Funeral Service
ANN RICHARDSON 1955-2006
A service was held for Annie at Islington Burial Chapel, East Finchley Cemetery, London on the 4th July 2006 in the presence of her two daughters, Brid and Gabriel, brother Alan, foster sister Romi and a small group of close friends.
Annie was laid to rest with her much loved first born daughter, Rosalie, in an overgrown corner of the cemetery which is sheltered by a great tree.
The eulogy was prepared and given by Trevor Jones and the reading given by Tony Potts.
Islington Burial Chapel, East Finchley Cemetery, London, 4th July 2006
Eulogy
Twenty nine years ago I thankfully plucked up the courage to talk to Annie at her 22nd birthday celebrations in a Bloomsbury pub and twenty nine years later, just fifty yards away from that pub in a side ward at the National Hospital, I held her hand as she slowly slipped away from me.
A lot has happened in travelling those fifty yards.
Before we met, Annie was born in Purley and brought up in Coulsdon, Surrey with her brother Alan and foster sister Romi. Educated at Purley High she over achieved at school but university was not for her, well not at that moment anyway. She pursued her interest in art and worked as a set designer on the much loved and very successful Adventures of Rupert Bear TV programme in the early 1970s. She married John Jelly, the art director on the series.
It was Annie�s first and only marriage but did not last very long. She found a job at the library of University College London where I worked and soon became the centre of the workplace�s social events, organising almost everything and match making almost everyone.
In the late 1970s she returned to her major love - art - by enrolling at the world famous Chelsea School of Art where she graduated in 1982 and then on to become Chelsea�s first full time President of the Students Union where again she put her organisational skills to good effect.
A chance meeting on the top of a 137 bus with Tony began another career as film maker, art director, designer and video producer. By 1986 the partnership produced or directed a number of important corporate videos and music video promos for major clients such as BP and WEA Records, the most famous being the video for the Monochrome Set�s �Jacobs Ladder� � which you can still watch today at www.youtube.com
In the late 1980s and early 1990s Annie became much more involved in community and voluntary work using her creative skills for instance to advise the Broadvale Association, a disability charity in Brentford, to promote its work on video and volunteering her time and energy to help out at Hanley Crouch Community Centre. Later she worked tirelessly in creating and co-ordinating an IT Project for Islington MIND so that people with mental health problems could learn IT skills but was always on hand to help them with their other problems.
She then embarked on a nursing career training at the Middlesex, Whittington and Chase Farm Hospitals in north London but the arrival of her first daughter meant she couldn�t complete her qualifications.
Sadly a tragic cot death resulted in many of us being present at this cemetery eleven years ago. Not surprisingly Annie never fully covered from that trauma but attempted to live a normal life with the birth of Brid in 1996 and Gabriel in 1999 and became her happiest taking the children to the park and engrossing herself in the role of a loving and caring mother. Bad luck struck again in 2002 when she became seriously ill and needed a bit more looking after. She moved back into my flat in Hanley Road for the remaining 4 years of her life.
For a brief few months in 2004 she embarked on poetry writing and joined CAST, the Creative & Supportive Trust, in Camden, and although frail at times she managed to start up a students union there and succeeded in getting the NUS to recognise it.
In recent times she was at her happiest walking around Finsbury Park and Crouch End with Charlie, her faithful German Shepherd, and they became inseparable to the very end with Charlie dying the same day as Annie suffered her brain aneurism.
Annie was a great story teller and would finish each bedtime story by turning to Brid and Gabriel to say �and that�s the end of the story�. But no it isn�t the end � as Annie has made a difference to all our lives. She was unique, special, very determined, full of energy and enthusiasm and professional in everything she did. Her love and knowledge of art, music and literature was phenomenal. She had a great capacity to empathise, help and support people in need. And as great artists have a habit of doing � making the rest of us feel a little uncomfortable. I thank Tony for the following words on Annie�s web site which very much sums up my feelings as well when he says Annie was �an extraordinary person, full of love and compassion with an incredible intellect which left us in the shade. She struggled long and ferociously with many problems that life had brought her but which she never allowed to entirely overwhelm her.�
Over the past twenty nine years, no other person has enriched my life as much as Annie, opening my eyes up to what can be achieved, teaching me so many things, criticising me when I deserved it and adding value to my life. We should strive to make a difference by the time we leave this earth and Annie has certainly left it a much richer place for a lot of people and made that difference to those left behind.
We thank you Annie for allowing us into your life.
Trevor (or as Annie would fondly call me �Gingy�)
Post Script: Since this eulogy many people have come up to me to say that I was Annie�s rock for many years � it was actually the other way round � Annie was my rock.
