Wobbling just a little as his mother’s coffin was lifted on to his shoulder, 14-year-old Hugo Poland Bowen began the slow, painful walk into church, demonstrating the same fierce courage Dame Deborah James had shown during years of illness with bowel cancer.
That walk into church, the weight of his mother’s wicker coffin bearing down on his shoulder, will have been the longest, most surreal of Hugo’s life.
But Hugo, his sister Eloise, 12, and their father Sebastien bravely carried out Dame Deborah’s final wishes and under dazzling sunshine that reflected the most vibrant of women.
