Tribute to Jayne 

Below is the tribute to Jayne, written by the McPhillimy family, that was read at the funeral:

Introduction 

Jayne was born on the 29 August 1961 in Plymouth – the first born child to Donald and Mary, and a few years later, older sister to Chris.

Part 1 - read by Donald, Jayne's Dad

Jayne grew up in Titchfield near Southampton and her childhood was full of love and laughter. She often talked of her mum’s wonderful home cooking and she looked forward to exciting presents I would bring back from my trips with the Navy. We had two golden retrievers called Wendy and Tinker – named after Peter Pan characters. Lots of Jayne’s time was spent outdoors, including walking in the New Forest or on the Beach, and many an evening was spent playing board games with lots of laughter.  

Jayne always loved music and was a very talented singer. As a young child, Mary Poppins was her favourite film and one of her prized possessions was a vinyl with the music from the film on. She used to think that little people were inside the vinyl machine singing, and would peep under the lid of the vinyl player to try and catch them. Her love of Mary Poppins lasted her whole life.

Our family holidays were often camping trips to Wales where we would spend time on the beach. Jayne had a fond memory of her and Chris betting their mum that she wouldn’t dance to a country and western tune outside the tent in front of everyone – she did, and they were mortified!

Jayne went to college in Worcester where she studied to be a teacher, specialising in Art and Textiles. She had a real gift in this area – one that was shared with her mum, and later with her daughter-in-law Kiki. It was a talent that led to her making many beautiful gifts for people over the years, and her own wedding dress.

At one point Jayne ended up teaching in a special needs school where she really thrived, despite its unpredictability. She told a story of a child called Trevor, who during a cooking lesson decided that he was a motorbike and ran round the classroom knocking all the bowls on the floor. She faced this challenge – and many others in her life – with good humour.

Part 2 - read by Chris, Jayne's husband 

It was working as a teacher in Borehamwood that Jayne and I met. When she joined the school, the head teacher asked me to look after her. So I did.

When we moved in together we got a tiny but vicious ginger cat called Tigger who regularly brought home birds and mice, but once brought an adder, and once a live weasel!  

Our first child – Katie – was born in 1987, and James followed 1991.

From those happy days  its great to see that our wonderful friend Kim is here Amongst other things Kim managed to sneak into the hospital for an unscheduled first visit to see baby Katie! Jayne and Kims’ paths continued to cross over the years with a particular highlight being Kim and Joany’s wedding – Jayne often regaled people with the tale of  Tony’s declaration of intent after his first meeting with Kim. Jayne was so happy for them.

Jayne was always the most incredibly kind, patient and loving wife and mother  Just like in her own childhood, lots of family time was spent playing games, laughing and being silly – and Jayne wasn’t opposed to cheating occasionally, but only when she knew she would get caught and it would make everyone laugh. She was often just as excited as the kids for events like birthdays, holidays and especially Christmas.

In 1994 we moved to Leeds. Tigger the cat was adopted by a neighbour Mandy, Mandy and Tigger was rebranded Norman and they both  retired to Devon – everyone in Hertfordshire breathed a huge sigh of relief ( particularly Richard ).

Many years later, Jayne adopted Harry cat from a colleague. Harry was the opposite to Tigger – he was a huge ball of fluff who liked nothing more than sleeping in front of the fire, poking his head in the fridge every time it was opened, and sitting on people’s knees. He brought our whole family lots of joy!

We had lots of wonderful family holidays together. Going to Florida and visiting Disney land was a particular highlight, and James and Katie will never forget the day when they were allowed to have ice cream for breakfast.

We travelled to Thailand at Richard and Ann Marie's invitation . Our visit  included a fun and memorable trip on the overnight train from Bankok to Chaing Mia and staying in some jungle cabins that Angelina Jolie had once stayed in, and witnessing a great recreation of the monty python fish slapping dance.

When Katie and James were a bit older, we had a few trips to the Algarve in Portugal and also to Spain In Portugal  we found a real favourite spot to stay, and enjoyed the time on the beach, great food and plenty of Sangria – often with other family and friends invited along too. Much photographic evidence provided by Bumps exists for these holidays. It was on one of these lovely holidays that Jayne and her accomplice Susan persuaded Katie and Philly ‘that dos chipos por favor’ was the way to order two plates of chips whilst abroad.       

