Isabelle Ferner

Gill

 

I slip my feet into my trainers, Gill is there,

I arrange some summer fruit on a fine china square plate, I think of Gill,

A walk along Piccadilly and through St. James’ Park and I think of Gill.

 

Unlike so many of her large circle of friends, I did not have the joy and pleasure of regular contact with her.  I met her what feels like a hundred years ago when she studied in Leeds.  My best friend since childhood, Louise, was studying Psychology.

 

Fast forward a few years. We are all married and have young children.  I can’t remember how the tradition started but the three families would get together on New Year’s Day.  Pictures of laughter skip through my mind.  Endless games and competitiveness traits quiet and loud come through.  We sit round the kitchen table – children at one end, adults at the other.  The ebb and flow of families growing up inform the conversation.  Every year I leave with a warm glow in my heart and a repeated mantra “Gill and Andy are so lovely, I wish we saw them more often”.  I always felt an affinity towards their politics and their similar holiday plans.

 

For the last few years, I would greatly look forward to that date in October when we would have our ‘annual spa day’.  A WhatsApp group created, trips to spas to mull over life in steam rooms and hot tubs.  Shared tips and advice on managing relationships with our children, dealing with aches and pains, HRT, talking about the pain of loss and grief and the optimism of new beginnings; anything and everything.  It might sound trite but it was Gill that gave me a contact to have orthotics made.  It is why she is there in my thoughts every day when I put those trainers on. We might reflect or laugh but there was always such warmth and comfort in those days.  The WhatsApp group changed post-Covid.  It was now our annual ‘non-spa day’.  Last year we went to the Royal Academy to see the Summer Exhibition.  That day burns bright now in a tradition that has tragically been cut short.  We laughed a lot that day as we tried to make sense of some of the more unique pieces.  We wondered at the talent and played ‘guess the price’ as some pieces held us in awe; for good and bad.

 

Last weekend, I was walking around that same area and into St James’s Park and suddenly I was caught short by the memory of Gill being there last time I visited.  I was overcome with a feeling of sadness and then I felt her energy as I trod a similar path.

 

The last time I saw Gill was in January.  She came for dinner and made a divine soup for starter.  Again, there was a warmth and delight in that evening.  It was another time that she came for a visit (that time with Andy) when she gifted me that plate that has become so precious.

 

My memories of Gill aren’t as many as that wide circle of friends.  My memories of Gill though are vivid and full.  I feel so grateful to have spent those hours enjoying and sharing our lives – all the more precious for ending so abruptly.