She wasn’t a great one for new fangled technology, although Jono says she did have a mobile phone, but it’s the size of a house brick. However, through attending various courses, and with a little help from her friends, she’d mastered emails and even texting! Her emails reflected her personality: spasmodic - a jumble of messages, all running into one another, with hardly a pause for breath – much less a full stop. And whilst on the subject of communication, I’m sure we’ve all inwardly winced on hearing those well-known words: ‘I can feel a strong letter coming on….’ Jude didn’t take life lying down and if she felt any issues in the public domain needed addressing, then she was the person to do it. From constructive criticism levied at pubs and the local newspapers, impassable towpaths, and the calibre of Tesco customers who pinch the weekend supplements from the newspapers - nothing was safe from Jude’s eagle eye and sharp tongue. She was a great supporter of public transport and frequently used the bus network. One of her recent projects involved the National Express bus route to Bristol. As it passed close by, why on earth couldn’t it stop in Brackley? How ironic is it, that on her very last day on earth, Jude called an old friend to say that her appeal had been successful and the bus will now stop in Brackley en route to Bristol. In a similar vain, and in an attempt to stop her untimely death from being a total waste, some of her friends joined with Portsmouth cycle campaigners to lobby Portsmouth City Council to extend the existing cycle route to include the areas around Clarence Pier in Southsea. For financial reasons, the extension has been postponed. However, the same council has agreed to spend £350,000 to renovate a fountain in the shopping centre. I wonder how many lives the fountain will save. To celebrate her fiftieth birthday she returned to Oz. Her brother Andrew, and his wife Anne, were already in Melbourne and with cousin Stephen and his family, they made sure her big day was special. 18th March is a significant date in the Hitchings family calendar. Not only is it the date that both Stephen and Judith were born, it’s also the date that Stephen married Karen - and Andrew married Anne, so there were 4 jolly good reasons to celebrate. A truly memorable night was spent laughing, eating and drinking their way around the city, courtesy of The Colonial Tramcar Restaurant. When she came back to the UK, her house sitting was so successful that her regulars had to ‘book early to avoid disappointment’ and she began to establish more continuity in her life. However, she still managed to fit in trips aboard and recently spent an enjoyable holiday in India and was planning another trip to Australia this October. The past years have been particularly difficult for the Hitchings family, culminating in the death of Irene almost 12 months ago. Now Judith felt more able to look to her future and she was seriously considering buying a property in France. How she would have loved that rustic, Gallic way of life. She certainly lived her 55 years to the full and her sudden death has left a gapping hole in our lives. The incomprehensibly tragic events of the past weeks ensure that the 40 year old image of ‘the pretty, leggy one’ is now how we’ll always remember her. During one of their first teenage trips to Carnaby Street, a friend remembers meeting a fashion photographer engaged in a high profile promotional shoot. He took lots of photos of Jude and became very animated, claiming to have found the next Twiggy. Little did he know that Jude had already tasted fame, having previously won the much-coveted title of Miss Bicester Hunt. Judith was like a jigsaw puzzle and we, her family and friends, are the interlocking pieces that made up her life. It’s only now that we’re all together and sharing our personal memories that we can start to create a more complete picture of her life. To misquote the poet Laurence Binyon a little, ‘She shall not grown old as we who are left grow old … It’s inconceivable to think we’ll never again see her smile nor hear her unmistakable voice and laughter. We must now be strong and begin a new chapter of our lives without Judith. However, we must also make sure her spirit lives on as we continue to share with each other our laughter, our stories and our own precious memories.