It could be considered cruelly ironic, that my sister died in a week when much of the conversation was around eventual British success, in two of the major international sporting championships that have been claimed this year. It could also, of course, be regarded as eminently fitting. What cannot be disputed is the fact that so many of the metaphors used by those who were around her, to describe Karen’s battle in the last few weeks of her life, centred on sport and its associated virtues: determination, courage, a single minded focus and a will to prevail. My sister’s sporting achievements will be well known to many of you. The photographs of her from the 1970s and 80s, proudly seated amidst an array of silver cups, medals and certificates; not only survive, but have pride of place in my parents’ home, and at The Limes. And it was as recent as last Christmas that her medals were brought back into currency when Martin had the collection framed as a Christmas present Karen. These trophies are symbols of an early flowering of that same determination and courage that most recently we have seen played out for so long, and to the amazement of the hospital staff, in Karen’s brave but futile attempts to conquer the ultimately unconquerable spectre of that terrible disease. That struggle began from the point of diagnosis. Karen was immediately in no doubt about the battle she was to face,, and she was afraid. But throughout the last eighteen months or so she has • fought every stage of the disease and resisted the associated treatments, • shown a determination to remain mobile, • to keep the car on, • to continue to look as good as she could. • She’s expressed her frustration in ever more graphic and visual ways, • Resolved to maintain her independence and not to allow those who would help her to have the upper hand. (ask Martin – he still has one or two bruises!) But the odds were, of course, firmly stacked against her, and this was one final heat that she was never going to win. And most cruelly of all, defeat came at what can only be described, as half-time. And it was Sunday afternoon. Was that irony or fitting? When she was younger Karen always disliked Sunday afternoons. Sundays were rather different then, from now. It was the long hours that stretched out with little to fill them, the inclination that most people had to fill their own Sunday afternoons with a similar kind of solitary nothingness, the pace of life slowed for a while, and Karen disliked that. She preferred to live life to the full and to be doing something, to be active. Holidays came in two varieties for Karen, one of them very strenuous. The picture on the front of your order of service was taken exactly a year ago tomorrow. She and Martin had taken a short break in the Lake District. The satisfied expression on Karen’s face is the result of a 90 minute climb to the peak on which she is sitting. (It would have been great to have been able to give you a picture of Martin and see a rather different expression at the end of the same 90 minutes. But none exists, he says. And thirdly, it was hot, the start of one of the most sustained and hottest spells we’ve had for ten years, apparently. She would have been sorry to have missed that. Karen always craved warmth and sunshine. Indeed the second type of holiday for Karen, was taken in the sunshine, in places warmer than the UK, and this was no less true in recent years. It was a great shame that plans for a lengthy period in Port Aventura early this year had to be cancelled. But as recently as the day before her final admission to hospital, she and Martin had been forced to cut short a weekend break in Brighton (OK, not quite hot!). These holidays provided an opportunity to soak up warmth and sunshine, and it always seemed that once taken in, she radiated most of it to all she met. This goes some way to explaining the many tributes paid to Karen over recent weeks, often from people she had known for only a short time but who have none the less very much taken her to their hearts. And, of course from many long standing friends with whom she has had little contact for years. And at this point I should perhaps explain on Karen’s behalf, that if you fall into this second category and have been unsuccessfully trying to see her over the last couple of years, it isn’t you that she didn’t want to see. She very much didn’t want you to see what the disease was doing to her. You see my sister was a proud lady. One certain irony is that Karen’s life has ended at a time when everything else seemed to be falling into place. She’d found complete happiness with someone she loved deeply, but to whom she had been married for only three years. She and Martin had just recently moved to a part of the country where they were completely happy, and amongst a fine community of neighbours, hard to find today. 17 The Limes had quickly become their cherished home, Karen had placed her stamp firmly on the place – a homage to the colour purple! She was doing a job she loved and plans were beginning hatched for new and exciting adventures ahead. Sadly it was not to last. So what remains are the memories we all have of Karen and the ways in which she has enriched our lives. Her sporting achievements are recorded, her name inscribed on numerous trophies; but more importantly, just a little on the lives of those against whom she competed, on those she trained; and on all of us, through her example of supreme determination and courage.