It was her holiday home in Spain that was to bring Jayne tremendous joy. Sun Sea , Sangria and lots of golf. Eddie my sister proved to be her main partner in crime and Jayne treasured the photo of the two of them in their Halloween Devils horns outside our local the wee rock café…. And of course our lovely friends Christine John and Jacko (our late adopted one).

It wasn’t just the holidays that were a special time – Jayne was always keen for quality time with her family. There were countless walks on the Chevin, lunches and coffees together, and many cycling trips with Judith and the Wheelie Lovely Cycling Ladies.

With regards to her working life ,after the move to Leeds Jayne carried on teaching for a while, but then decided it was time for a change, and she started working on the phones at Greenflag. She was delighted to find that she could thrive in a totally different environment, and before long she was a team leader. Her career really took off from there – she was promoted many times until eventually landing in a senior role in Learning and Development for Direct Line.

Her work often brought her to London, where she and Katie had many lovely nights out to dinner together. She would sometimes even join Katie’s colleagues and friends for a few glasses of wine, and was affectionately known by many as “MumPhillimy”.

Jayne had a real passion for her job and got so much joy out of helping others to develop – and it was that passion that lead her to set up her own business, Jem Associates, in 2013, where she could really focus on Coaching and Mentoring. Her business took off incredibly and before long she had contracts with some well know organisations  including English Heritage, the Victoria and Albert Museum and, of course, Marie's business …Consilia Legal.

Many of the people who worked with Jayne have talked about how she changed their life.

Part 3 - read by James, Jayne's son 

In recent years with me and Katie having left the nest, Mum and Dad decided they wanted to live closer to the lovely bars, shops, and restaurants in Horsforth, not to mention friends. After viewing many sensible properties they finally settled on mum’s dream home -  a Yorkshire Stone cottage at the top of Tinshill Road, up a massive hill and further away from Town Street than their previous home. Never the less, living there made Mum exceptionally happy.

They also bought their apartment out in Spain and had many lovely holidays there. It’s a testament to how loved Mum and Dad are that half of Horsforth seems to have followed them out to Villa Martin for holidays or to buy their own places there.

Mum and Dad also found time to adventure together and explore the world more – they visited New York and went on some fabulous cruises. Mum also took up golf and found she had a talent for that too – at one prize giving she almost entirely cleared up the prize table!

Mum became mother-in-law to Kiki and to Rob in the last few years, and made them feel incredibly welcome as members of the family. Mum was always excited for an opportunity to refer to Kiki as her daughter, even before Kiki and I were married. Katie has a funny memory of Mum doing a 10 day countdown in the run up to meeting Rob for the first time.

In 2021 Mum became a Grandma to Eliza. When she found out Eliza was on the way, she was so excited she shrieked and immediately went to get her knitting out! Eliza’s life will be full of influence from her Granny Daisy – she passed on many words of wisdom on raising children to Katie and Rob, and even kitted out Eliza’s nursery with toys and her own paintings and knitting.

Throughout the process of arranging this tribute to Jayne, we have often spoken of the fact we are not religious. While we might not believe in any great afterlife, or structured religion. We are believers in science and logic. Science would tell us that mum was made up of energy and matter, neither of which can be destroyed, or created, it can only be changed. 

In this way we can consider that Jayne’s energy is dispersed into the world around us, it's in the synapses that form our memories of her, and will contribute to a great many things in all of our futures.

Ending 
Jayne was so loved by so many friends and family – the memory page that Jayne’s family have set up has already been inundated with comments and donations from people from every area of her life.

She has been taken far too soon – but today we want to celebrate her life. She was an incredibly strong, resilient and positive person, and her family will use the strength she gave us to get us through.

We would like to end on a quote that was one of Jayne’s favourites, by Maya Angelou: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” We know that the way Jayne made people feel will never be forgotten. 

Harry Potter reading

The following was read by Katie at the funeral:

I think it’s quite well known that I am a big Harry Potter fan – and while mum may not have been as much of a mega fan as me, we certainly enjoyed many times watching the films together. The books deal with grief and loss in a way that I have always felt is very meaningful, and so I wanted to leave us with a few words of wisdom from some of my favourite characters.
 
Firstly, Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster, tells Harry: 
“Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves it’s own mark. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.”
 
In a later story, Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black, tells him:
“The ones who love us never really leave us, you can always find them in here.”
 
And finally, back to Albus Dumbledore for a quote that we all need to remember as we leave here today:  
“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”