Di was one of the main reasons why I chose to make music my profession.

The deciding moment came when I was twelve years old, singing in the school choir. Diane and Paul Gray were singing the soprano and tenor solos in Mozart’s Coronation Mass, which contains a section that knocked me off my feet. I was precocious enough to go up to the soloist and tell her so. How touching it was to hear that same Agnus Dei so beautifully sung and accompanied at her funeral.

Four years later I used to play the piano for Di and Paul as they had now become. We bashed through just about anything we could lay our hands on. I was not only cultivating a deep love for music but I was learning the basic skills of the opera repetiteur, which was to become my introduction to the conducting business.

We lost contact for a few years but, when we got back in touch again, it was as if nothing had changed. Di organised weekend sessions in Brussels so that I could teach and I was even invited to come and conduct Ruddigore. Uccle became a halte obligatoire on our route from Germany to England, always ending with Dame Blanche ice cream and some music to help it down.

I spent some twenty years as an opera conductor, the last of these as music director in Brno where Paul came with an EU diplomatic passport to plant a tree, Di accompanying him nobly. The next twenty years I spent as music director of the University of Regensburg where Paul was invited to give a guest lecture to the Law Faculty. At question time the Professor of European Law at our university began with, “Do you not think that………?” and seemingly was never going to end. While he was still engaged in what was becoming a second lecture, Di turned to us and said (in a rather too loud stage whisper) “Well, you know what I’d say to this, don’t you? I’d say, ‘Yes!’” This was so typical of her wit, always ready to attack pomposity, but never cruel. She had a boundless affection for humanity which she communicated to everybody she met.

We heard so much about this at the funeral and what an amazing and truly inspiring funeral it was, from Olly’s self-composed threnody at the beginning to his Linden Lea at the grave and dominated by Charlotte’s and Daz’s Order of Service and coffin decoration. What a family, what creativity, what love and what energy! I suppose I must have been the Dorset farmer’s son Olly referred to in his tribute. Yes, I was inspired at that concert in St- Mary’s Church Dorchester all those years ago. Of course that was not to be the only moment of inspiration in my life but everybody has to start somewhere. Once you have learnt to spot the Muse (you can call her the Holy Spirit if you prefer) you will start finding her everywhere. That first moment, however, is not to be underestimated.

I’d like to close with the last verse of William Barnes’ dialect poem "My Orcha'ad in Lindèn Lea", which Vaughan Williams set so touchingly and which Olly played at her graveside. The printed music of this appears above her heart in the coffin design. May she rest in peace.

Thank you, Di, for all that love and all that energy. It is still rebounding in the world and will never stop doing so, as long as the people who were inspired by Diane Gray continue to inspire others.

"Let other vo'k meäke money vaster In the aïr o' dark-room'd towns,

I don't dread a peevish meäster; Though noo man do heed my frowns,

I be free to goo abrade Or teäke ageän my hwomeward road

To where, vor me, the apple tree Do leän down low in Lindèn Lea."