Mourners licked ice creams in Southend yesterday morning in an unusual funeral tribute organised by the son of Eva Clark, who died earlier this month.
Farewell - son Dave Clark, left, with other mourners, outside the restaurant Picture: ANNA LUKALA
Dave Clark, 51, of Hogarth Drive, Shoebury, reckons he made more than 1,000 trips to the seafront for an ice cream, with his mother, 81.
Crippling arthritis had forced the former Hilton Road, Canvey, resident into a home in Lambeth Road, Southend.
But for more than six years, Dave picked her up from the home and stopped outside what for the past 18 months has been Van Looys' Restaurant, in Western Esplanade, to buy his mum her treat.
However, the trips she looked forward to two or three times a week ended suddenly on June 6, the sixtieth anniversary of D-Day.
The funeral invitation read: "On Sunday, when Eva died just after lunch, she would have been going out to the seafront and we would have had to stop for an ice cream. Unfortunately that was not to be.
"I thought it would be nice to bring Eva along the seafront and stop for one last cornet."
At the restaurant, a bouquet of flowers shaped like an ice cream cornet awaited the hearse.
As friends and family gathered on the seafront, Eva's youngest brother, Les Button, 73, was not surprised by the unusual tribute.
He said: "I remember when she lived in Folkstone and she left the kids on the sand while we had a knickerbocker glory. Even when she was a young mum, she would sneak off for an ice cream."
Published Friday June 18, 2004
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