The four of us are mere tokens of the many friendships that all of us here today were lucky enough to enjoy with Marie.For those of you who don’t know me - I am Sylvia – and I feel very honoured to be able to share with you a little bit about my dear friend Marie. Just a few weeks ago I visited Marie in the Hospice. I have to confess, I had been a little anxious, not knowing how it would be – afterwards, when my son asked me how it went – my instant response was “it was so good to see her, I didn’t need to worry - she made it very ‘easy’”. I realise now that was a basis of our friendship – it was always very ‘easy’ and comfortable to be with her. Some friends here today will go right back in time with me now – just short of 50 years ago - to the Junior Common Room at Ashford School in Kent - with its parquet flooring and wooden lockers for our few treasured possessions. Marie’s locker – neatly stacked and always tidy – was next to mine, messy in contrast – she had a small transistor radio with single earpiece, kept, when not in use, neatly packed back into its box. She told me I could borrow it any time I wanted to listen to the world service news - she had quickly recognised a 10 year old child wanting to listen the World Service News was clearly in need of help! She said that even if she wasn’t there – I could take it out of her locker, so long as I remembered to turn it off and put it back in the box and she showed me where it needed to go in the neatly stacked locker. And so I did. We were in boarding school in the sixties - such acts of kindness were few and far between and radio batteries expensive! A chance throwing together – we weren’t in the same form, or the same house – but from there the friendship began........... The memories are so plentiful – many exeat weekends and half terms spent with the Seargeants - it was my second home. To this day if I hear the theme tune for Sing Something Simple I’m right there - sitting beside Marie, in the back of the family’s latest Renault car - both of us gloomy on the return journey to school. Saturdays were varied but I particularly recall Sundays – we would spend the early part of the morning doing our homework and then we would be in her room getting ready for Church and set off – with Marie’s mother pretending not to notice the latest lipstick we had been trying out and Marie’s father putting on a brave show about the length (or his perceived lack of length) of the skirts on these girls. Marie knew the rules only too well, but with a twinkle in her eye, a slight flare of the nostrils and draw of breath – she would say to me ‘well - for goodness sake’ – we loved to nudge the boundaries a little and then to laugh and to get the giggles a lot. In school she was, as friends have described her, ‘a good girl’ but certainly not a goody-goody, she didn’t roll up her uniform skirt from the waist to make it short like others, her golden wavy hair was always tied back neatly in regulation style, she did her homework on time and her music practice. In fact she charmed and tamed Miss Rowe the scariest music teacher ever, who recognised her talent and dedication to her music. I never really understood why her house tutor seemed to pick on her – probably she couldn’t find enough real faults. There are lots of stories of larks and jolly times and midnight night feasts. Manda recalls that although Marie didn’t join those who went on forbidden tryst with boys she would open the ground floor bedroom window in the middle of night to let in giggly lager and lime filled girls to sleep on the floor until the breakfast bell. She was indeed a good friend! Others recall her voice of reason, the kindness shown to her friends’ younger siblings and Fi, who initially felt a bit of an outsider remembers Marie’s gentle kindness towards her as something precious and unforgettable. Those school days were a long time ago now and I am so very glad our friendship moved through the years. Marie has always been a very calming influence for me, a tower of strength through tricky times with her gentle way of challenging a mindset, sharing her wisdom or providing a different way of looking at something. As I said at the beginning – Marie made our friendship so very ‘easy’.