(Please listen to the tracks of music that Ness picked as her favourites while you read this page - see below - or open a copy of this page in a separate tab/window so you can listen to the music while browsing the pages.)

This haiku was written by Ness

 Keep me in your hearts

 Your love is always with me

 And mine is with you

Anita, one of the wonderful nurses at East Lothian Community Hospital who looked after Ness in the final days, told me one day as we were stood together in Ness's room looking at her sleeping, "You're punching way above your weight there mister!" 🥰 And Mark simply said Ness was a "top girl!" 😁

Ness has made an impact on many people and it is only now that I am beginning to fully realise this. Family, friends, colleagues, etc. are sharing their stories with me of how Ness made a difference, gave them the confidence to do something, helped them on their way, and above all Ness's sense of fun, with a glint of mischief in her eyes, and a smile that lit up your entire world.

We met, and promptly fell in love with each other, in 1988 when were both students at Sussex University. Later we moved to London and then to North Berwick, which has been our home for many years. Along the way, we let our wanderlust take us to many exotic and unusual parts of the world - Libya - been there, Paraguay - snap, North Korea - of course, Iran - done that, Armenia, Georgia, Iceland, Namibia, Ecuador, Bosnia, Japan, Indonesia, and the list goes on and on ... We wanted to see the world with our own eyes, experience it first hand. We have been each other's travel companions over many thousands of kilometres. It is a wonderful world out there and Ness would tell you to go out there and see it for yourself.

Some of Ness's other big passions, besides travel, were music and gardening. We both took up playing the clarinet and spent many happy evenings in Jan's music room, and in 2018 we joined Bristo Community Concert Band (BCCB), a wonderful troupe of talented musicians and close friends, in 2018. In typical Ness style, putting her mind to something and getting on with it, she then decided to learn the bassoon - as there was already an army of clarinet players in the band :-) - and in no time mastered this quirky instrument, making it her own.

The garden has been the other big source of fulfilment, for both of us. Ness has transformed our garden into a haven, full of colour and life, birds, bees. A gardener's garden, and with help from Becky and Justin this will be a place where Ness will continue to live on - there's even a beautiful sign painted by Becky that says "Ness's garden" just in case I forget! :-)

Our journey with cancer started in 2018, when Ness had to go for an emergency operation after we had come back from the last of our adventures, an amazing trip through Iran, a country with some of the friendliest people we have met anywhere in the world (and some of the tastiest food - fesenjan chicken went straight to the list of Ness's fave foods!)

Over the subsequent five years we simply lived our lives as normal and Ness never let the cancer become a thing that defined her. Ness dealt with the treatments and the side effects, with the mind games that cancer plays on you, with the many appointments. We have nothing but praise for the fantastic doctors, nurses and NHS staff, and all at Maggie's (*), who helped us throughout these years. We were able to go on an incredible music course in Raasay in April 2022, Ness playing bassoon and Stefan on bass clarinet - a highlight in our musical journeys! And as late as September 2022, we even managed to fit in another trip, one that had been on our list for a long time, and toured the west coast of Ireland, following the stunning Wild Atlantic Way for two weeks. Seeing the world first hand and sticking another pin in our travel map.

At times over the past five years it felt as if the cancer had been nothing but a bad dream and sometimes we totally forgot about it. Even as late as March 2023 we were still living as normal, at home, pottering in the garden, snuggling up in front of a film, seeing friends and family whose visits were so good especially during these recent months, although by now we knew the prognosis had changed and we had run out of treatment options, and it became a matter of managing "quality of life". Finally towards the end of April the cancer took over but even then we had some fab times. On 29th April, members of BCCB had come out to play especially for Ness, performing outside her hospital room (in the cold and rain!) and afterwards we met in the hospital reception. Ness put the cancer in its place for a short while longer and was determined that we should celebrate our silver wedding anniversary on 3rd May (actually our 35th anniversary together as we had been together since first meeting at uni back in 1988 - it was love at first sight!) and we had a wonderful celebration - there's a picture of us in the gallery and you'll also find it on our Facebook pages. Truly special.

And then it was almost time for us to say goodbye to each other. I spent the last nights together with Ness in her comfortable, airy, bright room at the excellent ward 1 of the East Lothian Community Hospital. Ness passed away peacefully in her sleep at eight o'clock in the morning on Thursday 11th May, with me holding her hand, and bird song heard outside and nothing else. I said afterwards that it was as if Ness had planned it - Ness did like making sure that things were well organised!

Ness now lives on in our memories. I hope you will share some of your favourite memories, stories, pictures, either on this tribute page or if you prefer to do so privately.

To Ness, with all my love, forever,

Stefan

XXX

*: This tribute page includes a link to make a donation to Maggie's. Maggie's is a charity that provides cancer support and over the past five years Ness, and I, have often relied on their help to "put us together again". Maybe we had received some bad, or even just ambiguous, news following the latest blood tests, or just feeling so tired and exhausted from the whole cancer thing. Ali, Fiona, Andy, and all at Maggie's, provided the comforting hugs, the space in which to have bloody good cry, and helped us to pick ourselves up again and head home, usually with plans to make ourselves something tasty for tea and pick a good film to snuggle up in front of. Oh, did I mention the never-ending supply of custard creams?! ;-) Ness was keen to support Maggie's, so if you would like to do "something" then a donation in Ness's name to Maggie's would be fantastic.