I had the honour and privilege to write and read aloud this eulogy to Angie at her funeral. I'll always miss her. If you’re lucky, you might get to know a few truly special people during your lifetime; if you’re really lucky, one of them might be your auntie and if you’re very spoilt, like me, then that auntie might be your godmother, too. Then you can feel really smug. When we were young, there was one word which would never fail to thrill and enchant my brother and me, and that word was ‘auntie-angie-and-uncle-ray’. It came with a cast-iron guarantee of excitement, entertainment and plenty of silliness all wrapped up in a cuddly cocoon of love, kindness, generosity and security. They made fun happen with genuine ease and I was always unbelievably proud to be with them. Being with them always felt right. As a child, I hated babysitters but if it was Angie and Ray? Well, that was more than OK. They took us on our first trip to London when I was 6 and Andy, 8. Of course, it was more than just a trip to London, it was a magical mystery tour of awe and exhilaration. For us, it was always pure joy to be around them. Mum and Dad, did you know that we used to stand on the back seat of Ray’s 1954 Austen Somerset, our heads poking out of the sunroof, squealing in delight with our hair whipping in the wind? Of course, that kind of thing isn’t allowed nowadays but it should be as it is absolutely brilliant fun. To the untrained eye, it might have seemed like Ray was the wacky one whilst Angie was the quieter, more thoughtful side to this duo, but she was so much more than a loving and gentle soul. She was a spectacularly good listener, possessing that very rare ability to make you feel like the most important person in the world. It didn’t matter what nonsense I would be telling her about some awful job or awful boyfriend she would sit quietly, eyes cast down so as not to be distracted, and faultlessly give me her complete attention. She wouldn’t always say much but in her hug there was always a depth of love and understanding that I sometimes found unfathomable. If there is a level up from unconditional, she found it. She made me feel completely safe and she was always on my side. But it was Angie’s sense of humour that was hidden in plain sight. I would say that she kept it hidden, but that would suggest that she was aware of it and I’m pretty sure that Angie had no idea just how funny she was. She was uniquely eccentric in such a indescribable way that I’m just going to try and illustrate it with a story... About 7 years ago, my friend Alison and I met Ray and Angie on the beach at Fraisthorpe. I can’t remember how we came to organise it, but I remember Ray saying, with his usual enthusiasm, “I’ll bring the canoes!” Horrified at the prospect of capsizing in the freezing water under the banner of ‘fun’, I managed to persuade Ray that just sitting on the beach would be nice so we met up. As we sat, I mused to Angie about my concerns over my cracked heels. They are a serious business during the sandal-wearing season and I felt that she, as a chiropodist, would be likely to have the answers. As always, she listened intently and shared some quiet words of sympathy for my predicament. ‘Do you have one of those, you know, files?’ she mused. ‘Yes’ I said, ‘but is that all it will take? Don’t I need a professional treatment with someone like you?’ ‘No, no, love, I don’t think so,’ she said, ‘Just file it and put some cream on’. And then, as we continued talking, she absent-mindedly picked up a little piece of driftwood bark that was lying on the sand at her side and calmly began filing my foot. The joy that I felt around Angie as a child never went away as I grew up, because her essence never changed. I always loved it when my mum would say, “Oh, you looked just like your Auntie Angie then” if I had a certain expression on my face or did something a bit daft. There was nothing I didn’t love about my Auntie Angie and I’ll always feel so very lucky to know that she loved me too.