Words from Steve Ager

(family friend from his teens)

It’s always a big step in any friendship when you meet ‘The Parents’ but trepidation went instantly out the bay window on first meeting Iris and Robert when in my early teens. It took only minutes to realise that Iris ‘was one of us’. We would often stagger back to Church Meadow from the Plough and Harrow after closing time, not have to worry too much about feigning sobriety and at the same time have a stimulating rest of evening to look forward to. Since then I have had the pleasure of attending many family functions (dinner with Iris’s Mother-In-Law where Mother-In-Law refused to speak English and Iris refused to allow me to speak French will be permanently etched in my memory), but it was the conversation with Robert about writing this that made me realise that to be given the luxury of celebrating the growth of the de Ferrer family at such close quarters and to be able to witness Iris’s wonderful spirit, symbolised by those delicious ever present meringues, has been an incredible privilege for which I will always be grateful.