Barker, Raffaella

My extraordinary mother, the writer Elspeth Barker, died in April 2022. She left this life on a balmy, sunny afternoon, just as if she was wandering down through her garden to the river with her dogs, pausing to stare at primroses and notice shades of green brightening on the canopied branches of her beloved beech tree. Her last days had been beatific in some ways as we, her five children, gathered around her and talked to her about some of her favourite things – picnics, beech trees, bluebells, jackdaws, poems, books. We read her Moorland Mousie, which had been a treasured book of her childhood, and felt the incredible privilege of walking beside her on her last journey.