Under a cold and overcast winter sky teenage schoolgirls sobbed and heartbroken family members choked back tears as they said their final goodbyes to Jill and Kirstie Foster.
As the low winter sun tried to break through the clouds, the small Shropshire village of Maesbrook came to a silent standstill, with mourners paying their respects and watching sadly as the coffins carrying Mrs Foster and her 15-year-old daughter made their way to the joint funeral service at the tiny St John’s Church.
Today was time for sombre reflection, with many of the mourners still bewildered and numb at what could have driven anyone to carry out such a cruel act.
Among the mourners were many of Kirstie’s friends from Ellesmere College who had interrupted their Christmas holidays and made the sad journey back to Shropshire from their homes across the country for the most painful of reasons.
Having already been left reeling from the shock of their friend’s death and already having attended an emotional memorial service dedicated to young Kirstie at their school in the summer, the teenagers somehow found the strength and dignity to say one final farewell to the horse-loving youngster.
Clutching each other for comfort, pain was etched on their faces as they paid tribute under the glair of the media spotlight.
Single red roses carried by mourners provided the only bright colour at today’s sombre proceedings.
Such were the numbers who had come to pay their respects that some mourners had to stand outside in the churchyard as they could not be accommodated within the small church itself.
They listened in silence to the funeral service on a PA system in the churchyard set up especially for the occasion. Also among the mourners were friends Kirstie and her mother had made within the equestrian world – a world far removed from the horror and devastation caused by the terrible events in August.
Other mourners included neighbours from Maesbrook who knew the Fosters as a family who enjoyed an idyllic Shropshire country life in their rural property and knew Christopher Foster as a businessman who enjoyed the trappings of a luxury lifestyle.
Today’s service was conducted at a church less than a mile from what remains of that rural property – most of which was destroyed by the devastating inferno started by Christopher Foster who not only killed himself but took the lives of a loving mother and an innocent daughter.
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