My cousin, David Winkworth was well known in Cockermouth in Cumbria. He set up a printing press museum some thirty years ago in addition to the bookshop on the town’s Main Street. David passed away following an operation shortly after Christmas and Vron and I went to his funeral on 6th January.
We arrived at the parish church midway through the first hymn having taken the wrong train from Birmingham New Street. We just hadn’t considered that two trains left at exactly the same time for Edinburgh, one along the east coast, one on the west. Somehow the Virgin train manager, Michelle, worked out how we might get there. Nothing from Tamworth which does connect up with Penrith, so back to Birmingham just in time for the Glasgow train. This bypassed Penrith stopping at Carlisle, so we had to catch the next rain back to Penrith which arrived barely in time for a bus to Cockermouth. No snow in Cockermouth, but in the surrounding areas it added to the beauty of the scene with the trees decorated with white filigree. It didn;t appear of much consequence until we heard later reports that Helvellyn was a no-go area with warnings of an avalanche, unusual for the district.

At the service, Jeremy, David and Angela’s son, gave an appreciation of his father, and he and his wife took us onto the crematorium out of town. Many of the relations are far away in South Africa or Canada, but his niece, Jill, flew in from Offenburg. It was good to reacquaint after so long. The last time we met up was at a funeral in the very same location, that of David’s mother, my aunt Mabel. My Father’s other sister, Kathleen died in 2007, and I was fortunate to see her on my visit to Zimbabwe in 2006.
Gabrielle and Catherine and their families are on hand to support their mother, Angela, and together with Jeremy will carry on the family business. We couldn’t stay long and retraced our steps to Birmingham without further misadventure.