When we Steedmans arrived in Prince George in the middle of winter back in 1980, we knew no one, and were suffering from culture shock and climate shock after years in Australia. The first people we got to know were the Horths.

The door to their house on McBride Crescent was always open, and Fern was always home. She would be cooking away in the kitchen or reading in the armchair, and would always welcome strays like us with her big gentle smile.

We will never forget her kindness and her hospitality. And Jane and Gerry will never forget spending their wedding night with her, talking late into the night after all the other guests had gone to bed. She was a loving, caring, intelligent, knowledgable woman, and we will miss her a lot.

She always phoned us on the anniversary of John's death, and on Joss's birthday as her birthday was a few days later.

She was someone you could talk to, and that is a rare and wonderful thing.