Thursday 2nd October: Stephen phoned me from Prague to let me know that 'Lola' had died about 3.00pm - some 40 mins after she passed away....
He asked me to pop into 323 in Summertown to check things were OK and being dealt with etc.
I was happy to do so and yet surprised to find her still laid out in the ubiquitous & detested downstairs bed. I don't know why. I should have expected that really.

However it was good to be able to pay my respects and to see her so soon after she parted from this life. She looked at peace and a strange calm was in the room, indeed throughout the entire house. David, her last companion, asked me if he could read a poem there & then and in her presence and I of course agreed.
It was really rather moving to see her in repose and all the stresses and strains, the pain and troubles of the world gone from her face. I noticed a little ring upon her finger, her hand now relaxed and free from fretting. It felt somehow right for someone to read something at that moment. She, who I knew to be so interested in culture, art, film and always with a take on life guaranteed to challenge us and to give her unique take on the world around her and as she saw it.
I shall miss her.
Despite all the frustrations and challenges she presented, not least to her son Stephen, me and my wife Dawn saw many happy moments too in our time. She and Stephen gave us a Spanish Broom for our garden when we moved into this house........

I always enjoyed her visits to the Museum of Modern Art here in Oxford when I was working there, however challenging they might have been. She always made me think, reflect, get cross and at times laugh like a drain! She ran the University Film Society when it switched to the Museum that involved her in the film programme being run there with the Deputy Director, Marco Livingstone [authority on David Hockney and Pop Art and a dear friend who sadly I have lost touch with] may have been lost in their archives. He endured the wrath of her tongue also if a film chosen for the MOMA film programme did not suite her. They fell out and argued and we all forgave each other and laughed and moved on.

The happiest time I think we spent together was at the Playhouse Theatre in Oxford in 2001 when Catalina, her granddaughter, was in a performance of Peter Nichols' classic 'Day in The Death of Joe Egg' with Clive Owen & the lovely Victoria Hamilton and - we all went to the first performance and of course she was wonderful [accuse me of bias if you will but I am right in that that young woman is going places, has an emotional maturity beyond her years and is as a bright as a button and will be a light in the firmament of all who she chooses to work with or get to know]
We all enjoyed the performance and Lola seemed proud and happy to be with Stephen and Anne, Catalina, Dawn and myself.

That was a long time ago now and in later years as she slowly became bed ridden the fear of being left alone and the illness made her cruel and so angry at times so that I really could hardly bear to hear her vitriol especially when it was aimed at Stephen and his family. I said so, hopefully gently but assertively, on a couple of occasions and earlier this year tried again and asked her not to say anything so hurtful in my presence when it was clear I cared so much for her son. Indeed I am painfully aware that it was not only her nearest and dearest she singled out for this treatment. Any one of us could become the object of her anger and negative attentions, from the wonderful genius photographer Paddy Summerfield who lives but a few doors away to Helen Ganly the artist........to well, almost anyone in her circle or who crossed her path. Thusly I became, if temporarily, persona non grata for a while, lumped with the 'fascists', the grouping we were all assigned to if we did not comply, demur, concur or say the right thing at the right time.



Somehow of late I became accepted back into the house and the last times I saw her she rambled on to me about life, Spain, crows, Franco, girlhood at 6 years old in Catalunia, WC Fields, Salvador Dali, Truffaut, Pablo Casals, Berkeley, neighbours, rats, conspiracy theories, cats, the demise of Great Britain, asylum seekers, her carers being 'fascists' etc etc........but she never failingly forgot to ask after my children and my wife Dawn, especially as Lola knew that Dawn had her own battles with breast cancer.

I am glad I was able to say my 'cheerios'. As I say, I shall miss her.