Eulogy examples

Thank you all for coming today. I'm Megan, Ron's eldest granddaughter. Grandma asked me to say a few words, and I said yes before I'd thought about how hard it would be, which is exactly what Grandad would have done.

Ronald Atkinson was born in Sunderland in 1938, the youngest of five, in a house on Hendon Road that he said was so cold in winter you could see your breath in bed. He left school at fifteen and went to work in the shipyards on the Wear, where he stayed for twenty-nine years. When the yards closed he drove a taxi around the city until he was seventy, and I don't think there was a street in Sunderland he couldn't tell you a story about.

He met my grandma, Pat, at the Seaburn dance hall in 1959. He always said he asked her to dance because she was the only one not laughing at his suit. They were married for sixty-two years. They had three children, my mum Karen, my uncle Steve and my auntie Lynn, and then seven grandchildren and, last spring, his first great-grandchild, Isla, who he held in the garden and would not hand back.

If you knew Grandad, you knew his allotment. He took it on in 1981 and he was still going up there most mornings until this summer. He grew enough runner beans to feed the whole of Fulwell, and he gave most of them away. If you came to the house in August, you left with a carrier bag of beans whether you wanted them or not. My dad once counted, and we had beans in our freezer until the following April.

He was a patient man. He taught all of us grandchildren to ride a bike on the back lane, one after another, holding the saddle and jogging behind us long after his knees told him to stop. He never raised his voice, although he could say "right then" in a way that made you put your shoes on immediately.

He was also the most stubborn man I have ever met. He refused to own a mobile phone until 2015, and when he finally got one he kept it switched off in the kitchen drawer "for emergencies". We never found out what counted as an emergency, because as far as we know it was never switched on.

What I remember most is how he listened. When I was at university and struggling, I would ring the house and Grandma would pass me over, and he would say "go on then, pet" and just let me talk. He didn't give advice very often. He would wait until I'd finished and then tell me he was proud of me, and somehow that was always enough.

I want to thank the nurses at St Benedict's Hospice, who looked after Grandad and all of us so kindly in his last few weeks. And I want to say to Grandma that we are all here for you, as he was for all of us.

Grandad, the beans are coming up at the allotment. Steve has promised to look after them, although we all know he will get it wrong. Thank you for everything you gave us. We love you, and we will miss you every day.

My name is Claire, and Priya was my best friend for thirty-one years. Anjali and Dev asked me to speak about her as a friend, so that's what I'm going to try to do.

We met on the first day of teacher training in Leicester in 1993. I was sitting on my own in the canteen and she came over with two cups of tea, put one in front of me and said, "You look like you need this more than I do." That was Priya. She noticed people. For the next three decades she kept noticing, and she kept turning up with the tea.

She taught Year 6 at Braunstone for twenty-four years, and I don't think there's a family on that estate who doesn't have a Mrs Sharma story. She ran the school choir with no musical training at all. She took eleven-year-olds to Snowdonia every June and came back sunburnt, soaked and delighted. At her fiftieth birthday party, a man of about thirty came up to her and said she was the reason he became a nurse. She cried for most of the evening.

As a friend, she was the person you called first. When my dad died, she was on my doorstep within the hour with a lasagne and a bottle of wine, and she stayed until I told her to go home. When my marriage ended, she took me to Whitby for a weekend and made me walk up all 199 steps to the abbey, because she said I needed to see something bigger than my own problems. She was right, as she usually was, and she never let me forget it.

She could also be completely maddening. She was late for everything. She once arrived at my wedding after the vows, holding her shoes, because she had stopped on the M1 to help a woman change a tyre. I forgave her before she'd even explained, because of course she had.

Priya loved Bollywood films, bad crime dramas, her garden in Oadby and, above everything, Anjali and Dev. She talked about them constantly. She was so proud of the people you have become, and she told me so on the last afternoon I saw her.

I'm not sure how to do the next thirty years without her. I think I will keep hearing her voice telling me to put the kettle on and stop feeling sorry for myself, and I think I will do as I'm told.

Thank you, Priya, for the tea, for Whitby and for everything in between. I love you, and I'll miss you always.

Good morning. I'm Callum, and Margaret was my auntie. To most of us she was Auntie Mags, and she would want me to keep this short, because she always said the best part of any occasion was the sandwiches afterwards.

Mags was born in Glasgow in 1946 and lived in the same flat in Partick for most of her life. She worked for the council for thirty-eight years, in the housing department, and she was proud of every family she helped find a home. She never married. When people asked her why, she'd say she hadn't met anyone who could keep up with her, and having tried to keep up with her on holiday, I believe it.

Mags loved to travel. Every summer from the day she retired, she went somewhere she had never been. She went to Peru, Japan and Iceland, and one year she took a riverboat down the Mekong. She sent postcards to every one of her nieces and nephews, written in tiny handwriting to fit everything on, and I have kept every one of mine.

She was generous without making a fuss about it. She paid for my driving lessons and told my mum it was a birthday present, so that nobody would feel they owed her anything. She was also blunt. If your haircut didn't suit you, she told you, and then she took you for a scone.

Mags, thank you for the postcards and for all the scones. Wherever you've gone next, I hope the view is good.

Thank you all for being here for Dave. I'm Sue, and I was married to him for forty-one years.

Dave was born in Bristol in 1954 and grew up in Knowle West, the second of four boys. He left school at sixteen, did an apprenticeship as a mechanic and then drove buses for First for thirty-two years. He knew every route in the city, and he knew half the passengers by name. For years people would stop me in Asda to tell me my husband was the nicest driver on the number 2.

We met at a friend's party in Bedminster in 1980. He spent most of the night fixing the host's record player and only came over to talk to me at the very end. He said later he'd been working up the courage for three hours. We got married two years later at St Barnabas, and we had Lee and then Hannah.

He was a hands-on dad before that was something people talked about. He did the school run in his uniform, he coached Lee's under-elevens team for six years without once winning the league, and he sat through every one of Hannah's dance shows, including the one that lasted four hours.

He loved Bristol Rovers, which tells you a lot about his patience. He had a season ticket at the Mem for forty years, and he took Lee from the age of five, and then our grandson Alfie. I never understood the appeal, but I understood that Saturday afternoons were his, and I was happy to let him have them.

Dave was not a talker. If you wanted to know how he felt, you watched what he did. He brought me a cup of tea in bed every single morning of our marriage, even the mornings after we'd argued. Now I think about it, those were the mornings he was most careful not to forget.

I'd like to thank the staff on the Cossham ward and our neighbours on Wick Road, who have looked after me since the day he went into hospital. And thank you to Lee, Hannah and Alfie, who have held me up.

Dave, I don't know who is going to bring me my tea now. Thank you for forty-one years. I love you.