Dear Colin, I would first like to tell you that you are and have always been a rotten tormentor! Fancy popping off so suddenly and without warning, you nearly took me along with you from shock. That may have eased the funeral costs as the hall, Etc., would have been good for both and I could have gone in the funeral car sent along, in case. I have addressed this to you, I know that you will never read it, or know what I have written but we said goodbye to you on Thursday and it just seems right somehow. You would have loved the funeral if you could have been there, you were of course there but like always not paying much attention!! We started off from Dad’s, you in your Harley Hearse, Hearst, as you would put it, your family, Barry, Charlie, Emma and myself, plus thirteen bikers. We’re they all on Harleys? I don’t know anything about motorbikes so couldn’t tell you. About all I know is ‘the Harley’ makes a deep throated roar and there must have been quite a few as the roar was deafening when they revved, neighbors must have thought a bike gang was attacking the neighborhood. Yes, just the sort of din you’d have enjoyed. We travelled through Pangbourne, along Tidmarsh Road, turning right onto the Bradfield Road, left at the White’s farm, through Southend, onto the common, finally turning left to take us down on the Bath Road, with the Crematorium a little to the right. Normally a funeral cortège is slow and stately but you were taken at quite a lick, in fact breaking a couple of speed limits en route. I didn’t know if the family had asked for this as an especial condition given your predilection for speed and breaking their limits!! It was actually quite nice that your last journey should take you via the very route we travelled when first viewing the house at Bradfield and seeing the deer in the park and used so often in your life thereafter. We were made to feel ‘special’ as the bikers rode point and at any junction they came to the front and blocked the road so you could proceed without anyone interrupting, or joining the cortège. You would have loved your funeral, your children did you proud, they took in your wishes and the wishes of all in attendance and everybody agreed you would not have altered a thing if you’d had a choice. Afterwards we went to the Rugby Club in Thatcham, for refreshments, which was such a nice place, a clean, fresh, large and well equipped Hall. Emma had thought it would be tired red carpeting, with a smell of alcohol, looking worn and used but it was modern and airy, you couldn’t of had any complaints. Obviously we left you at the Crematorium not having any further use for you!!! Your friend Paul told Emma you had no pain when you went it was just as if you had fallen asleep. This was so comforting to know, I was pleased you’d had a Coroners Report, though as given your facility of dropping off to sleep at the drop of a hat it may have been mistaken for death. He also said how much you’d enjoyed that last day out on your bike with friends of like interests, racing along the quiet roads on the IOW, probably frightening every kid in the vicinity as these roaring demons raced through the villages. I must tell you that your new bikie trousers did bag around the bum you look so much like Dad from a rear view!! At the Hall there was a table with a remembrance book, most of us were so old that I don’t think there were many able to remember much, pictures and a folder showing some of your Facebook jokes. Some, as you well know, were not very nice and I didn’t wish to read them but most were so funny, I could imagine you sitting there and laughing over them and sending them on to friends and family. I had seen some of them myself, the more ‘suitable’ ones!! So it is over, your dreams, hopes, worries and enjoyments — finished, you are at peace, as the Bible tells us, asleep awaiting the day when “all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice (Jesus) and come out”. (John 5:28, 29) On that day you will be returned to us, along with Mum and Dad and others whom we’ve loved, what a wonderful day, I look forward to it with excitement. Then the earth will be perfect, a wonderful place to live, with everything in place for us to be happy forever. Dear Colin I loved you so much and this is a great loss to me but what cannot be cured, must be endured and at least our life, your life, despite a few hiccups was happy and so I say goodbye until later sleep well. Julie