Tina Needham - Rest in peace

Tina & Rob were locals at a pub I used to run, The Cross Keys in Totternhoe, Bedfordshire. A retired couple, they were fun and good company; he was extrovert and charming, she was polite but with an accurate and relaxed wit. When Rob passed away in the late 90s Tina continued to live life with a sense of adventure.
Over the last couple of years Tina's health suffered and repeated visits to the doctor were dismissed with diagnoses of anaemia. Unfortunately, this 'anaemia' turned out to be cancer and, by the time it was discovered, early this year, it was widespread and terminal.
Very sadly, Tina died this weekend, peacefully, after spending her last few days in a coma.
Although, since moving to Scotland, we saw little of Tina in the last few years, her delightful personality, warmth and wit means that I can picture her and hear her now, as clearly as if she were sitting in front of me (with a glass of Glayva in her hand).
Her keen mind meant that she was fixture at local quizzes; she was our Arts and Sports specialist. She seemed to know every character of every book and there was nothing you could teach her about Arsenal FC and Test Cricket. In fact, my eternal memory of her will be of the time we went to a rather well-to-do charity quiz. It was a bit 'above our station' (not Tina's though) and, with all the other teams sitting expectantly with their solitary bottle of wine on each table, we seemed a little out of place with our half-case of wine and packs of beer. I chose our team's name (to Tina's mock disapproval) and proposed Tina as our captain. As the quiz was about to start the compere asked each captain to stand and give the team's name. After all the usual boring team names - 'Grey matter', 'Selena's Select', 'The Dark Horses' etc - Tina stood, paused, and in her perfectly enunciated, slightly plummy voice, proclaimed "We are the 'Slippery Nipples'.... Only a few embarrassed gasps and titters broke the silence. That moment will always stay with me. No-one else could have said it with greater effect. Of course, the compere seemed somewhat uncomfortable giving the team scores throughout the course of the evening, but had given up being embarrassed once we had gone into the lead - a lead we kept until the end of the quiz when Tina and her Slippery Nipples were applauded as they stepped up to collect their prize.
Tina R.I.P