. But that was before Ryan was old enough to understand the pain, frustration, and sometimes depression you suffered in the years following your amputation. We had our share of battles with each other, you and I. But we were there for each other when the other needed it. A good number of the battles stem from my sudden deafness in 2005 and my stubborn refusal to be able to understand what you are saying to me when you are in the next room, or my deliberate failure to lip-read you when you are mumbling with your back to me. But you are a big softie at heart. Kath’s story of the one-eyed duck reminded me of the injured Magpie. Mags, as you called him or her, had a badly damaged foot and looked the worse for wear. In the middle of the afternoon, you would make me place bird pellets on the patio and then stand at the conservatory window, like a scarecrow, to chase away other birds until Mags arrived. Then one afternoon Mags failed to show up. And a few days later, when still no sign, I said its time to conclude that Mags is an ex-Magpie, how you cried for your poor Mags. You can become emotional about people you have never met as well. I remember a few years ago, Andrew gave us weekly updates about a work colleague who was terminally ill, the final update saying his colleague had died reduced you to tears. We were lucky enough to have some brilliant holidays in the tropics most years up to 2015. But, of all the places we went to nowhere had a place in your heart like your beloved Kenya. We returned many times and when you stepped onto the tarmac at Nairobi you would sigh and say, “home again”. We were due to return to Kenya for three weeks at the end of February as a joint celebration – your seventieth and our upcoming 50th anniversary in August. Cancelling that broke your heart. 2015 was life changing for both of us but devastating for you. It started with a badly injured toe which wouldn’t heal which had to be amputated, followed by two failed bypass operations on your leg and finally an above the knee amputation. Your dream to that point was to retire and look after the garden until I would eventually retire and we could travel a bit as well. The only thing you were ultimately able to do in the garden was prune any easily accessible plants. We did however have the best pruned garden in the neighbourhood. Any plant or bush daring to show signs of growth was quickly attacked with your secateurs. Despite your setbacks in those years, we did manage to get back to Kenya in 2020. You were insistent that as well as all the other disability equipment that we should take your spare prosthetic leg – ‘just in case’. I carried that heavy leg in its shoulder case into taxis, across airports, onto planes, all the way down to East Africa. I have never let you forget that you never once used it. Then I carried it all the way back. Sorry if I am boring you, but I feel I must mention it one more time. Details of your final short battle are forever in my and the family’s memory and are not for this letter. On the day of the diagnosis and when we were told it was a battle we were not going to win, we sat in the hospital restaurant holding hands, not speaking but staring out of the window; ever the queen of the understatement you turned to me and said “well, I never saw that coming”, all I could do was look at you. You fought to the end. Your favourite words when you struggled with any challenge – through gritted teeth - were “come-on girl, you can do this!”. I heard those words again many times during those few weeks. I wanted to be the only one to care for you and refused even Andrew and Carol’s many offers of help. But, as the weeks wore on and things got too much for both of us, Andrew and Carol were waiting in the wings, and I couldn’t have managed without them. The Macmillan nurses were marvellous from the beginning. The fantastic staff at Thorpe Hall were the ones that finally brought your pain under control. Andrew and I were sat with you as you left us peacefully. I’m going to miss you girl! Lala salama which means sleep safe in Swahili.