This is so difficult to know where to start and to come to terms with, as there’s so much history with my Brother’s family…..so many adventures, so  start at the beginning I guess. Forgive me if I ramble, but the memory’s a bit shaky going back 46+ years. The cloud of sadness hangs heavily, but I’ll do my best.
In the early ‘70’s, ’74 I think, my dear Brother, then a budding young solicitor had met Posy and my recollections are of a sprightly slender and beautifully spoken girl, buzzing around in a mini-van, as I think she looked after the flowers at Powderham Castle for the Earl of Devon . There was quite a bit of excitement about this pairing at the time and also what clinched the relationship. I seem to remember, they were hill walking either in The Lakes, or Scotland, where high up on a precarious ridge, Posy apparently slipped on wet grass and started sliding towards a cliff edge. Richard darted after her, managed to grab her and wedge himself by a rock, which prevented what could have been a very serious, possibly catastrophic fall. That I seem to think was the catalyst which ensured their future together and the official engagement was announced.
 
I remember how pleased Ma & Pa were at this news and although Pa was no longer with us when they married in October ’75?, he at least knew they were to be together. At Richard’s ‘stag night’, we were accompanied by Posy’s father  - the redoubtable monocle wearing Dunstan Montague-Scott; a hilariously funny and good humoured man, who had us all in stitches the night before the wedding. Married in the Lady Chapel of Exeter Cathedral, with Ashley Daley as best man, I remember Chris Kempton whisking them away to the reception in a BMW 3 litre coupe, but I can’t remember a great deal about the reception itself (no idea why?). A year later, they bought this odd little once tied cottage: West Dunster; the most inaccessible place at the time, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘spendid isolation’! No mains water I think and I’m not sure the power supply was up to much either, but the transformation(s) that have taken place over the years have made West Dunster the happy family home it has been to date:  2 house extensions to cope with the growing numbers, a lake where once was a steep valley, a boat house for exciting nights in ‘the wild’, a new barn, horse boxes and now another dwelling next door. As the children grew, I seem to recall a road trip by Long wheelbase LandRover all the way to Czechoslovakia; just one of many adventures. And with my dear brother at her side, Posy introduced him to her beloved Africa. Again, many trips out there, filled with adventure became an annual sabbatical for them both and many stories came back with them. An amazing life and blessed with three brilliant, welcoming and practical offspring, with their equally brilliant spouses,  their’s has been a most successful and enviable partnership. Posy’s passing will leave a huge hole in all our lives, such was her loving, caring and welcoming personality. We will all miss her dreadfully, but she leaves a perfect legacy.