Mourners follow coffin carried by horse and carriage - Hampshire

From This Is Hampshire

SHE was carried by horse and carriage to her final resting place, before family and friends threw red carnations on her grave.

Around 100 mourners followed Gypsy Amy Cole’s coffin from St Michael’s Church, in North Waltham, to Worting Road Cemetery, where she was laid to rest.

The 89-year-old, who had more than 100 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, grew up as a Gypsy, travelling around Hampshire in a traditional Romany wagon pulled by a Shire horse.

But the mother-of-six and her late husband Lushy Smith decided to give up their roaming lifestyle when their youngest daughters were born.

Maurice Smith, 65, one of her two sons, said: “We very much enjoyed travelling around. We were always free and it was a life that the Gypsies loved. But it got harder and harder to stop anywhere – we kept getting moved on. When my sisters were born, my parents decided the girls needed an education because life by then started changing.”

The family moved into a house, but after her husband died of a heart attack in 1967, Amy partly reverted back to her old lifestyle and moved into a mobile home in Attwood Close, Basingstoke, where she stayed with her partner Hughie Murphy, until she died on April 8.

During her travelling days, Amy sold rag and bone from a horse and cart to make a living. She was bought up by her brothers and sisters after her parents died when she was very young.

Mr Smith said: “She’s always been a Gypsy but she hasn’t always lived the Gypsy lifestyle. She loved the freedom of it.

“There were no rules and regulations. They never had anyone to answer to and just made a living.”

At her funeral service, conducted by The Reverend Michael Kenning, music by Engelbert Humperdinck, Westlife and Jim Reeves was played, and a poem read by one of her many grandsons. Mourners then followed her coffin from the church, the slow procession stopping traffic as it travelled to the cemetery.

Mr Smith, a father-of-three, from Bucklebury, said: “It was a beautiful day.

“She was lovely and a good cook and bought up her family well.”