The speech
Family and friends of Peggy,
Peggy's door was always open. There was always a tin of shortbread. And there was always that sentence of hers: ‘It'll be all right, love. It'll be all right.’
I'm Emma, Peggy's eldest granddaughter. Every Wednesday after school, that open door was mine. So today I'd like to tell you about the woman behind it.
I know that everyone here has their own Peggy. The one who nursed you, the one who fed you shortbread, the one who told you it would be all right. This is mine.
Peggy was patient, and she was practical. Those were her two great gifts, and she used them on all of us. Patient enough to wait for anything. Practical enough to do something useful while she waited.
Her hands always smelled of bread dough and hand cream. If I close my eyes, that's the first thing I remember.
Peggy grew up on a farm in Norfolk. She worked as a nurse for thirty-five years. Thirty-five years of looking after people who needed it. I'm not sure she ever really stopped. She simply carried on looking after us. She married Ron in [year Peggy and Ron married], and they were together until Ron died in 2011. They raised four children, and in time there were twelve grandchildren, which is why this room is so full today. And every summer, without fail, there was Cornwall.
When I was eight, Peggy taught me to bake bread. I remember the kneading, and the waiting, and her voice: ‘Bread doesn't like to be rushed, and neither do I.’
That was Peggy. She never rushed anyone, and she never let anyone rush her. She gave everything the time it needed. Bread. Children. Grandchildren. Me, on Wednesday afternoons. I didn't know then how rare that is. I know now.
But patience is not the same as caution. When Peggy was eighty, on an October day in Cornwall, she decided she was going for a swim. In the sea. In October. The rest of the family stood on the beach in our coats and watched. People had tried for years to tell Peggy what she couldn't do. She went swimming anyway.
So that is what she taught me. Patience with bread, and with people. And no patience at all with being told what you can't do. I have tried to live by both. I'm better at the second.
I think of her tin of shortbread, and I understand now that it wasn't really about the shortbread. It was about making sure that anyone who came through her door had a reason to sit down and stay a while.
Thank you all for being here today to say goodbye to Peggy. Seeing so many of you here tells me how many doors she held open.
Peggy, your door was always open. For me, every Wednesday, and for so many of us, for so many years. We'll keep your tin, and we'll keep filling it. Now we have to let you go. And so I'll give you back your own words, the ones you gave me more times than I can count.
It'll be all right, love. It'll be all right.
Why this speech works
- Calm and concrete: short sentences, room for pauses, no exclamation marks and no big words.
- A saying as the frame: Peggy's own sentence opens the eulogy and closes it, given back to her in the farewell.
- Senses, not adjectives: the shortbread tin and the smell of bread dough and hand cream bring her into the room.
- One gentle smile: the October swim at eighty. Emma chose “a smile here and there”, and that's all the humour there is.
- Nothing made up: Emma didn't know the year Peggy and Ron married. Instead of guessing, the speech leaves a gap in square brackets for her to fill in.
- Wishes respected: the family didn't want her illness or her last months mentioned. Neither appears, and the speech doesn't hint at them.
Last updated: 26 September 2026