My daughter-in-law, Natalie Thomas, who has died suddenly of cancer aged 42, touched the lives of many. From 2004 until 2011, she was a personal adviser with Connexions in Manchester, providing guidance to harder-to-reach young people in a very disadvantaged area, on issues including homelessness, teenage pregnancy, mental health issues, substance misuse and offending behaviour.
Born and brought up in Halifax, West Yorkshire, Natalie was the youngest of three children of Byron Sykes, an HGV driver, and his wife, Sandra (nee Lewis, now Littlewood). She graduated from Southampton University with a degree in media with cultural studies. Natalie was very much a people person and after different jobs and taking time out to travel, she joined Connexions in Manchester, where she met Huw, my youngest son.
Natalie and Huw married in 2009, in a service conducted by Huw’s father, David, rector at St Matthew’s, Stretford; they were an outgoing, open-hearted couple, caring greatly about those less fortunate than themselves – they volunteered with one of the soup kitchens in the city centre, for example. They loved travel and walking in the countryside, and Natalie had a real gift for discovering interesting and unusual places – a little upstairs theatre in a pub in Salford, an art exhibition in Liverpool, a quirky B&B in Whitby, and so on.
Natalie and Huw left Manchester in 2011, spending the summer on Iona in the Hebrides, before moving to Birmingham, where Huw began training to be an Anglican priest. Billy, their treasured son, was born the following January; Natalie was a loving, fun and nurturing mother to him. As a family, they formed lasting friendships through their NCT group and in college.
They moved to Salford in 2013, when Huw started his curacy, and Natalie resumed her career, working in support of young carers through Salford Carers Centre. Last year, she took up a post with Home Start and they moved again, to Flixton, quickly building up a new network of friendships within the church and school.
There was only two weeks between Natalie’s diagnosis with inoperable liver cancer and her death. Despite the suddenness, she told Huw which hymns she would like at her funeral and her final wish was that Billy should be able to wear his football kit to the service.
She is survived by Huw and Billy, and by her parents and step-parents, and brothers, Lee and David.
