Welcome everyone. My name is Rupert, and Maryʼs children have asked me to take todayʼs service and I am honoured to do so. We thought there might be a few people here today, Maryʼs immediate kin alone fills several pews, but and I know her family are grateful and touched to see you all here today. It was not difficult to warm to Mary, she made friends easily, of all ages, and her simple, every day cheerfulness touched many people, so where ever you knew Mary from, be it chatting in park with her dogs and her grandchildren, or as the mum of your best friend, whether you shared your youth with her sixty years ago, or if she was your partner in crime, your hero, your mother, your grandmother, step grandmother or all of these things rolled into one, you are welcome here. Together, you are what Mary made of her life, and your presence here is as important as the presence of Maryʼs body. Weʼve come to stand beside Maryʼs family, to comfort them as they begin their new life without her, to sing and share stories, to listen to some sad songs and to celebrate her life before we lay her down in her grave here in this beautiful old cemetery. It has been a long journey, back to her home town, and what an extraordinary journey it was, filled with joy and drama, cruelty, triumph and ultimately, deep peace and contentment. Itʼs a life of which we know lots about but not everything. Those who shared it with her will talk of their experiences of her life, but some parts of her history are known only to Mary, and some of her story was lost, even to her. We welcome all of those parts of Mary here today, the known and the unknown, the public face and the private heart. We welcome the old lady she became, the loving grandmother full of warmth and compassion, the happy mum and wife of twenty five years, building a strong loving family despite the ups and downs of married life. We welcome the stepmother who was more like a sister, kind, open and warm. And the beautiful, mischevious young woman, wild and free after the darkness of the war years, the survivor full of fun and possibility, she is welcome here to. And we especially open our hearts to the vulnerable, innocent and lost little girl she was when she began this life. She was all of these women and more, they are all present with us today. Weʼll be hearing from Maryʼs children and grandchildren about the life they shared together, a childhood rich with people, and friendship and laughter, but I would like to talk about her beginning, something that Mary didnʼt talk about much, understandably so, but a part of her life that makes her tolerant, warm, funny and forgiving personality all the more remarkable. It explains why today is filled with pride and gratitude as well grief, why it really is appropriate that we celebrate her life as well as mourn her death. Mary was born in 1929, and put up for adoption by her birth parents at 3, why we donʼt know, her siblings either side werenʼt, and we can only guess at the desperate social circumstances that must have led to this decison, and then to further compound this unsettled childhood she was readopted at 7. Things did get better after that, and her childhood became secure if still mildy Victorian with her adoption by two spinster teachers but this original hurt, this expulsion from her birth family is as cruel a wrong beginning as life can have. It feels like the death of hope. Of course seen from a different angle, her adoption up to the home counties meant not only an escape to a better way of life, to elocution lessons, and a good education and the chance to make something of herself, it also spared her the destruction that was rained down on Plymouth. Behind me is a list of names of civillains killed by the blitz here in this poor, battered town. On it is the name Sidney Bachelor here it is, died aged ten, killed by shrapnel such as pockmarks the buildings of this city, the monuments of this graveyard. This was Maryʼs brother, a brother she didnʼt known had died, a brother she didnʼt know had lived until she was in her fifties, decades after his death. This poor boy, dead before he had a chance stands as a pretty good metaphor for Maryʼs childhood, blown away by greater forces, seemingly destroyed before it had even begun. Things happen, to all of us, the brave, the frightened, the undeserving, coming ready or not, but how we deal with it, what we do with the indifferent swipes of fate are what makes the stories of our life worth telling, makes this story shine triumphantly . Everything that Mary became; compassionate, fun, secure happy, all of this needs to be seen in the context of what she could have become, had every right to become, bitter, resentful, damaged and damaging. Mary refused to be a victim of her story. She stepped out of the cycle of sadness and circumstance and against all the odds, without the blueprint of a happy childhood, but with the help of Sid, her husband of 25 years built herself a family, created a loving clan and wrapped it around her. Her life didnʼt become a fairy tale, further events and blows peppered her life, but she took that original rejection, and turned it into love, an astonishing alchemy that fills these front rows in the form of children and grandchildren. Thatʼs why today is unrepentently upbeat, why we will be singing such happy hymns, and celebrating this life, she deserves it. It is nearly time to carry Mary down the path to her grave, but those of you who donʼt feel able to make that journey, there is tea and sandwiches available in the hall. Mary, your story is a triumph of happiness over history. We are grateful and encouraged that from such beginnings may so much joy and goodness grow. Know that your family will never forget you, that your influence will continue to ripple down through the generations of this family, touch children yet unborn with your warmth. Rest in peace. For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides that it may rise and expand and seek god unencumbered. Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing, and when you have reached the mountain top, then shall you begin to climb. And when the earth claims your limbs, then shall you truly dance.