When I moved down to London in the spring of 1996, the only connection that Clare and I had was that she was my cousin Nay's oldest friend and that we were both camping out at my Uncle's home in St Margarets whilst we found our feet.

Having met very briefly before, and before the days of mobile phones and social media, Clare was at Euston station to meet me off the train from Manchester on a Friday night and help me back to Richmond with my bag. She took me under her wing and offered a friendship that lasted over twenty years and was one of the most important of my life. Her sense of fun, kindness, outrageousness and generosity of spirit made for the best of times.. our summer of '96 (Euro '96, nights at The Chandos off Trafalgar Square, BBQ's in the garden filled with her friends that she had made mine too) and the two years that followed in our flat share in Wandsworth were filled with laughter, no end of madness, at lot of high volume Mamas and Papas and just great times. The two black goldfish that we kept in the bathroom and called Pete and Ron came to an unfortunate end after a particularly raucous night out, but we married Pete and Ron anyway, and I loved the times the four of us spent together (even that time that we made you & Ron help us lug our baby daughter and all her paraphernalia across Paris on the Metro.. there are surely easier ways to get to the South of France..?).

Clare, I shall miss your support, conversation and counsel, your outrageous laugh and your inherent sense of the good in others. I love you mate, Josie x