Funerals are never easy occasions to attend or to organise. In Loving Memory were asked to design and produce a bespoke, beautiful Memorial Booklet to hand out to the guests at the wake which represented the style and elegance of Barbara. In Loving Memory always attempt to encourage a range of emotions through their booklets and create interesting talking points and historical facts about those who have recently passed away.
Barbara died just 6 days short of her 100th Birthday. She lived a very long and mostly happy life though there was sadness and tragedy along the way. Barbara truly was the last of her generation, the final survivor of nine siblings. She was the second youngest child, a true Londoner growing up with her family first in Grosvenor Gardens Mews North, Belgravia and then in Westmoreland Place, a few hundred yards from the Thames in Pimlico.
As well as her kindness and easy-going manner, so many of her family and friends loved Barbara’s style and elegance. Her sartorial panache centred on a vast, crammed wardrobe with scarcely any item ever discarded so that old classics eventually came back into style. Barbara was always a great reader and Wincanton Road, her home from 1993, was a veritable library from ancient encyclopedias to the latest hardback and paperback fiction. She had a passion for crime novels. Barbara also loved sports and perhaps her highlight was a visit to the London Olympics athletics stadium in 2012 witnessing Mo Farrah win 10,000m gold.
Barbara was an avid listener to BBC Radio 3, from the classics to the most esoteric modern works. She loved most cultural forms: theatre, music, musicals, opera and she often loved to sing around the house. She visited the Royal Opera House, Glyndebourne, the Colosseum, many theatres and loved to keep and re-read the programmes. Barbara was also a keen gardener. She loved plants, growing almost anything, and relished seeing them germinate from seeds supplied free with her gardening magazine. In the week before she died, the family received a letter from King Charles and Camilla. The family opened the congratulatory 100th birthday card at a party in Barbara’s honour on 27th November – sadly the main guest was unable to attend.
Barbara’s style and elegance was evident in the final Memorial booklet a true reflection of who she was and what she held close to her. Lots of photographs of her family and friends has resulted in a real historical account of Barbara’s life aided by snippets from her daily diaries which included entries during the war years! The Memorial booklet is a memento that releases every emotion possible and a treasured remembrance of Barbara’s long and wonderful life.