This is a very sad day, but it is also a time to celebrate Judith’s life, and I should like to share a few happy memories of my little cousin. I think of her as my little cousin, though she wasn’t all that little really. But she and Jacky were the youngest of the ‘Hope’ cousins and when you are young, two or three years seems to make such a big difference. I think Auntie Kath and Uncle Bill may sometimes have considered us rather boisterous company for their quiet little girl – they were a very gentle family, and I remember being severely taken to task by Uncle Bill – not so gentle on this occasion – for telling Judith a rude joke when I was maybe 9 and she 7 on a wonderful camping holiday Lisa and I had with them in Wales. I shan’t repeat the joke here but it wasn’t very rude by today’s standards and anyway Judith was able to give as good as she got. After all the only reason they knew we had told her a rude joke was because she passed it onto them thinking they would appreciate it! In those days the cousins and the aunts and uncles would always come to our house at Eldon Square on Boxing Day and a regular highlight of the evening gathering round the Christmas tree was Judith’s performance of ‘ Cant Blow the Light Out’. Everyone young and old had to do a turn to earn chocolate from the tree, and the most memorable of all, repeated year after year, was this shaggy dog story with actions from Judith. It was s story about two old people whose mouths twisted in opposite directions, trying to blow a candle out and failing. ’Can’t blow the candle out goes one (Judith’s face twisted in a hideous grimace to the left), Can’t blow the light out’ (hideous grimace to the right). Memory fails me as to how the story ends but how we laughed. As the cousins grew up, left home, got married and had families of their own, there were fewer of these gathering but I have a recent very happy memory of a gathering here in the Lakes, when Fred and I came over to join Rob and Sonia, Jackie and Richard and the Atkins family for a weekend at Link House. As I remember it rained and rained (as it does in the Lakes) but that didn’t stop the conviviality. The highlight on this occasion was the full English breakfast ( and I mean full) served by Rowan, playing Mein Host in his stripy apron, with Judith dishing up expertly in the kitchen as if they had been doing it all their lives.