Celebrating the life of Lucia Devine – Friday 22nd April 2016

A memorial event was staged on Friday to celebrate the life of Lucia Devine (afPE member).

John I’Anson, afPE London Region and member of the Board has written a short summary of the evening:

Everyone went to the Circus, Stratford Circus, on Friday evening. “Oh what a night.” afPE members were there in numbers but so were lots of others who had the joy of knowing Lucia. An apt setting, her life was a wonderful circus, so many facets, which encompassed so much and shone on and excited so many people impacting on much that we all hold dear in the world of physical education, dance and sport.

It was a wet evening and I cried in the theatre as did others as we did when Lucia was lost to us. Some of us still do. But we laughed as well tonight. The beauty, joy, excitement, of the evening was revealed in the tributes from many who took us on a narrative of her life both personal and social. Through childhood, Olympic desire, education, teaching, training, advising, inspecting, school governance and the opening ceremony we witnessed a great life.  The tributes, singing, dancing and the final wonderful rendition of Ben E King’s “Stand by me” from the Stratford East Singers London Choir drew the tears of love from most in the packed theatre.

How could she have been so humble through all of this but she was and all paid tribute to that? She was a great friend and colleague to many in afPE and this was reflected in our being there raising a glass of prosecco bumping into people we knew and asking “How did you know Lucia?” She knew so many.

Has Lucia once said “has physical education lost its mojo? “challenging us to think deeply as she always did. We celebrated ‘til late the loss of one of our mojo’s.