Mateo Castrillon 1993-2012

This week Claire and I went up to London to attend the funeral of my cousin Jane’s son Mateo. Mateo was only 18 when he was killed in a road accident so of course the whole event was very sad. We decided to travel up on the Monday which turned out to be a warm and sunny day in complete contrast to the previous day that was wet and dreary. The outward journey went smoothly but the first section over to Kidderminster was very slow and after an hour we had only done 31 miles. Not good when the whole journey was known to be 170 miles. Once we reached the motorway network (M40 and M25) our average speed substantially improved. We spend some time trying to remember when we had last driven on the northern half of the M25 and decided it must have been when we took Hazel down to Kent from Daventry during the industrial placement year she did as part of her degree. So a long time ago! The Premier Inn was rather soulless but conveniently situated for picking up my brother, my nephew and his wife on Tuesday morning so we could travel in one car to the crematorium. Poor old Stephen had had a horrendous rail journey up from Cornwall thanks to flooding on the line. Our new A to Z proved invaluable and we didn’t get lost once despite our unfamiliarity with east London. The service was by far the best attended of any I have been to and there were probably as many people standing as sitting. The service was entirely secular, very multi-cultural and with some of the proceedings in English and Spanish. The wake was in a nearby pub and we found the venue by the simple expedient of following the crowd. While of course the circumstances that had brought the family together were tragic it was somehow reassuring to see such a good turn-out from "Clan Nicholson". Rest in Peace Mateo.