At the beginning of the ceremony, Carolyn said:
Rachel died on the evening of Monday 19th June while out solo climbing at Burbage rocks. She died doing one of things she most loved and in a place she loved. Her energy and passion for life stayed with her until the end. She died instantaneously – she felt no pain and would not even have had chance to reflect on her life. We welcome you to share with us, her family, friends, and colleagues some of the threads and themes of her very active life and some of her beliefs and hopes for the future.
During the ceremony. Paul will be taking photographs as a record at the request of the family.
When we reach the point where Rachel is carried to the burial site, you are welcome to follow or to remain in the marquee as you wish. Tea and coffee will be served at the end for those who wish to stay.
at this stage, Carolyn lit a candle
at the end of the ceremony, Brian Heatley read out the following:
And so to the future. Carolyn has asked me to say these words about Rachel’s plans and aspirations.
Having known Rachel for 4 years and been very close to her for the last year, Rachel shared a lot about where she saw her life going.
She had reached a new beginning and a new identity. This was going to manifest itself in many aspects of her life.
With Ruth at University, there were plans to sell the house that she, Andrew, Ruth and Bryn had shared for 10 years. She had begun thinking about where to live, who to be near and had recognised the importance to her of being able to run straight into the countryside from home.
Her physical strength was increasing – recent pleasure at being able to do pull ups from door frames to equip her for climbing
Her immense pride and delight at Ruth’s successes and an expectation that Ruth would continue to give her such joy.
Friendships – so important to both her and to us. She saw herself both sustaining existing long standing friendships but was also beginning to branch out further into new networks and networks including children as new friends. Her last full day was spent with families with 8 children – she got 6 children to the top of the rock face, the youngest being 6 years..
Her time at Barnsley Council had an end in sight – she planned to continue for another 2 years and then leave, taking 6 months to research and find out about projects for sustainable development across Europe. She would have been identifying where she could make her best contribution and talked of using her managerial and business skills to develop ecologically focussed projects.
Her rediscovered energy for political activism around peace and alternatives to war would have been a major strand of intellectual and collective activity over future years
With Neil as clarinet teacher, she was going from strength to strength in her playing and had just taught the choir a new song/round - a first for her.
And, of course, the opportunities from the excitement and passion of a newly developing relationship were ever present in her vision of the future.
In her last poem, written in June, she says
The future is another question
I hope we’ll get there together
In the meantime I’ll not look down, or up,
but only at the rock in front of my face,
only at the next move, and the one after that.
But the rock didn’t hold her
We are left with such admiration for a woman who gave so generously to others and who held a steadfast commitment a fairer world. She was a woman whose values shone through in who she was and how she lived her life. Much of this was done with others – she was a skilled collaborator and there are many in this room who will share her beliefs and commitments. Together (tiny pause) we will continue to struggle, in her words, to make the world a better place.
Carolyn Leary