© PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo Janey Godley laid to rest
Funeral service after hundreds take to the streets to pay tribute
Janey Godley's funeral has taken place at St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow, with her daughter Ashley Storrie delivering the eulogy.
She told mourners: 'My mummy was a comedian. That was her thing. First and foremost.
'She tried acting. She hated it. She was a terrible singer. She could nae knit. She tried it, and there are pictures of Liam Neeson wearing a hideous scarf to prove it.
'But what she was, was a comedian. So for one last time, can you please put your hands together for Mammy.'
The service was led by the Provost of St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow, the Very Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, who began by praising the 'love and joy' the comedian brought into the world.
Hymns led by the cathedral choir include Make Me a Channel of Your Peace and Hail, Queen of Heav’n, the Ocean Star, while Billy Holiday’s God Bless the Child was offered as music for reflection.
A fuller report about the ceremony will follow later.
It came after hundreds of people lined the streets of Edinburgh yesterday to pay their final respects, pictured above.
Her hearse drove through the centre of the city that Storrie described as Godley's ‘beloved festival home’ – and written on its side was ‘Frank, get the door’, her catchphrase from the viral videos she made during the pandemic, revoicing Nicola Sturgeon's Covid briefings.
Several mourners had signs and T-shirts bearing the phrase, while one woman recreated the comedian's most memorial viral moment: holding the same ‘Trump is a cunt’ message that the comedian took the US President’s Scottish golf course in Turnberry.
Crowds applaud the coffin throughout its slow journey across the city, as the strains of Amazing Grace rang out.
Comforted by friends, a distraught Storriewalked with the cortege as it travelled along the Royal Mile and Lawnmarket with a ‘pause for reflection’ at St Giles' Cathedral where a minute’s silence was observed, before a choir sang a moving a cappella version of Elbow’s One Day Like This
Here is footage of the procession:
When her mum’s ‘last tour’ of Edinburgh and Glasgow was announced, Storrie said: ‘For the past few years of Ma's life, it was important to her that she shared her journey with everyone, to offer support for others on the same path and to highlight the symptoms of ovarian cancer - all of course in her very singular Janey style, with laughter and candour.
‘So many of you who have travelled with us on this journey wish to bid her a final farewell, so here's the details of my mum's final tour, in the two cities she loved with all her heart.’
Godley died on November 2 at the age of 63 in the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow, where she was receiving palliative care for terminal cancer.
Published: 30 Nov 2024
