Carole Franklin (18 Jun 1943 - 17 Jul 2020)

This tribute to my wife Carole, although I know it's impossible to put 57 years of happy memories into words

I first met Carole on Friday the 13th September 1963 at a dance in Grantham and I walked her home that first night, on that walk we talked and talked and we didn't hesitate to arrange to meet the next night and almost every night after that. On our first proper date I picked her up from her job as a telephone operator at the post office where she was to work for the next five years until 1968, and we began to share stories about our childhood, our families and our lives so far.

Carole had a happy childhood in a small rural community living in and around Burton Coggles until she left school and she had a huge extended family who were all very close. She was brought up by her parents Stan and Molly Wainwright and grew up as a big sister to Valerie. Carole was an intelligent person with a thirst for knowledge way beyond what she had achieved on paper at school, having had a long term illness just at the point where she would have been taking her O'levels

Within 9 months of our first meeting and on her 21st Birthday, I proposed and Carole said yes. We were married on 24th September 1966 at Burton Coggles church, the most special day of my life so far, with three more special days following on 2nd December 1968, 27th November 1969 and 23rd February 1973 with the births of our girls, Rachael, Sarah and Charlotte.

We moved to our lifelong home in Barnstone in late 1969 just before the birth of our second daughter and here we have been happy for over fifty years, enjoying bringing up our daughters and watching them grow into women who also brought us five grandsons to love Joshua, Aaron, Calum, Gabriel and Morgan and not forgetting two great son in laws Anthony and Luke.

During all this time Carole had other loves in her life, a love of children and a dedication to match, spending many years running the local playgroup and building it up for the community, nothing was ever too much and she was often to be found making toys and activities and learning about things she could do to improve the learning and playtime years of the young children in the villages of Langar and Barnstone. Carole attended university as a mature student and achieved an early childhood learning qualification

Carole also had a passion for animals, especially dogs and we had two dogs over about 25 years, Bertie (a lively Jack Russell who guarded Carole jealously) and Kez (a sheepdog who was Caroles constant companion) who both ran our household and were as devoted to Carole as she was to them. The same story with both dogs - I was tolerated but Carole was adored

A lover of travel and new experiences, Carole enjoyed holidays to places we would never have dreamed of going. When our daughters were grown and we found ourselves able we were fortunate to take longhaul holidays. She and I travelled to Asia (Thailand and Bali) Africa (the Gambia) and central America (Mexico), the middle east (Israel) and many happy holidays in Europe either as a couple or as a family and even with our grown up daughters and grandchildren.

Carole was always active and she had a number of pastimes which made her happy, classic fm was the soundtrack to her life for many years, whatever she was doing, and she was also an avid reader, one of our other lifelong routines was the daily crossword and a leisurely breakfast together each and every morning. Carole was never happier than when she was spending time in her own garden which was a labour of love over decades.

We also were very much a part of village life and enjoyed short breaks with good friends from Barnstone and Langar - bus trips all over the UK, always great fun, and nights out on every special village occasion.

Sadly, Carole's health began to deteriorate slowly over a period of time none of us can really pinpoint, but it became more noticeable from the summer of 2019 onwards, we were unprepared and shocked when the diagnosis of motor neurone disease was confirmed in December 2019. Carole never showed any self pity and seemed to accept changes as they came, whilst trying with great resolve to keep her independence, even when she lost her voice and began to need tube feeding to sustain her.

Carole died peacefully with her loved ones around her and took with her the courage of a lioness and my undying love.