Go gently dear Anna in the freedom of the dance. In the sacred integrity of the way you have lived your long and gracious life. You have brought light and life to all who have been blessed by having you as a companion on their journey. You transformed mine in our shared joy, laughter, pain, trust, adventure and new experience. I treasure all those moments, and would like to leave these words of T.S.Eliot’s East Coker of the Four Quartets, in your memory, with a thankful heart and soul.

You taught me of these things and about the importance of being able to dwell in the ‘stillness of the turning world.’

…But the faith and the hope and the love are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the

Stillness the dancing.

Carry on dancing dear Anna!

With much love

Ann B

Though I only met your mother once at her Oxford home the occasion was like a wondrous pool of light, flooding the shadows cast by my knowledge that I was on my way to my first session of radiotherapy for my leukaemia. And I already felt I loved her for the joy, learning and newfound self-belief that her friendship, wisdom and encouragement had brought to Mummy’s life.

Thereafter I always relished news of her and now and then exchanged happy letters with her myself. But nothing could have prepared me for her beautiful, beautiful gesture a few years later when despite my ongoing commitment to defying the dastardly leukaemia demons - my battle now being with the degenerative damage caused by the years of bull-in-a-china-shop treatment rather than the leukaemia itself - the challenge to stay alive and dancing was becoming increasingly like trying to run up a downwards flowing escalator. Severe neurological damage made walking increasingly difficult and a dramatic allergy to petroleum chemicals was making car journeys increasingly perilous. But I was determined to keep flying (!) and we hit on the idea of an electric bicycle! I started saving up all my Birthday and Christmas money but the final target was still a long way ahead when my Mummy happened to mention it to yours..!

My eyes still shine with tears to think of her beautiful impulse to make the miracle happen and to recall my joy when the giant box arrived containing my wings..! But heart-breakingly we found that the hills between our remote Tuscan house and everywhere else were too steep for the bicycle to climb, even on full power. It’s look, as it peeped out of the stable door year-on-year was as forlorn as mine...but never without hope!

And with the news that we were moving out to Morocco the spark of hope became a flame!! This would surely be my time to fly, with your mother’s love the wind beneath my wings!

The track the other side of our high, forget-me-not-blue gates is a Biblical one - rough and stony and peopled with donkeys! - but Anna’s magic bicycle doesn’t mind that at all! And even more amazing is that it seems to have been designed for Morocco’s wild winds! When I first tried it out the wind was so strong that the big track was a river of sand and since it was not going my way pedal power left me not just at a standstill but going backwards!! But THEN..!!! I turned the power on!!! And I shot off into the distance like an arrow from a bow, daring the wind to challenge me in my flight..!

When I arrived safely back outside our pretty blue gates I thanked God for Anna and her beautiful heart! And what fun it is to think that each time I set off on an adventure she will be with me, perched on my handlebars and challenging the wind..! :) !

Love and triumph!

Your, Emma x

To: From Ian